Raspberry Pi
Foundation, Hardware, and Software
Allan Cecil
Welcome!
- This presentation was given at NBLUG.org on 2012-06-12 and at BALUG.org on 2012-06-19.
- Since you're viewing this online, you'll probably want to switch to Outline mode, which will show you additional notes that are not visible in Presentation mode.
- To switch viewing modes at any time, Press "T" or move your mouse to the bottom of the
screen and click on the
±button.
Covered in this talk:
- Raspberry Pi Foundation mission
- Raspberry Pi hardware
- Raspberry Pi software
- Live Demo
- Practical (and impractical) applications
- Q and A
Notes:
Sections that are only visible in this outline / handout mode will have Notes: as the first line. These sections contain additional information, links, and commentary that isn't viewable in presentation mode.
Raspberry Pi Foundation
- Founded in 2008 by Eben Upton, Robert Mullins, Jack Lang, and Alan Mycroft (from Cambridge University) with Pete Lomas and David Braben
- Mission: To create small, affordable computers for educational use
- Inspiration: Many of the founders trace their technical inclinations back to learning to program on BBC Micro computers
- Other earlier projects existed (such as the OLPC Foundation's XO-1 / XO-1.75 laptop) but with different goals
Notes:
A good place to find more information on the foundation is their about page. I found the interview of Eben Upton at the Hacker News London Meetup to be especially informative and much of the above source material is from this video.
Raspberry Pi Foundation
- The foundation tried to make a "BBC Nano" but discovered that the current enviornment of the BBC would not permit it to build or endorse a branded machine
- Eben spoke with Rory Cellan-Jones who created a video interview which was posted to YouTube
- The above video hit 600,000 views in two days, immediately trending sharply on Google Trends
Notes:
A good place to find more information on the foundation is their about page. I found the interview of Eben Upton at the Hacker News London Meetup to be especially informative and much of the above source material is from this video.
Raspberry Pi Hardware
- Broadcom System On a Chip (SOC):
- 700MHz ARM1176-JZFS CPU
- VideoCore IV GPU
- 256MB LPDDR2-800 POP Memory
- SD card storage
- HDMI video with digital 5.1 audio
- Composite video with stereo 1/4" analog audio
- USB 2.0 hub with 10/100 Ethernet (model B)
- 5V 700mA micro USB power input, can also use GPIO header
Notes:
They really do mean 700mA or better - I encountered a LOT of instability when I started working with a 500mA adapter. It's proabably best to go with a 1,000mA adapter to be on the safe side. Even with that much you proably won't be able to pull off adding a wireless USB keyboard and mouse adapter at the same time that the network and HDMI adapter are in use. I found in my testing that it was far better to put the wireless USB adapter I was using on a powered hub.
Raspberry Pi Hardware
Raspberry Pi Hardware Comparison
All data collected by Allen Herberling, used with permission
| Attributes | Arduino Uno | Raspberry Pi | Beagle Bone | Beagle-XM |
| Dimensions | 2.7"x2.1" | 3.4"x2.1" | 3.4"x2.1" | 3.35"x3.37 |
| Cost | $27 | $35 | $89 | $149 |
| CPU Clock | 16 MHz | 700 MHz | 700 MHz | 1 GHz |
| Clock/Cost= | 0.6 | 20.0 | 7.8 | 6.7 |
| CPU Core | ATmega328 | ARM-11 | ARM Cortex-A8 | ARM Cortex-A8 |
| GPU | 0 | BCM Video Core IV | 0 | 0 |
Notes:
All data collected by Allen Herberling, used with permission; see Allen's presentation for source information.
