So, I've heard enough and read enough about the raspberry pi to invest and satisfy my own creative curiosity. I've given it time to make sure this wasn't a passing phase of interest. So, my question is how do I decide the best starting point or pi version? I'm a beginner but I don't want to be held back bc I didn't get something that another starter has.
Thank you for any help or reference to any other posts. I looked but didn't see a question like this.
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W. H. Heydt
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Re: Deciding to take the plunge
Welcome to the Forums. If it's a passing fancy, at least it's a cheap one. For just starting out, get a Pi3B and run Raspbian on it. That's the current board and the OS with active support customized specifically for the Pi. I would recommend starting with an 8GB SD card. The Pi3B uses microSD cards and 8GB is big enough to load the full version of Raspbian and still have about 3GB of free space for your own files.
Beyond that...it depends on what you have on hand already and how familiar you may be with Linux. You can run headless with just a power supply and an network connection (I prefer wired, but tastes differ). Or you can go with a full "standalone" system by adding USB keyboard, USB mouse, and monitor (and a suitable cable, of course). Native video output is HDMI. DVI-D is compatible with HDMI, so your best bet is to locate a monitor that has HDMI or DVI input.
Beyond that...it depends on what you have on hand already and how familiar you may be with Linux. You can run headless with just a power supply and an network connection (I prefer wired, but tastes differ). Or you can go with a full "standalone" system by adding USB keyboard, USB mouse, and monitor (and a suitable cable, of course). Native video output is HDMI. DVI-D is compatible with HDMI, so your best bet is to locate a monitor that has HDMI or DVI input.
Re: Deciding to take the plunge
We also have to consider your "creative curiosity". Is it programming or electronics?
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james-at-lo-tech
- Posts: 45
- Joined: Sat Oct 04, 2014 1:07 pm
Re: Deciding to take the plunge
Indeed, the main draw is surely the GPIO header, meaning it can be connected to other things - your house alarm, the coffee machine, an infrared beam in the bird box - whatever you want really 
Re: Deciding to take the plunge
W. H. Heydt covered things quite well. One thing he mentions in passing could perhaps use some special attention: you will need a power supply. The only things that you absolutely have to have to run a Pi is the Pi itself, a MicroSD card for storing the operating system and files (the Pi's equivalent of a PC's hard disk or SSD), and something to supply a good, clean, stable, 5 volts DC, under load, and with sufficient amps to keep the Pi happy (2.5 amps is the official recommendation for the Pi 3B with "some" accessories connected - you may be able to get by with less depending on the specific hardware). A whole variety of odd problems suffered by beginners can be traced to using some 5V power supply they had sitting around that turns out to not put out sufficient amperage, or that can't get the full 5 volts to the Micro USB connector under load. Starting out, it's worth buying either the official Raspberry Pi power supply, or one sold for use with the Pi from one of the reputable suppliers (including but not limited to Adafruit, Pimoroni, ThePiHut, etc.).
It's also worth getting a case to put the Pi in, just so you don't have to have it sitting out on a tabletop all naked (it might catch cold - more seriously, anything wet on the tabletop could cause electrical shorts, letting the magic smoke escape). The official case is nice, but there are (at least) dozens of good choices, depending on your needs.
If you're just starting out, I'd suggest going the route of connecting a USB mouse and keyboard, and an HDMI monitor, directly to the Pi - it removes a lot of complexity (aka sources of potential problems) from the picture, and many people have parts from an old machine "sitting around" that they could repurpose (or have a friend or relative with suitable bits they could beg/borrow/steal). That said, I run all my Pi's "headless" (well, some of them have small Pi-specific touchscreen displays), and control/program them by connecting with ssh from my Mac.
There's a whole lot of things one can plug into the Pi for various purposes - special boards to do all manner of specific things, or just switches and lights plugged into the Pi's GPIO connector to learn about interacting with and controlling external stuff. My advice would be, don't worry about any of that until you get the Pi up and running and get comfortable with Raspbian (Linux). Get familiar with the machine itself, then develop a feel for what direction you may want to go with learning and experimenting - and then buy add-on boards and extra bits, if you need to.
It's also worth getting a case to put the Pi in, just so you don't have to have it sitting out on a tabletop all naked (it might catch cold - more seriously, anything wet on the tabletop could cause electrical shorts, letting the magic smoke escape). The official case is nice, but there are (at least) dozens of good choices, depending on your needs.
If you're just starting out, I'd suggest going the route of connecting a USB mouse and keyboard, and an HDMI monitor, directly to the Pi - it removes a lot of complexity (aka sources of potential problems) from the picture, and many people have parts from an old machine "sitting around" that they could repurpose (or have a friend or relative with suitable bits they could beg/borrow/steal). That said, I run all my Pi's "headless" (well, some of them have small Pi-specific touchscreen displays), and control/program them by connecting with ssh from my Mac.
There's a whole lot of things one can plug into the Pi for various purposes - special boards to do all manner of specific things, or just switches and lights plugged into the Pi's GPIO connector to learn about interacting with and controlling external stuff. My advice would be, don't worry about any of that until you get the Pi up and running and get comfortable with Raspbian (Linux). Get familiar with the machine itself, then develop a feel for what direction you may want to go with learning and experimenting - and then buy add-on boards and extra bits, if you need to.
