Getting Started With Raspberry Pi: Getting to Know the Inexpensive ARM-Powered Linux Computer

by Shawn Wallace, Matt Richardson, Wolfram Donat

Overview

The Raspberry Pi is a credit card-sized computer that plugs into your TV and a keyboard. It is a capable little computer which can be used in electronics projects, and for many of the things that your desktop PC does, like spreadsheets, word processing, browsing the internet, and playing games. It also plays high-definition video. This book takes you step-by-step through many fun and educational possibilities. Take advantage of several preloaded programming languages. Use the Raspberry Pi with Arduino. Create Internet-connected projects. Play with multimedia. With Raspberry Pi, you can do all of this and more.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781680456998
Publisher:	Make Community, LLC
Publication date:	12/07/2021
Edition description:	4th ed.
Pages:	242
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.51(d)
Age Range:	13 - 17 Years

About the Author

Shawn Wallace is an editor at O'Reilly and lives in Providence, RI. He is also a member of the Fluxama artist collective responsible for new iOS musical instruments such as Noisemusick and Doctor Om. He designed open hardware kits at Modern Device and taught the Fab Academy at the Providence Fab Lab. For years he was the managing director of the AS220 art space and is a cofounder of the SMT Computing Society.

Matt Richardson is a San Francisco-based creative technologist and contributing editor to Make: Magazine. He's the owner of Awesome Button Studios, a consultancy focused on blending creativity and technology. After graduating with a Master's from New York University's Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP) in 2013, he continued his work there as a resident research fellow. Matt is the co-author of Getting Started with Raspberry Pi and the author of Getting Started with BeagleBone and Getting Started with Intel Galileo.

Wolfram Donat is a computer engineer who specializes in interfacing software and technology with real-world devices. He's especially adept at bringing projects from vague requirements and napkin sketches to fruition and is also a big fan of teaching people to use easily-available tech to enhance their lives.

Table of Contents

What They're Saying vii

Preface ix

1 Getting Up and Running 1

A Tour of the Boards 2

The Proper Peripherals 8

The Case 13

Choose Your Distribution 15

Flash the SD Card 15

For Advanced Users: Create Your Own Disk Image 16

Booting Up 17

Configuring Your Pi 17

Getting Online 22

Shutting Down 24

Running Headless 24

Troubleshooting 25

Going Further 26

2 Getting Around Linux on the Raspberry Pi 27

Using the Command Line 31

Files and the File system 32

More Linux Commands 37

Processes 39

Sudo and Permissions 41

The Network 43

/etc 44

Setting the Date and Time 44

Installing New Software 45

Sound in Linux 46

Upgrading Your Firmware 46

Going Further 47

3 Other Operating Systems and Linux Distributions 49

Distributions for Home Theater 50

Distributions for Music 52

Retro Computing and Retro Gaming 53

Internet of Things 53

Other Useful Distributions 54

Going Further 55

4 Python on the Pi 57

Hello, Python 58

A Bit More Python 60

Objects and Modules 63

Even More Modules 67

Launching Other Programs from Python 70

Troubleshooting Errors 72

Going Further 73

5 Arduino and the Pi 75

Installing Arduino on the Raspberry Pi OS 78

Finding the Serial Port 79

Talking in Serial 80

Using Firmata 84

Going Further 86

6 Basic Input and Output 87

Using Inputs and Outputs 90

Digital Output: Lighting Up an LED 92

Digital Input: Reading a Button 97

Project: Cron Lamp Timer 100

Scripting Commands 100

Connecting a Lamp 102

Scheduling Commands with Cron 103

Going Further 106

7 Programming Inputs and Outputs with Python 107

Installation 107

Testing GPIO in Python 109

Blinking an LED 110

Reading a Button 112

Project: Simple Soundboard 114

Going Further 119

8 Analog Input and Output 121

Output: Converting Digital to Analog 122

Test-Driving PWM 124

Taking PWM Further 125

Input: Converting Analog to Digital 126

Variable Resistors 132

Going Further 136

9 Working with Cameras 137

Connecting and Testing the Camera Module 141

Project: Making a GIF 144

Capturing Video 144

Testing USB Webcams 145

Installing and Testing Open CV 146

Additional Step for the Raspberry Pi Camera Module 148

Displaying an Image 148

Modifying an Image 151

Accessing the Camera 153

Face Detection 156

Project: Raspberry Pi Photobooth 158

Going Further 163

10 Python and the Internet 165

Download Data from a Web Server 165

Fetching the Weather Forecast 167

Serving Pi (Be a Web Server) 176

Flask Basics 176

Connecting the Web to the Real World 180

Project: Web Lamp 183

Going Further 188

A Writing an SD Card Image 189

B The Raspberry Pi Pico 197

C Another Raspberry Pi?! 210

Index 214