Presentation slides for "Introduction to Raspberry Pi" talk and demonstration provided by me at India Linux Users Group - Chennai (ILUG-C)., India.

1. An introduction to
Raspberry Pi
Chandrashekar Babu
http://www.chandrashekar.info/

2. What is it ?
• A ₹3500 (or lesser priced)
miniature computer board.
• A feature complete Linux capable
platform.
• Can fit in a soap box.
• Supports GPIO, I2C, SPI and
serial I/O buses suitable for
connecting to various electronic
gadgets and devices.
• Supports USB, HDMI, Ethernet
connectivity on board.

3. What purpose does it serve ?
• Bringing computers back to electronics enthusiasts.
• Allow people to prototype and build hardware applications
(or rather appliances/gadgets) that can be programmed
and controlled using Linux or similar environments.
• Software is getting saturated, redundant, complicated and
largely boring. There are interesting things you can do with
hardware if you love electronics.
• Encourage young people to learn computers they were
supposed to be learned (like in the late 70s and early 80s).

4. How did it all start ?
• In 1981, BBC sponsored Acorn
computers to build affordable
home computers that can be
connected to television as a part
of their computer literacy project
targeting young children.
• This computer was familiarly
known as the BBC Micro.
• The project was a grand success
in the UK and large part of Europe
and US where more than 80% of
schools acquired these home
computers for educating children.

5. Hackers of the '80s
• With BBC Micro becoming a big
success, other companies began to
manufacture and sell affordable home
computers.
• Sinclair's ZX Spectrum and
Commodore's Commodore64 followed
up in 1982.
• Linus Torvalds himself claimed to have
programmed on ZX Spectrum at a
younger age.
• Some of the brilliant innovators of
today have been electronics hobbyists
and have learned programming on
home computer consoles.

6. 1970s 1980s 1990s
2000 era Today
Image courtesy: Wikipedia

7. Raspberry Pi Layout
Source: Raspberry Pi manual

8. Raspberry Pi software
architecture

9. Raspberry Pi features
• Powered by Broadcom BCM2835 SoC that features the following:
• ARM1176JFS CPU (based on ARMv6 core).
• Core frequency set to 700 MHz (can be overclocked upto 1 GHz).
• VideoCore IV GPU (integrated into BCM2835 SoC) with HDMI and composite output.
• USB 2.0 Host controller.
• Ability to boot from a SD Card.
• GPU is capable of playing high definition video with support for OpenGL ES 2.0 for graphics.
• Built in Ethernet port and support for wifi using compatible USB wifi adaptor
• Model A comes with 256 MB RAM, Model B comes with 512 MB RAM
• Provides 17 pin GPIO interface for connecting to various electronics gadgets and appliances. Some
pins can be configured to work on SPI mode, I2C bus mode, serial I/O (Tx/Rx) communication
mode.

10. Using Raspberry Pi
• Create custom multimedia appliance (HTPC) to convert
conventional Television to a Smart TV.
• Home automation and control of electrical and electronic
gadgets/appliances by interfacing relay modules using GPIO
interface.
• Custom data acquisition gadgets.
• Smart Internet controlled device management modules.
• Thin client appliances.
• Compute cluster nodes.

11. Raspberry Pi requirements
• A bootable SD Card with Linux
• USB power adapter with support for 700 mA
• USB WiFi adapter for wifi networking

12. Software stack on
Raspberry Pi
• Linux distributions customized for Raspberry Pi:
• Raspbian (Debian GNU/Linux for Raspberry Pi).
• Raspbmc (XBMC for Raspberry Pi).
• Arch Linux ARM.
• Many more distributions in development.
• Python, Ruby, C, Bash Shell available by default.
• Most software from Debian ecosystem is available for
download and installation on Raspbian.

13. The GPIO header on
Raspberry Pi
• 17 GPIO pins are available
on the main header (some
pins are reserved).
• There are also additional
display headers and JTAG
headers which is normally
left unused.

14. Programming the GPIO Pins
• The GPIO pins can be set to HIGH or LOW by using
simple programming instructions using almost any
programming language on Linux (including the
shell).
• These pins could be connected to simple LED
drivers, relay modules through driver transistors, or
even stepper motor or servo motor drivers.
• The following practical session will demonstrate
some the GPIO capabilities.

15. Demonstrations

16. Links and resources
• http://www.raspberrypi.org/
• http://elinux.org/RPi_Hub/
• http://www.themagpi.com/
• http://adafruit.com/

17. Thank you
http://www.chandrashekar.info/
http://www.slashprog.com/
chandra@slashprog.com