Basics Raspberry Pi
Raspberry Pi Detailed guide and tutorials

The Raspberry Pi was originally designed for educational purposes to use in schools and universities, and to make class and study more interesting.
Unfortunately, the practical use of the Raspberry Pi or a comparable single-board computer in Germany, Austria and Switzerland is still in its infancy. Listening to the topic, you will find only a few examples showing the use of the Raspberry Pi in school, in education or in study.
The following tasks and exercises should help a little here. They are suitable for self-study or as a source for teachers and faculty to build their own Raspberry Pi workshop. The tasks also include exemplary ready-made solutions.
A Single-board computer the size of a bank card, originally developed as a budget system for teaching computer science, subsequently received much wider application and popularity than its authors expected.
Released several generations of raspberries. All models have a system on a chip (SoC) Broadcom with an integrated ARM compatible central processing unit (CPU) and a graphics processor on a chip (GPU).
The processor speed ranges from 700 MHz to 1.4 GHz for the Pi 3 B + model; internal memory – from 256 MB to 1 GB. Secure Digital (SD) cards are used to store the operating system. The boards have one to four USB ports. For video output, HDMI and composite video are supported with a standard 3.5 mm audio output jack. The output at the lower level is provided by several GPIO pins that support common protocols such as I²C. B-models have an Ethernet port, and Pi 3 and Pi Zero W have built-in Wi-Fi 802.11n and Bluetooth. Prices range from 5 to 35 dollars.
Raspberry-Pi models
Basics
Interfaces and connections
- Raspberry Pi HDMI – High Definition Multimedia Interface
- Raspberry Pi USB – Universal Serial Bus
- Raspberry Pi Bluetooth
- Raspberry Pi GPIO – General Purpose Input Output
- Raspberry Pi GPIO assignment
- Raspberry Pi Assignment audio-video signal on the 4-pin jack plug
operating systems
- Raspberry Pi Linux distributions and operating systems
- Raspberry Pi Raspbian Stretch
- Raspberry Pi Ubuntu Mate
- Raspberry Pi Kali Linux
- Raspberry Pi Windows 10 IoT Core
- Raspberry Pi Media Center
- Raspberry Pi Which operating system?
Accessories and extensions
- Raspberry Pi equipment and accessories
- Raspberry Pi The right power supply
- Raspberry Pi SD memory cards
- Raspberry Pi WiFi adapter
- Raspberry Pi Audio Extensions
- Raspberry Pi cooling and heat sink
Troubleshooting
- Solving Raspberry Pi common problems
- Solve Raspberry Pi network problems
- Solve Raspberry Pi wireless problems
1. Getting Started: Tasks and Exercises with Raspberry Pi
The following tasks and exercises are suitable for beginners who have not yet come into contact with the Raspberry Pi. The solutions are also interesting for those who already know the Raspberry Pi and have worked with it. The solutions are part of standard tasks that have to be done around the Raspberry Pi every now and then.
- Getting started with Raspberry Pi installation
- Installing Raspbian on an SD Memory Card (Windows)
- Installing Raspbian on an SD memory card (Linux or macOS)
- Install Kali Linux on Raspberry Pi
- Raspberry Pi first startup
- First steps in the configuration (Raspberry Pi basic configuration)
- Enable Raspberry Pi SSH
- Determine Raspberry Pi IP address
- Build Raspberry Pi SSH connection
- Update Raspberry Pi operating system and software
- Automatically download and install security updates
- Update / Upgrade from Raspberry Pi (1) to Raspberry Pi 2 and 3
- Firmware and kernel update with rpi-update on Raspberry Pi
- Raspbian’s release change
- Check and change Raspbian package sources
- Release change from Raspbian Wheezy to Jessie
- Create minimal image of Raspbian yourself
- Minimal image of Raspbian for a 2GB SD card
- Raspberry Pi working with the command line
- Raspberry Pi Create alias on the command line
- Raspberry Pi Start, stop, restart, enable and disable services
- Raspberry Pi set user interface
- Raspberry Pi Set up a new user
- Lock/Disable Raspberry Pi user and delete
- Change Raspberry Pi user and root password
- Grant root user rights in Raspberry Pi
2. Computer Technology: Tasks and Exercises with the Raspberry Pi
The following tasks and exercises are suitable for beginners who have already made their first attempts with the Raspberry Pi and just want to learn more about the system and hardware.
The solutions are interesting for those who already know the Raspberry Pi and therefore want to work more intensively.
The solutions relate to questions that arise through the use of the system and specific tasks. In principle, the presented solutions can also be used on other systems.
