The book I read to research this post was Getting Started With The Raspberry Pi by Kevin Johnson which is a very good book that I bought from kindle. This book is only around 100 pages so is quite brief and doesn’t have a lot of new information. The Raspberry is a small credit card sized computer kit that comes in two models priced at $35 & $25. The more expensive model, model B is better and comes with things like an extra USB port and ethernet port. It runs of a USB power supply so doesn’t require much power and operates at 5V. One problem some people have found is model B requires a higher current that not all USB leads supply. The best operating system for the Raspberry Pi is Raspbian based on the Debian variant of Linux which is also one of the easiest to use. Some people turn their Raspberry into a home media center and it certainly is a low cost option. There is a program called XBMC that works with computers or Raspberry in different versions. Note the Raspberry uses an ARM processor like many tablets and smartphones which makes it very different to traditional computers. The ARM processor uses low power consumption and is very tiny so is great for small devices. The Raspberry Pi itself is little more than a circuit board but there are many companies that make add on components like cases and you can even link them together to make a more powerful. Model B comes with 512 MB of memory which isn’t very much compared to windows computers but does most jobs adequately especially with Raspbian. There is a Raspberry Pi App Store where the vast majority of the apps available are free. I did really enjoy this book which is well written and on an interesting subject. If you are considering getting a Raspberry Pi another option is the Beaglebone Black which comes with an operating system saving you the hassle of downloading it and there are companies that sell Raspbian already installed on an SD card for the Raspberry Pi.
