What is the Raspberry Pi?
The Raspberry Pi is a low cost, credit-card sized computer that plugs into a computer monitor & TV, and uses a standard keyboard and mouse. It’s a capable little device that enables people of all ages to explore computing and to learn how to program in a language like Python. It is capable of doing everything you would expect a desktop computer to do, from browsing the internet and playing high-definition video, to making spreadsheets, word-processing, and playing games.
It has the ability to interact with the outside world and has been used in a wide array of digital maker projects, from music machines and parent detectors to weather stations and tweeting birdhouses with infra-red cameras. We want to see it’s being used by kids all over the world to learn to program & understand how computers work.
Raspberry Pi Foundation:-
The Raspberry Pi is a series of small single-board computers developed in the United Kingdom by, the Raspberry Pi Foundation to promote the teaching of basic computer science in schools and in developing countries. The original model became far more popular than anticipated, selling outside its target market for uses such as robotics. It does not include peripherals or cases. However, some accessories have been included in several official and unofficial bundles.
The organization behind it consists of two arms. The first two models were developed by The Foundation. After the Pi Model B was released, the Foundation set up Raspberry Pi Trading, with Eben Upton as CEO, to develop the third model, the B+. The Raspberry Pi Trading is responsible for developing technology while the Foundation is an educational charity to promote the teaching of basic computer science in schools and in developing countries.
According to the Foundation, more than 5 million Raspberry Pi is were sold by Feb 2015, making it the best-selling British computer. By Nov 2016 they had sold 11 million units, and 12.5m by Mar 2017, making it the third best-selling “general-purpose computer”. In July 2017, sales reached nearly 15 million. In March 2018, sales reached 19 million.
Its Specifications –
- (Raspberry Pi 4 4GB Jump Start2 Combo – 4GB DDR4 RAM) PiBOX India Raspberry PI 4, powered by a 1.5GHz Broadcom 2711, 64-bit quad-core Cortex-A72 processor comes with 1GB LPDDR4-2400 SDRAM, 4K Support with Dual Display, True Gigabit LAN & High-speed DUAL Band Wireless, 2 x USB 3.0 “Super-Speed” ports, 2 x USB 2.0 High-Speed for Accessory connectivity.
- (Official Case and Noobs 16gb) PiBOX India– Break Your PI Book, Raspberry PI 4 – Official Case,4.Power Adapter 3 Amps – BIS Certified, 5.Sandisk 16 GB Class 10 – Noobs Micro SD card
- [Copper Heatsink and Required Cables] Pibox India Copper Aluminum 2 piece – Heat sink, Micro USB to USB C Adapter (Aluminium), Micro HDMI to HDMI Adapter 1 qty, 1 Meter HDMI Cable,1 Meter Gigabit Ethernet Cable
- [PiBOX India Accessories] PiBOX India – Micro SD card Reader, PiBOX India – Vinyl Sticker
- (Excellent warranty) Start Combo powered by PiBOX India comes with 12 Months Manufacturer warranty as well as friendly email support.
Accessories:-
- Gertboard – A Raspberry Pi Foundation sanctioned device, designed for educational purposes, that expands the Raspberry Pi’s GPIO( “General Purpose Input/Output” ) pins to allow interface with and control of LEDs, switches, analog signals, sensors, and other devices. It also includes an optional Arduino compatible controller to interface with the Pi.
- Camera – On 14 May 2013, the foundation and distributors RS Components & Premier Farnell/Element 14 launched Raspberry Pi camera board alongside a firmware update to accommodate it. The camera board is shipped with a flexible flat cable that plugs into the CSI connector which is located between the Ethernet and HDMI ports. In Raspbian, the user must enable the use of the camera board by running Raspi-config and selecting the camera option. The camera module costs €20 in Europe (9 Sept 2013). It can produce 1080p, 720p and 640x480p video. The dimensions are 25 mm × 20 mm × 9 mm. In May 2016, v2 of the camera came out and is an 8-MP camera.
- Infrared Camera – In Oct 2013, the foundation announced that they would begin producing a camera module without an infrared filter, called Pi NoIR.
- Official Display – On 8 September 2015, The foundation & the distributors RS Components and Premier Farnell/Element 14 launched the Raspberry Pi Touch Display
- HAT (Hardware Attached on Top) expansion boards – Together with the Model B+, inspired by the Arduino shield boards, the interface for HAT boards was devised by the Raspberry Pi Foundation. Each HAT board carries a small EEPROM (typically a CAT24C32WI-GT3 containing the relevant details of the board, so that the Raspberry Pi’s OS is informed of the HAT, and the technical details of it, relevant to the OS using the HAT. Mechanical details of a HAT board, which uses the four mounting holes in their rectangular formation, are available online.
Operating systems:–
The Raspberry Pi Foundation provides Raspbian, a Debian-based Linux distribution for download, as well as third-party Ubuntu, Windows 10 IoT Core, RISC OS, or specialized media center distributions. It promotes Python and Scratch as the main programming languages, with support for many other languages. The default firmware is closed source, while an unofficial open-source is available. Many other operating systems can also run on the Raspberry Pi, including the formally verified microkernel. Other third-party operating systems available via the official website include Ubuntu MATE, Windows 10 IoT Core, RISC OS and specialized distributions for the Kodi media center and classroom management. Other operating systems (not Linux-based)
- Broadcom VCOS – Proprietary operating system which includes an abstraction layer designed to integrate with existing kernels, such as ThreadX (which is used on the VideoCore4 processor), providing drivers & middleware for application development. In the case of Raspberry Pi, this includes an application to start the ARM processor(s) and provide the publicly documented API over a mailbox interface, serving as its firmware.
- Windows 10 IoT Core – a zero-price edition of Windows 10 offered by Microsoft that runs natively on the Raspberry Pi 2.
- Haiku – an open-source BeOS clone that has been compiled for the Raspberry Pi and several other ARM boards. Work on Pi 1 began in 2011, but only the Pi 2 will be supported.
- HelenOS – A portable microkernel-based multiserver operating system; has basic Raspberry Pi support since version 0.6.0
- Etc…
Other operating systems (Linux-based)
- Android Things – an embedded version of the Android operating system designed for IoT device development.
- Arch Linux ARM – a port of Arch Linux for ARM processors.
- Kali Linux – A Debian-derived distro designed for digital forensics and penetration testing.
- Fedora – supports Pi 2 and later since Fedora 25 (Pi 1 is supported by some unofficial derivatives, e.g. listed here.).
- Etc….
Third-party application software
- AstroPrint – AstroPrints wireless 3D printing software can be run on the Pi 2.
- C/C++ Interpreter Ch – Released 3 Jan 2017, C/C++ interpreter Ch and Embedded Ch are released free for non-commercial use for Raspberry Pi, ChIDE is also included for the beginners to learn C/C++.
- Minecraft – Released 11 Feb 2013, a modified version that allows players to directly alter the world with computer code.
- RealVNC – Since 28 September 2016, Raspbian includes RealVNC’s remote access server and viewer software. This includes a new capture technology that allows directly-rendered content as well as non-X11 applications to be viewed and controlled remotely.
- UserGate Web Filter – On 20 September 2013, Florida-based security vendor Entensys announced porting UserGate Web Filter to Raspberry Pi platform.
- Steam Link – On 13 Dec 2018, Valve released an official Steam Link game streaming client for the Raspberry Pi 3 and 3 B+.
- Etc….
Conclusion
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