- Get Raspberry Pi system information
- Reinstall vcgencmd
- Identify Linux distribution and release
- Get information about the processor
- Get information about the RAM
- Get information about the SD memory card
- Raspberry Pi HDMI output
- Raspberry Pi enable, disable and show HDMI output
- Set the Raspberry Pi screen resolution on the HDMI output
- Turn off monitor standby on the HDMI output
- Turn on plug-and-play on the HDMI output
- VGA projector or monitor with an HDMI adapter
- Pick up Raspberry Pi USB current limit
- Mount volumes, drives, and file systems
- Automatically mount USB stick with “usbmount”
- Automatically mount USB stick and USB hard disks with “fstab”
- Samba mount/mount automatically with “fstab”
- Mount NFS share
- Automatically mount NFS share with “autofs”
- Execute script/file or make executable
- Backup data to a USB stick (Raspberry Pi)
- Duplicate an SD card with the Raspberry Pi
- Overclocking the Raspberry Pi
- Changing the memory distribution of the Raspberry Pi (Memory Split)
- Setup and deactivate swapping on the Raspberry Pi
- Disable Bluetooth and WLAN (Raspberry Pi 3)
- Programming Raspberry Pi
- Programming with the Bash/Shell
- Programming with Python
- Programming with Scratch
3. Network Technology: Tasks and Exercises with Raspberry Pi
The following tasks and exercises are suitable for beginners who have already made their first attempts with the Raspberry Pi and want to or should try applications on a local network.
The solutions are also interesting for those who already know the Raspberry Pi and therefore want to work more intensively.
The solutions relate to questions that arise on concrete tasks in a network.
- Determine the network and IP configuration of your own client
- Determine the network and IP configuration of the Raspberry Pi
- Change network interfaces in Raspbian Stretch
- Static IPv4 address for Raspbian Jessie and Stretch
- IPv4 configuration with the network manager wicd-curses
- Change Raspberry Pi hostname correctly
- Change Raspberry Pi MAC address
- Set up Zeroconf / Bonjour / Avahi
- Solve Raspberry Pi network problems
- Set up network monitoring or man-in-the-middle
- Record network traffic with the Raspberry Pi (tcpdump)
- Turn on and configure Raspberry Pi IPv6
- Enable IPv6 Privacy Extensions in Raspbian Jessie
- Enable IPv6 Privacy Extensions in Raspbian Wheezy
- Set up fixed IPv6 address
- Setting up the IPv6 firewall for an IPv6 tunnel (Raspberry Pi)
- Setup IPv6 Gateway with Router Advertisement Daemon (Raspberry Pi)
- Setup Raspberry Pi WiFi adapter
- Turn off the power saving mode of the Wifi adapter
- setup WiFi with wicd-curses
- Get information about the WiFi adapter
- Set up Raspberry Pi as a WiFi access point
- Set up Raspberry Pi as a WiFi to LAN bridge
- Set up Raspberry Pi as a wireless router
- Set up the Raspberry Pi as a server step by step
- Raspberry Pi as a server in continuous operation (24/7, headless)
- Secure SSH server on the Raspberry Pi
- Remote maintenance and remote desktop with VNC, RDP and SSH
- Activate Raspberry Pi command line via SSH
- Build graphical user interface via SSH
- Setup VNC server on the Raspberry Pi (TightVNCServer)
- Setup VNC server over a secure SSH connection
- Setup VNC server on the Raspberry Pi (X11VNC)
- Setup desktop sharing via VNC with RealVNC on the Raspberry Pi
- Setup XRDP remote desktop on the Raspberry Pi
- Setup web server on the Raspberry Pi (lighttpd)
- Extend webserver with PHP5 support (lighttpd)
- Speed up web server with PHP5 on the Raspberry Pi (lighttpd)
- Setup FTP server on the Raspberry Pi
- Setup DHCP server on the Raspberry Pi
- Setup ISC DHCP server (Raspberry Pi)
- Setup DNSMASQ as a DHCP server (Raspberry Pi)
- Setup file server on the Raspberry Pi
- Setup NFS server on the Raspberry Pi
- Samba on the Raspberry Pi
- Setup Samba sharing on the Raspberry Pi
- Advanced Samba configuration
- Samba Troubleshooting
- Set up print server with CUPS and AirPrint on the Raspberry Pi
- Raspberry Pi as a MySQL backup server for a webhost database
4. Electronics: Tasks and exercises with the Raspberry Pi
- Raspberry Pi GPIO – General Purpose Input Output
- Raspberry Pi GPIO assignment
- Connect Raspberry Pi GPIO
- Connect Raspberry Pi GPIO with pull-up or pull-down resistor?
