Raspberry Pi: A Beginner’s Guide to What It is and How It Works
The information age began in the 1970s. The progress of technology turned the huge computers into small devices that you can wear on your wrist or carry in your pocket. It is impossible to find a business that does not work with computer technology.
Raspberry Pi was founded in the UK in 2009. Eben Upton, one of the founders of Raspberry Pi, created the first Raspberry Pi with the purpose of solving the issue of the reduction of the student population in computational science at Cambridge university. The ease of access and simplicity made Raspberry Pi the brand leader PC in Britain and sells over 2 million devices within two years. Raspberry Pi is available in the world through the Foundation’s website.
In this article, we want to answer the questions like What is a Raspberry Pi, and How Does It Work? To learn more, follow us in the continuation of this article.
What is a Raspberry Pi?
Raspberry Pi is a single-board computer that is produced by the Raspberry Pi foundation. The Raspberry Pi foundation is a United Kingdom charity institute, and it created the Raspberry Pi with the purpose of training people in computing and easier access to computing education.
The Raspberry Pi launched in 2012, and till now, it had various iterations and changes released. The original Pi has a single-core CPU which its clock speed is more than 1.5GHz and 4GB of RAM. The cost of Raspberry Pi has always been under 100 dollars. The main Raspberry Pi is Pi Zero which price is only 5 dollars.
People use the Raspberry Pi to learn programming and coding skills, do home automation, Edge computing, build hardware projects, implement Kubernetes clusters, and even in industrial applications.
Raspberry Pi is an affordable computer with the size of a credit card that executes Linux. It also presents a collection of GPIO that enables you to handle the electronic components for physical computing.
The released Raspberry Pi models:
There are many generations of Raspberry Pi like Pi 1 to 4, and a Pi 400. In most generations, there is a model A and a model B. Model A is cheaper, and tends to decrease RAM and fewer ports. The Pi Zero is a spinoff of the original generation (Pi1) which is cheaper and smaller.
Here is a list of the released Raspberry Pi models:
- Pi 1 Model B (2012)
- Pi 1 Model A (2013)
- Pi 1 Model B+ (2014)
- Pi 1 Model A+ (2014)
- Pi 2 Model B (2015)
- Pi Zero (2015)
- Pi 3 Model B (2016)
- Pi Zero W (2017)
- Pi 3 Model B+ (2018)
- Pi 3 Model A+ (2019)
- Pi 4 Model A (2019)
- Pi 4 Model B (2020)
- Pi 400 (2021)
Can we say the Raspberry Pi is open-source?
The Raspberry Pi functions in the open-source ecosystem, it executes Linux and its supported OS, Pi OS, is open-source. Raspberry Pi helps Linux core and other open-source projects. It also released many of its software as an open-source.
The schematics of Raspberry Pi are released as documentation. But the board is not open hardware.
The Raspberry Pi foundation relies on the earned income from selling the Raspberry Pi’s units.
What are the uses of Raspberry Pi?
Usually, people use Raspberry Pi for learning to code, and if they know how to code, they use Raspberry Pi for physical projects to learn to code electronics. The Raspberry Pi provides opportunities for you to make your home automation projects that are beloved among the open source community.
Here is the list of the projects that you can do with Raspberry Pi:
- You can create your Twitter bot with Raspberry Pi and Python.
- You can block the advertisements on your network by pi-hole.
- You can create a digital photo display.
- You can set a Postgres database on a Raspberry Pi.
- You can create your projects by using the Raspberry Pi camera.
How does a Raspberry Pi work?
The Raspberry Pi models are a sample of a system on a chip that the micro-devices include a single integrated circuit. The RP models contain a power supply, CPU, RAM, and USB ports for supporting the common use of the computer. People can use an RP model through a keyboard, monitor, mouse, and SD card for suitable connecting cables and storage.
What are the advantages and disadvantages of buying RP?
The advantages and the disadvantages are as followed:
Advantages:
- It is cheap and has many affordable models.
- It is a portable, small, and well-set computer.
- Community projects, extensive training documentation, DIY.
Disadvantageous:
- If you want to use it as a desktop computer alternative without any wide modification, it might not be appropriate.
- It does not have internet storage, and this cause a longer read, write, and boot process.
- For intensive processing, the board needs some changes to stop malfunction.
What are the alternatives to RP:
- NanoPi
- Banana Pi
- NVIDIA
- Onion
- Asus
- RockPi
- LattePanda
- Odroid
- Pocket Beagle
- Udoo
How to launch Raspberry Pi?
You can install the operating system on your Raspberry Pi with properly prepared cables and memory. However, due to the hardware specifications, it is not possible to install Windows or Mac OS X on this device. You should use a Linux distribution instead.
There are several distributions that can be used for Raspberry Pie. But the most common option is Raspbian, which is a ported version of Debian configured specifically for Raspberry Pi. Installing this Linux distribution can be a bit complicated if you don’t follow the instructions. To install Raspbian, like installing any other operating system on Raspberry Pi, we need another software to boot the SD card.
What is Raspbian?
Raspbian is a free OS based on Debian Linux which is optimized for the Raspberry Pi hardware. This operating system is developed by the Raspberry Pi Foundation. Raspbian operating system is the best and most chosen by users. The response speed and efficiency of the operating system are excellent. Raspbian uses the light and compact Xfce desktop. The size of this operating system is about 4 GB.
Conclusion
In this article, we talked about Raspberry Pi and its uses. Have you ever worked with a Raspberry Pi? Would you like to try Raspberry Pi? Do you know more information about Raspberry Pi?