Raspberry Pi Hardware Comparison
| Attributes | Uno | Pi | B-Bone | B-XM |
| Memory | 32 KB | 256 MB | 256-MB | 512-MB |
| SD Memory Card Slot | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Ethernet LAN | 0 | 10/100 | 10/100 | 10/100 |
| USB Host | 0 | 2-Ports | 1 | 4-Ports |
| USB Client | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| Audio Stereo In/Out | 0 | 0/1 | 0 | 1/1 |
| HDMI Audio Out | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 1080p Video | 0 | HDMI | 0 | DVI-D |
| Composite Video Out | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| S Video Out | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1/0 |
| LCD Interface | 0 | DSI | 0 | 2 |
Notes:
All data collected by Allen Herberling, used with permission; see Allen's presentation for source information.
Raspberry Pi Hardware Comparison
| Attributes | Uno | Pi | B-Bone | B-XM |
| Camera Interface | 0 | CSI | 0 | 1 |
| Status LEDs | 4 | 5 | 5 | 6 |
| Reset | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| JTAG | 0 | 1-CPU/1-GPU | 1 | 1 |
| DB9 Connector | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| RTC | 1 | 0 | ||
| Expansion Header: | 1x26 | 2x46 | 1x28 | |
| +5V | 1 | 1 | 4 | 1 |
| +3v3 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 -1v8 pin |
| GND | 3 | 1 | 8 | 2 |
Notes:
All data collected by Allen Herberling, used with permission; see Allen's presentation for source information.
Raspberry Pi Hardware Comparison
| Attributes | Uno | Pi | B-Bone | B-XM |
| DNCs | 0 | 6 pins | 0 | 0 |
| REGEN/Nreset | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 pin |
| GPIO | 12 pins | 8 pins | 36 | 22 pins (max) |
| UART | 1-2 pin | 1-2 pin | 3-4 pin + 1-2 pin | 1-4 pin |
| I2C | 1-2 pin | 1-2 pin | 2-2 pin | 1-2 pin |
| SPI | 1-4 pin | 1-5 pin | 1-4 pin | 1-5 + 1-4 pin |
| PWM | 6-1 pin | 0 | 4-1 pin | 3-1 pin |
| Timers | 0 | 0 | 4-1 pin | 0 |
| A/D in | 6-1 pin | 0 | 7-1 pin | 1 pin |
| SD/MMC | 0 | 0 | Y | 1-10 pin |
| McBSP | 0 | 0 | 1-6 + 1-4 pin |
Notes:
All data collected by Allen Herberling, used with permission; see Allen's presentation for source information.
Raspberry Pi Hardware Comparison
| Attributes | Arduino Uno | Raspberry Pi | Beagle Bone | Beagle-XM |
| CAN Bus | 0 | 0 | 2 | |
| MMC1 | 0 | 0 | Y | |
| GPMC | 0 | 0 | Y | |
| LCD | 0 | 0 | Y |
Notes:
All data collected by Allen Herberling, used with permission; see Allen's presentation for source information.
Raspberry Pi Hardware Comparison
| Operating Systems | Arduino Uno | Raspberry Pi | Beagle Bone | Beagle-XM |
| Android | N | N | Y | Y |
| Angstrom | N | N | Y | Y |
| ArchLinux | N | Y | Y | Y |
| Debian | N | Y | Y | Y |
| Gentoo | N | N | Y | Y |
| QNX | N | N | Y | Y |
| Ubuntu | N | N | Y | Y |
Notes:
All data collected by Allen Herberling, used with permission; see Allen's presentation for source information.
Raspberry Pi Software
- Several officially supported Linux distributions:
- Debian Squeeze, Wheezy now in Beta
- Arch Linux ARM
- QtonPi
- Other notable distributions exist:
- Raspbmc
- OpenElec
Notes:
The current state of the distributions that are avaialble are all in their infancy; the lack of hardware-accelerated X really hurts but that problem will likely be solved in the near future.
Live demo time
- Live demos of various distributions with some practical and impractical applications
Q&A
- Questions?
Notes:
The sections above are littered with links, so feel free to navigate to those areas or search this document for the subject you need more information on. As always, a good search engine is your friend. This presentation can be reused in any way with attribution.
Enjoy,
A.C.
******