The purpose of this book is to get you started with the Raspberry Pi. We will try and cover many different topics to demonstrate the flexibility of the Raspberry Pi. The main goal of the book is to get you started on this project that you were just not so sure about.
Chapter 1, Getting Started with Raspberry Pi, will check the basic equipment that we need to use with this book. We will have to look into the other peripherals that we buy and see how the Raspberry works. We then will be seeing how to flash the newest Raspbian image to our SD card.
Chapter 2, Preparing the Network, will illustrate how to set up LAN and a wireless connection to our network and connect to the Internet. We will set some network benchmarks and understand some limitations. We will also look into Dynamic DNS hosting.
Chapter 3, Configuring Extra Features, will illustrate how to update the software and the firmware of the Raspberry Pi. We will learn about the watchdog and how to buy extra decoder licenses.
Chapter 4, Using a Fast PHP Web Server and Database, will illustrate how to set up a fast web server using nginx with PHP, and decide if we want to use MySQL or SQLite.
Chapter 5, Setting Up a File Server, will illustrate how to attach a USB storage medium and how to format it. We will not only look into various ways of sending data to the Raspberry Pi, but also how to share media on the network. As an extra task, we will look into creating the hardware RAID!
Chapter 6, Setting Up the Game Servers, will explore open source game engines that are available on the repository. We will also have a sneak peek into the Jessie repository that is in beta testing.
Chapter 7, Bitcoins – Pools and Mining, will illustrate the concept of cryptographic currencies, and we will try and understand what Bitcoin is. We will set up a wallet and learn how to send and receive coins. We will also venture into mining equipment and learn about mining pools.
Chapter 8, Streaming Live HD Video, will explore the camera module and decide if we should use FFmpeg or grstreamer. We will compile a custom version of Nginx and start streaming videos to the World Wide Web!
Chapter 9, Setting Up a Media Center, will illustrate how to finally attach an HD monitor and play some videos that we recorded or downloaded earlier. We will also look into RaspBMC and the benefits of running it as a dedicated media player.
You need at least a Raspberry Pi model B, recommended 8 GB (4 GB minimum) SD card, 1 Amp micro USB power supply, and a network cable.
This book is mainly targeted at novices with a keen sense of hacking and learning things. Almost the entire book is explained using the power of command lines over SSH.
In this book, you will find a number of styles of text that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles, and an explanation of their meaning.
Code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles are shown as follows: "The kernel.img connects the application to the hardware."
A block of code is set as follows:
#! /bin/sh
# /etc/init.d/btsync
#
# Carry out specific functions when asked to by the system
case "$1" in
start)
/home/root/.btsync/btsync
;;
stop)
killall btsync
;;
*)
echo "Usage: /etc/init.d/btsync {start|stop}"
exit 1
;;
esac
exit 0Any command-line input or output is written as follows:
mkdir ~/.btsync && cd ~/.btsync wget http://btsync.s3-website-us-east-1.amazonaws.com/btsync_arm.tar.gz tar -zxvf btsync_arm.tar.gz ./btsync
New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, in menus or dialog boxes for example, appear in the text like this: "Password: The password of that user."
Feedback from our readers is always welcome. Let us know what you think about this book—what you liked or may have disliked. Reader feedback is important for us to develop titles that you really get the most out of.
To send us general feedback, simply send an e-mail to <[email protected]>, and mention the book title via the subject of your message.
If there is a topic that you have expertise in and you are interested in either writing or contributing to a book, see our author guide on www.packtpub.com/authors.
Now that you are the proud owner of a Packt book, we have a number of things to help you to get the most from your purchase.
You can download the example code files for all Packt books you have purchased from your account at http://www.packtpub.com. If you purchased this book elsewhere, you can visit http://www.packtpub.com/support and register to have the files e-mailed directly to you.
Although we have taken every care to ensure the accuracy of our content, mistakes do happen. If you find a mistake in one of our books—maybe a mistake in the text or the code—we would be grateful if you would report this to us. By doing so, you can save other readers from frustration and help us improve subsequent versions of this book. If you find any errata, please report them by visiting http://www.packtpub.com/submit-errata, selecting your book, clicking on the errata submission form link, and entering the details of your errata. Once your errata are verified, your submission will be accepted and the errata will be uploaded on our website, or added to any list of existing errata, under the Errata section of that title. Any existing errata can be viewed by selecting your title from http://www.packtpub.com/support.
Piracy of copyright material on the Internet is an ongoing problem across all media. At Packt, we take the protection of our copyright and licenses very seriously. If you come across any illegal copies of our works, in any form, on the Internet, please provide us with the location address or website name immediately so that we can pursue a remedy.
Please contact us at <[email protected]> with a link to the suspected pirated material.
We appreciate your help in protecting our authors, and our ability to bring you valuable content.
You can contact us at <[email protected]> if you are having a problem with any aspect of the book, and we will do our best to address it.