RASPBERRY PI For Beginners
By Johnson Augustine
“You
can make stuff that will have other people looking on jealously, and that will
make you feel wonderfully smug all after noon.”
Eben Upton -
Co-Creator of Raspberry PI Embedded Board.
Introduction
Today world, small things make big changes to the entire
world and change an era. Now a day’s
most of the new inventions are came from teen age peoples and youth. They are
always thinking for a change especially in Information technology and
Electronics. Things are changing from big to small and small to very small and
to invisible but we can feel the presence, technologies are expanded in this
ways. No need to sit in a place everything can be controlled when we are moving.
I saw a software called KTS Info mate, and in that we can control more than 100
display screens [Digital notice Board ] and set different contents while we are
moving .This is a great technology and may be a new invention for the world .
If we
talking about embedded boards and tiny computer devices, there are lot of
experiments are going on .and lot of new boards and tiny computer systems are
available now in market with great operational facilities and functions. And
the great advantages of these are, it has only less cost .
Here I like to introduce a new board called as “RASPBERRY PI
“in to your front. And I am making
things with this .
What is Raspberry PI
Raspberry PI is a tiny embedded board .The processor at the heart of
the Raspberry PI is Broadcom BCM2835 system on chip(SoC) ARM x86 processor. The early stages the name
of raspberry PI project was “ABC Micro”
But later the name is finalized in to “RASPBERRY PI” .Why Raspberry , because there’s long tradition of
fruit names in computer companies , And PI is a mangling of Python . The
project team thought that on the early development would be the only
programming language available on a less powerful platform than the Raspberry PI they ended with .
Raspberry PI Specification
There are two models Model A and Model B , The difference is
in built in hardware and pricing
Processor: Broadcom BCM2835 system on chip(SoC) ARM x86 processor .
Ram: 512 MB
Storage: SD
Card Expandable up to 64 GB
USB 2.0 Ports 2
GPIO interface
HDMI Support and 3D capabilities
Video out puts : Composite video, HDMI video, DSI Video
One Audio Jack
Built in GPU
Ethernet port [ RJ 45]
Wifi [802.11n wireless usb
adapter]
Camera support [30fps ] 1920*1080
AV Connector for Display
Linux flavor Debian Wheezy as Operating system .
User Access Support: Remote Desktop,SSH,VNC,SSH
Development Support :
Programming Languages supported : C/C++, Mono,PHP,Python[Recommended by
Developers but I am doing everything in
c and c++ for system based apps and php and mono for web based Apps to be run
on this PI for KTS infotech PVT LTD might be the first one who are doing
successful APPs in PI ].
Server Support: Apache Server, Mono server for run Asp.net C# 2.0 based web apps and it
supports jquery and ajax .
What you can do with Raspberry PI ?
You can use Raspberry PI for controlling motors, machines and do robots
with the help of GPIO facility provided by its developers . You can also use
this as a tiny web hosting server to host your websites developed in php or
asp.net 2.0 and provides supports for jquery and ajax. You can run applications
and stand alone Apps developed in c/c++/C# or python to do your jobs .
Getting started with PI
Now you have a basic understanding of how the PI differ from
other computing devices and it’s the time to get started .If you’ve just
received your pi , take it out of its protective anti-static bag and place it on a flat,
on-conductive surface.
Connecting Display
Composite video connector RCA phono connector –
Yellow silver port at the top of the PI
for connect the display to a TV or CRT Display.
HDMI Video : The port will found on the bottom of the
pi , it will give Full HD display [1920*1080 resolution ] .
DSI Video : The port found the top of SD card slot ,
will able to connect a small ribbon connector protected by a plastic and this is for a video standard
called DSI[ Display serial Interface ].
Connecting audio : There is an audio jack for connect
speakers , if you are using HDMI then no need of this because it will transmit
both audio and video.
Connecting key board and mouse: You can connect
keyboard and mouse to USB port.
Connecting Camera : You can connect any USB camera to
Raspberry PI , But don’t forgot to use an external powered USB Adapter to connect the camera to PI [
Don’t connect directly ]
Downloading Raspberry PI OS : Download latest version of
Raspberry PI OS from http://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads
Writing the image to Disk.
Flashing from Linux:
Open a terminal from linux
Insert SD card in to your card reader connected to system
Type fdisk –l will
list all storage , Note that the SD card name may be /dev/sdX where X is the
letter for identifying your storage , some machines have built in SD card
reader and might be displaying different names that I specified here [ eg
/dev/mmcblkx ]
Use cd to change the directory which contains the disk image
Type “sudo dd
if=<imagefile.img> of=/dev/sdX bs=2M “ . This will write your files to the SD card
might be take long time to complete the process.
