What this book covers

This book explores a range of recipes for the novice user, gaining in complexity as the material progresses. In a nutshell, these are the chapters and their topics:

Chapter 1, Setting Up for the First Time, starts by booting up your board out of the box, getting it connected online, teaching how to control it remotely, and then diving into the essential Linux command-line commands.

Chapter 2, Basic Programming Recipes, moves briskly along to scenarios using several flavors of programming ingredients on BeagleBone Black, including BoneScript (an easy JavaScript variant for BeagleBone), Node.js, Python, and Johnny Five.

Chapter 3, Physical Computing Recipes Using JavaScript, the BoneScript Library, and Python, tells it like it is as we will take the recipes discussed in Chapter 2, Basic Programming Recipes and apply them to the use of buttons, sensors, LEDs, and motors.

Chapter 4, Exploring GNU/Linux Recipes Using Bash, Autotools, Debugger, and systemd, looks at some foundational Linux tools that you will need to bend the board to your will, tools that come in handy for a wide variety of use cases.

Chapter 5, Basic Programming Recipes with the Linux Kernel, helps you start putting your arms around the system kernel by installing the latest version and then building a custom kernel. We will also will cook up some mischief with one of the hallmarks of all ARM devices, Device Tree, which makes it easier to add peripherals and daughterboards to your system. We will finish using the universal cape overlay, a toolset that makes manipulating GPIO pins and Device Tree infinitely simpler.

Chapter 6, Run Faster, Run Real Time, enables you to get more advanced in your skills; you will learn how to modify the Linux kernel (yikes!) and then dive into the realm of real-time computing, looking at recipes to use the RT-PREEMPT patch, Xenomai, and the unique subsystem features of BeagleBone Black—the programmable real-time units (PRUs).

Chapter 7, Applied Recipes – Sound, Picture, and Video, looks at some ways to use sound, display, and video in your projects. We will begin by wiring up a mini sound amplifier and speakers and then take this lesson to creating a high-quality audio platform using the open source music platform, Volumio. Then, we will cook up a variety of recipes to utilize video and different types of displays in projects, including an OLED and a mini LCD. This chapter ends by building a video chat client from source.

Chapter 8, The Internet of Things, plunges into a sampling of things for the Internet of Things; things such as looking at ways to use sensors with middleware systems, setting up location-based devices to interact with BeagleBone Black, and mix a recipe for making a smarter object, specifically a cloud-driven digital picture frame.

Chapter 9, The Black in Outer Space, concludes the book by heading into more distant regions: outer space (or near space, to be more exact), delving into recipes to track satellites and craft, such as the International Space Station. We will discuss how to use the very low-cost but powerful and exciting Software Define Radio chip RTL-SDR.