Re: Deciding to take the plunge
i recommend the Raspberry Pi 3 Model B
https://www.raspberrypi.org/products/ra ... 3-model-b/
this board has fast hardware quad core ARM A53 cpu / soc among the PIs, search the web and u'd probably find comparisons showing its cpu performance vs other PIs has many usb host ports, has ethernet, has wifi and bluetooth on board
using this very much feel like one of those tiny computers (mini PCs) such as those 'android TV boxes'
http://hackaday.com/2016/03/01/pi-3-ben ... e-is-true/
the downside is that the cpu / soc runs rather hot, search the web & u'd see some articles about this cpu running hot, but i think that's a minor inconvenience compared to the performance it delivers, as for the temperature, there are also many articles on the web on how to install a heat sink over it.
the easiest way to think of this board is basically it is a *mini PC*, it could do many (most?) of the things you would do on your regular PC / laptop computer, but the form factor and connectivity provides you with many more use cases (situations that you can use it) that may be inconvenient / less appropriate to use a oversized computer to do this.
some people use it as a media streamer (e.g. stream full HD 1920x1080 mp4 movies) - replacing those 'android TV boxes', and oh R-PI is 'better than those Android TV boxes' - it runs a *full blown debian linux distribution* you can remotely control it, run most of the linux commands over a SSH / telnet terminal, some use it as a automated remote (wireless) web-cam, some use it for some 'IOT' purposes (it can easily interface a 3.3v Arduino, there is Octoprint http://octoprint.org/ that host and runs a 3D printer to do all the printing), and no less you can program it / customise it to do whatever things you would like as do a computer and much more other uses.
i'd even say R-Pi has 'come of age', it is much more than simply a 'toy' in its early days
I'd highly recommend anyone who has not touch a mini PC or R-PIi to try it out and for a good board the Pi 3 Model B
note that Intel's 'compute stick' has a decently fast processor similar to Pi 3 Model B, but it lose out compared to the convenience of the full connectivity 4 USB ports, ethernet on board, wifi and bluetooth on board when you want to connect things together with the mini PC
to temper expectations a little, these mini-PCs ARM SOC is not as high performance as full blown high speed CPUs like the Intel i5, i7 CPUs for compute intensive loads
Pi 3 model B can possibly do perhaps 348Mflops double precision linpack
http://www.roylongbottom.org.uk/Raspber ... hmarks.htm
while a i7 6770k
could top 200 Gflops double precision
https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/hpc/S ... maybe-697/
that's 500 times in terms of computational prowess
and large vector clusters of Intel Xeon Pi in today's super computers makes that petaflops
that's more than 2 million times faster in terms of computational prowess
and by-the-way, Pi 3 model B is faster than the first Cray 1 super computer (160 MFLOPS)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cray-1
https://www.raspberrypi.org/products/ra ... 3-model-b/
this board has fast hardware quad core ARM A53 cpu / soc among the PIs, search the web and u'd probably find comparisons showing its cpu performance vs other PIs has many usb host ports, has ethernet, has wifi and bluetooth on board
using this very much feel like one of those tiny computers (mini PCs) such as those 'android TV boxes'
http://hackaday.com/2016/03/01/pi-3-ben ... e-is-true/
the downside is that the cpu / soc runs rather hot, search the web & u'd see some articles about this cpu running hot, but i think that's a minor inconvenience compared to the performance it delivers, as for the temperature, there are also many articles on the web on how to install a heat sink over it.
the easiest way to think of this board is basically it is a *mini PC*, it could do many (most?) of the things you would do on your regular PC / laptop computer, but the form factor and connectivity provides you with many more use cases (situations that you can use it) that may be inconvenient / less appropriate to use a oversized computer to do this.
some people use it as a media streamer (e.g. stream full HD 1920x1080 mp4 movies) - replacing those 'android TV boxes', and oh R-PI is 'better than those Android TV boxes' - it runs a *full blown debian linux distribution* you can remotely control it, run most of the linux commands over a SSH / telnet terminal, some use it as a automated remote (wireless) web-cam, some use it for some 'IOT' purposes (it can easily interface a 3.3v Arduino, there is Octoprint http://octoprint.org/ that host and runs a 3D printer to do all the printing), and no less you can program it / customise it to do whatever things you would like as do a computer and much more other uses.
i'd even say R-Pi has 'come of age', it is much more than simply a 'toy' in its early days
I'd highly recommend anyone who has not touch a mini PC or R-PIi to try it out and for a good board the Pi 3 Model B
note that Intel's 'compute stick' has a decently fast processor similar to Pi 3 Model B, but it lose out compared to the convenience of the full connectivity 4 USB ports, ethernet on board, wifi and bluetooth on board when you want to connect things together with the mini PC
to temper expectations a little, these mini-PCs ARM SOC is not as high performance as full blown high speed CPUs like the Intel i5, i7 CPUs for compute intensive loads
Pi 3 model B can possibly do perhaps 348Mflops double precision linpack
http://www.roylongbottom.org.uk/Raspber ... hmarks.htm
while a i7 6770k
could top 200 Gflops double precision
https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/hpc/S ... maybe-697/
that's 500 times in terms of computational prowess
and large vector clusters of Intel Xeon Pi in today's super computers makes that petaflops
that's more than 2 million times faster in terms of computational prowess
and by-the-way, Pi 3 model B is faster than the first Cray 1 super computer (160 MFLOPS)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cray-1