This article is an introduction to the Raspberry Pi. Learn what is a Raspberry Pi and what can you use it for. Explore its features, set it up, and install the operating system.
The Raspberry Pi is a small computer board about the size of a credit card. It was developed in the United Kingdom by the Raspberry Pi Foundation to promote basic computer science teaching in schools. Since its first general sale in 2012, more than 46 million Raspberry Pi boards have been sold by February 2022.
The Raspberry Pi has become tremendously popular among kids and electronics hobbyists, experienced makers, tinkerers, and even computer scientists.
The Raspberry Pi is hackable and small. So, it’s the perfect solution for tinkerers!
In some way, you can look at the Raspberry Pi like a normal computer, it has a processor, RAM, USB ports to plug a keyboard and a mouse, an HDMI port to plug a TV or monitor, and you can even connect it to the internet.
You can do most things you do with a regular computer like web browsing, document editing, playing games, coding, and much more. The figure below shows the Raspberry Pi 3 set up as a desktop computer.
However, you don’t even need those accessories (mouse, keyboard, and monitor) if you don’t want to set it as a Desktop computer. It can run headless and you can control it remotely using Linux commands via a Terminal after establishing an SSH connection, for example.
The Raspberry Pi board has one special feature that normal computers don’t: General Purpose Input Output (GPIOs) Pins. These GPIOs let you interact with the real world allowing you to build great electronics projects. Inputs can read data from sensors. Output signals can be sent to actuators to turn something on and off.
There are no limits to what you can do with your Raspberry Pi. Here are just some examples:
You can also read our article dedicated to Raspberry Pi uses: 11 Clever Uses for Your Raspberry Pi
There are different releases of the Raspberry Pi board. Here’s a list of the most relevant:
If you don’t have a Raspberry Pi board yet, we recommend you get a Raspberry Pi 4 or 5 (preferable) or a Raspberry Pi 3 B+.
The Raspberry Pi 4 offers a choice of memory capacities. You can get a Pi with 1GB, 2G, 4GB, or 8GB of RAM.
Architecture | ARM v8-A 64-bit |
SoC | Broadcom BCM2711 |
CPU | 1.5 GHz 64-bit quad-core ARM Cortex-A72 |
RAM | 1GB, 2GB, 4GB, or 8GB LPDDR4-3200 SDRAM (depending on model) |
Wireless LAN | 2.4GHz and 5GHz |
Bluetooth | Bluetooth 5.0 and BLE |
Supports PoE | Yes (requires separate PoE HAT) |
GPIOs | 40 |
Ports | 2x micro HDMI 3.5 mm analog audio-video jack 2x USB 3.0, and 2x USB 2.0 Gigabit Ethernet Camera Serial Interface (CSI) Display Serial Interface (DSI) |
Where to Buy? | Get a Raspberry Pi Official Raspberry Pi Website |
The figure below shows the Raspberry Pi 4 Model B annotated.
Here’s a glance at what each component of the Raspberry Pi does:
When you buy a Raspberry Pi board, you only get a bare electronic board that doesn’t do much on its own. You need several accessories to get started.
There are a lot of accessories for the Raspberry Pi, but you need at least a microSD card and a power supply. Without these accessories your Raspberry Pi is useless.
* you can get an expansion board that lets you add a SATA hard disk drive (HDD) or solid-state drive (SSD).
There are also useful accessories you may consider getting like an HDMI cable to connect a monitor, and a Raspberry Pi case to protect your board. A spare mouse and keyboard can also be useful to set your Raspberry Pi as a desktop computer.
If this is your first time around the Raspberry Pi, you may consider getting a Raspberry Pi starter kit that comes with the essential accessories to get started. You can also read our post about the Best Raspberry Pi 4 Starter Kits.
There are several operating systems suitable for the Pi. The official distribution for the Raspberry Pi is Raspberry Pi OS and that’s the one we recommend you install (specially if you’re a beginner, because it is the most supported).
1) Start by connecting the microSD card to your computer.
2) Go to the Raspberry Pi Software page.
3) Select and download the Raspberry Pi Imager (a tool to flash the OS on the microSD card) for your computer’s operating system.
4) Click on the downloaded file to install the Raspberry Pi Imager.
5) When the installation is complete, the Raspberry Pi Imager will open.
6) Click on Choose Device and select the Raspberry Pi board you’re using.
7) Click on Choose OS to select the Operating System. Select the Raspberry Pi OS (32-bit) or (64-bit).
8) Choose storage. You must choose the microSD card where you want to install the OS.
9) Click Next. Next, you’ll be asked if you would like to apply customisation settings. Click on Edit Settings to set up the Wi-Fi credentials, and enable SSH.
10) Under the GENERAL tab, you can set an hostname (the default will be raspberrypi), user, and password, and set Wi-Fi with your local network credentials, so that you can connect to your Raspberry Pi using Wi-Fi later on. You can also select your timezone.
Don’t forget to set your Wireless LAN country!
11) Then, click on the SERVICES tab and enable SSH with password authentication.
12) Click Save. You’ll be asked if you want to apply the OS customisation settings. Click YES.
13) Finally, you’ll be asked if you want to continue. Click YES to start burning the Raspberry Pi OS on the microSD card.
14) Wait a few minutes while it installs the Operating System.
15) When the installation is complete click on Continue. It will eject the microSD card safely.
Now, remove the card from your computer and insert it into your Raspberry Pi. Then, apply power to the Raspberry Pi to start it.
If you’re running the Raspberry Pi headless, you can establish an SSH connection with your Pi to install software, run programs, create folders, and files, etc.
The following figure shows the Raspberry Pi 3 GPIOs pinout that you can use for future reference.
This pinout is the same for Raspberry Pi 4, Raspberry Pi 2 Model B, Raspberry Pi 1 Model A+, Raspberry Pi Model B+, Raspberry Pi Zero, and Raspberry Pi Zero W.
Raspberry Pi 1 Model A and the Raspberry Pi 1 Model B Rev.2 only have the first 26 pins.
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