- Measurements Raspberry Pi voltage and current at the GPIO output, 3.3V pin and 5V pin under load
- Measurement Raspberry Pi voltage and current at the GPIO output with a high level under load
- Measurement Raspberry Pi voltage and current at the 3.3V pin under load
- Measurement Raspberry Pi voltage and current at the 5V pin under load
- Control and program Raspberry Pi GPIO
- Control and program Raspberry Pi GPIO with “sysfs” (shell/bash)
- Control and program Raspberry Pi GPIO with “wiringPi” (shell/bash)
- Control and program Raspberry Pi GPIO with “pigpio” (shell/bash)
- Configure/set Raspberry Pi GPIO at system startup
- Raspberry Pi GPIO input wired with button/switch
- Connect Raspberry Pi GPIO input with 5 and 12 volts
- Measure Raspberry Pi power consumption
- Overclocking Raspberry Pi
Raspberry Pi Model Comparison ChartComparison table for all the main characteristics of single-board computer models – Raspberry Pi.
Released several generations of raspberries. All models have a system on a chip (SoC) Broadcom with an integrated ARM compatible central processing unit (CPU) and a graphics processor on a chip (GPU).
The speed of the processor ranges from 700 MHz to 1.4 GHz and the built-in memory from 256 MB to 1 GB. Secure Digital (SD) cards are used to store the operating system. The boards have one to four USB ports.
For video output, HDMI and composite video are supported with a standard 3.5 mm audio output jack. The output at the lower level is provided by several GPIO pins that support common protocols such as I²C. B-models have an Ethernet port, and Pi 3 and Pi Zero W have built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth . Prices range from 5 to 35 dollars.
RPI model | Year of manufacture | CPU | GPU | Number of cores | Ram | WiFi + BT | LAN MB/sec | USB | Audio output | Video output | GPIO | Video input |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Pi 1 A | 2013 | Broadcom BCM2835 | Video Core IV | 1x700 MHz | 256 | - | - | one | I²S, HDMI, 3.5 jack | HDMI, RCA | 26 pin | CSI |
Pi 1 A+ | 2014 | Broadcom BCM2835 | Video Core IV | 1x700 MHz | 256 | - | - | one | I²S, HDMI, 3.5 jack | HDMI, TRRS | 40 pin | CSI |
Pi 1 B | 2012 | Broadcom BCM2835 | Video Core IV | 1x700 MHz | 512 | - | 100 | tow | I²S, HDMI, 3.5 jack | HDMI, RCA | 26 pin | CSI |
Pi 1 B+ | 2014 | Broadcom BCM2835 | Video Core IV | 1x700 MHz | 512 | - | 100 | four | I²S, HDMI, 3.5 jack | HDMI, TRRS | 40 pin | CSI |
Pi 2 B | 2015 | Broadcom BCM2836 | Video Core IV 250 MHz | 4x900 MHz | 1 GB | - | 100 | four | I²S, HDMI, 3.5 jack | HDMI, TRRS | 40 pin | CSI |
Pi 3 A+ | 2018 | Broadcom BCM2837B0 | Video Core IV 400 MHz | 4x1.4 GHz | 512 | 802.11ac 4.2 | - | one | I²S, HDMI, 3.5 jack | HDMI, TRRS, DSI | 40 pin | CSI |
Pi 3 B | 2016 | Broadcom BCM2837 | Video Core IV 400 MHz | 4x1.2 GHz | 1 GB | 802.11n 4.1 | 100 | four | I²S, HDMI, 3.5 jack | HDMI, TRRS, DSI | 40 pin | CSI |
Pi 3 B + | 2018 | Broadcom BCM2837B0 | Video Core IV 400 MHz | 4x1.4 GHz | 1 GB | 802.11ac 4.2 | 1000 | four | I²S, HDMI, 3.5 jack | HDMI, TRRS, DSI | 40 pin | CSI |
Pi Zero | 2015 | Broadcom BCM2835 | Video Core IV | 1x1 GHz | 512 | - | - | one | mini HDMI, GPIO PWM | mini HDMI, GPIO Composite | 40 pin | - |
Pi Zero W | 2017 | Broadcom BCM2835 | Video Core IV | 1x1 GHz | 512 | 802.11n 4.0 | - | one | mini HDMI, GPIO PWM | mini HDMI, GPIO Composite | 40 pin | - |