Flashing from OS X
If your system running Apple OS X , It is very simple to do
the operation .
Select the utilities from the application menu and click on
terminal application .
Insert your blank SD card in to system card reader
Type diskutil to display all storage devices and note the
name of your SD card
Unmount the disk if already mounted in to your desktop by
typing the command
“diskutil
unmountdisk /dev/diskX”
Use cd to change the directory which contains the disk image
Type dd if=<imagefile.img> of=/dev/diskX bs=2M to write the image to SD card
Flashing from Windows
To flash from windows download win32 Disk manager or win32 disk writer
Click on the exe and insert the SD card to card reader
Select the image from the directory , select the SD card
from droup down list [ Right]
Click write to write the disk image
Backing up your PI SD card as image[ .img ]
To flash from windows download win32 Disk manager or win32 disk writer
Click on the exe and insert the SD card to card reader
Type any name the path selection textbox and don’t forgot to give .img
extension
Eg : imagebackup.img
Click on read to backup your image
Connecting external Storage
To connect external storage
to USB and mount the device to PI. If you are using LXDE desktop this
will be get done automatically else you have to manually mount [Make the device
known to the Os] .For this
Connect the USB Disk to a external Powered USB hub .
Type fdisk –l to
get all device names and find your
external storage [Eg /dev/sda1 ]
Before mounting you have to create a mount point , becaue
linux needs a mount point before accessing a usb storage device
Type sudo mkdir /media.externaldisk
Currently the access right is assigned to root only so
change the rights to all users of pi
Type this in a single line “sudo chgrp –R users
/media/externaldisk && sudo chmod –R
g+w /media/externaldisk “ .
Mount the USB device by typing the command
Sudo mount /dev/sdXN
/media/externaldisk –o=rw
Connecting PI to a network
We can connect the PI by using Built in Ethernet
port[RJ45] or using a USB 802.11n
Wireless network [Wifi ] . When you connected it will obtain an IP
automatically because a DHCP is enabled in Network of pi . Wifi dongle is only
available with Model A ,If your PI is model B then you have to purchase any usb
wifi dongle that supports linux debian .
Connecting two PI through network
To make a connection between two Pi you have to use a cross over able for that
and connect to RJ45 port of both
How to set static IP for Raspberry PI
In my another article i
described this please go through it http://tektips.in/How-to-set-static-IP-in-Linux.aspx
Powering Raspberry PI
Raspberry PI is powered by a small micro USB connector found
on the left side of the circuit board . PI needs 700mA . Connecting PI to USB of Laptop/Desktop is
possible but not recommended , If you are like to use with usb power first
swich on your system then only connect the PI .
Login details of PI
The default login of PI is as follows
User name : pi
PWD : raspberry
There is a root user with no password, to login as root
first you have to set a password then login as root
Communicating with PI from our system
You can use SSH to communicate with PI , If you are using
linux use SSH command then put user name
and password when it is requested .
If you are accessing the PI from Windows use Mobaxtreame
software to connect to PI
Install Mobaxtreame and run
Click on add session
put IP and user id
Put password when asked
Installing
Applications in PI
To download and install third party applications on PI use
the command
Sudo apt-get install < application name > and it will check source.list file for
application destinations
Updating and upgrading PI
To update PI use the command sudo apt-get update
To upgrade your PI type
sudo apt-get install upgrade
Expanding memory Card
Login to PI
Open terminal and type sudo raspi-config will load boot bios menu
Select first option “ Expand SD Card “ and press enter ,
then reboot
Installing Raspberry PI Camera [ HD Cam with
resolution 1920*1080 resolution for video
Download latest version of pi and write to SD card
Connect camera to PI
Boot up PI and update
and upgrade . then reboot [ sudo reboot ]
After reboot open terminal type raspi-config then press enter will load bios settings
Select the option “
Enable PI camera “ and select enable and press enter and reboot
After bootup open a terminal and type raspistill –o
image.jpg will take an image
Raspivid –o video.h264 –t 10000 will take a video for you
How to install other camera to PI
Plug the camera to PI USB
Reboot system if
already up
Open terminal and type ls –l /dev/video* to display the
connected usb cams
To take picture install a thired party application called
camorama
Sudo apt-get install camorama
Press y to confirm
Ater install type camorama in terminal to launch the
application
Conclusion
Raspberry PI gives a lot of opportunities for the industry depends on Information technology and electronics , Lets see..
See my next articles for advanced configuration and setting up of raspberry pi