Reddit reviews Getting Started with Raspberry Pi (Make: Projects)

I've suggested it to a lot of people today (looks like that askreddit thread got a lot of new subscribers over here)

Grab this book. It's a fantastic little book that will get you from 0 knowledge of Linux and the Raspberry Pi, to making a simple game, to setting up buttons to turn lights on/off, to making a file server.

By the time you're done with this book, the only thing you'll be limited to is your imagination. You'll have enough technical knowhow to do most things, and if you don't, you'll know enough of the correct keywords to look it up. It's really a great place to start.

1. Get a model B+. The biggest improvement as far as a novice user is concerned is that it has 4 USB ports. The model B only had 2, so if you wanted to plug in something like mouse + keyboard + WiFi dongle + webcam, you'd need an external powered USB hub. So the B+ is well worth it just for that.
   
   
2. Don't feel bad - you're right that a lot of the blog posts/tutorials you can find online are written for people who already understand Linux and electronics, so will be full of jargon that you don't understand. For example, many people will point you to the elinux.org wiki in the sidebar - but IMO that isn't well-written for beginners, so it isn't a good starting point.
   
   There are definitely some completely beginner-friendly resources out there. Many of them have a series of lessons you can follow one at a time. Typical "beginner" tutorials will start you off with something very simple, like blinking an LED. Then you learn how to use a button press to toggle an LED on and off. This gets you familiar with the very basics of inputs and outputs, and then you can start doing more complicated projects.
   
   Here are four YouTube channels with good tutorial videos (they were linked to from the official announcement of the Model B+, so you know they're legit):
   
   

• RaspberryPiIVBeginners (particularly check out the series of "Raspberry Pi - GPIO & Python" videos here)
  
• The Raspberry Pi Guy
  
• Raspi.TV
  
• Geek Gurl Diaries
  
  If you don't mind spending money, I definitely recommend this book:
  
  
• Getting Started with Raspberry Pi
  
  This book is written for kids, but it's just as useful to a novice adult:
  
  
• Adventures in Raspberry Pi
  
  I haven't looked through any of these in detail yet, but there are a bunch of resources on the official website (and ideally, since their original mission was K-12 education, these will be written for beginners):
  
  http://www.raspberrypi.org/resources/learn/
  
  Anyway - I'd probably recommend starting out with the "blink an LED, push a button" route, but it's up to you. Browse through the tutorials and see if there's something that really catches your eye. If you have trouble understanding something, feel free to message me (I work in science education so I'm used to explaining stuff like this), or just make a new post in this sub. Generally, if you've at least tried to figure it out on your own/have done your homework and can write an articulate post like you've done here, you'll get some helpful responses (as opposed to "hey guyz i don't understand/know what to do with a raspberry pi what should i do", in which case people will usually tell you to go Google it).

Here are 2 awesome guides: 1 & 2. But as indicated in this thread you probably should get a well know micro-controller and use it to build a knowledge base. The Arduino is an Italian micro-controller that is based on an Atmel chipset. It has a massive online following and support for it can be found in /r/Arduino or here at their website. This has numerous shields that can be added on to add features. These are things like GPRS (SMS and Mobile connectivity), Ethernet (Wireless) and Motor Control. You can buy components and such from: https://www.sparkfun.com/ ; https://www.adafruit.com/ ; http://www.mouser.com/ . The Arduino favors hardware prototyping and tinkering. The Arduino is programmed using its own software that is free and available. It has its own IDE (integrated development Environment) and is programmed using its own take on the assembly language. It is quite easy to use, well supported and open source.

Also, you might consider the Raspberry Pi which is explained in this Ted Talk by Eben Upton one of the creators of the board. I believe it uses AVR. The "A" board is slightly smaller (storage) and boots linux from a SD card or Flash as does the "B" which has slightly more storage and WiFi hardware. The Pi is typically programmed in Python but can be used I think with almost any language(C, C+, Assembly etc.)

Also, there is a Micro called BeagleBone. It is similar to Pi but has a few different features. It is very powerful and can be researched(as a starting point here. I know very little about this board and believe it to be more advanced than the former 2 I had mentioned.

These resources can be used for the Arduino: Getting Started and Cookbook.

A few resources to get started: Python & Pi and Getting Started

The first 2 resources I listed 1 & & 2 Are absolutely brilliant. They teach basic electronics introduction to Eagle Cad A free PCB (printed Circuit Board) program that people use to draw schematics and PCB. Which is pretty important. I linked the free version which is more than powerful enough for a beginner. The resource [1] is really helpful I would read it thoroughly if interested. Also, places like http://makezine.com/ is a good place for DIYers. Also you might like this news channel that follows hacker stuff (it is from Y-Combinator an Incubator for some silicon valley start ups) listed here. These links should cover you for a while.

Getting started with Raspberry Pi by Matt Richardson and Shawn Wallace should be good. Haven't read it though, but I've heard it's a good read.