Tag Archives: Raspberry Pi Resources

Merry Christmas to all Raspberry Pi recipients — help is here!

2020-12-25 Ashley Whittaker

Post Syndicated from Ashley Whittaker original https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/merry-christmas-to-all-raspberry-pi-recipients-help-is-here/

Note: We’re not *really* here, we just dropped in to point you in the right direction with your new Raspberry Pi toys, then we’re disappearing again to enjoy the rest of the festive season. See you on 4 January 2021!

a raspberry pi 400 box peeking out of christmas wrapping paper — Photographer Brian’s wrapping skills are A+

So… what did you get? We launched a ton of new products this year, so we’ll walk you through what to do with each of them, as well as how to get started if you received a classic Raspberry Pi.

Community

First things first: welcome! You’re one of us now, so why not take a moment to meet your fellow Raspberry Pi folk and join our social communities?

You can hang out with us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram. And we’ve got two YouTube channels: a channel for the tech fans and makers, and a channel for young people, parents, and educators. Subscribe to the one you like best — or even BOTH of them!

Tag us on social media in a photo with your favourite Christmas present and let us know what you plan to do with your new Raspberry Pi!

Raspberry Pi 400

If you were lucky enough to get a Raspberry Pi 400 Personal Computer Kit, all you have to do is find a monitor (a TV will also do), plug in, and go. It really is that simple. In fact, when we launched it, Eben Upton described it as a “Christmas morning product”. Always thinking ahead, that guy.

If you got a Raspberry Pi 400 unit on its own, you’ll need to find a mouse and power supply as well as a monitor. You also won’t have received the official Raspberry Pi Beginner’s Guide that comes with the kit, so you can pick one up from the Raspberry Pi Press online store, or download a PDF for free, courtesy of The MagPi magazine.

Raspberry Pi High Quality Camera

You are going to LOVE playing around with this if you got one in your stocking. The Raspberry Pi High Quality Camera is 12.3 megapixels of fun, and the latest addition to the Raspberry Pi camera family.

This video shows you how to set up your new toy. And you can pick up the Official Raspberry Pi Camera Guide for a more comprehensive walkthrough. You can purchase the book in print today from the Raspberry Pi Press store for £10, or download the PDF for free from The MagPi magazine website.

Share your photos using #ShotOnRaspberryPi. We retweet the really good ones!

Operating systems & online support

If you got one of our classic Raspberry Pi boards, make sure to get the latest version of Raspberry Pi OS, our official supported operating system.

The easiest way to flash the OS onto your SD card is using the Raspberry Pi Imager. Take 40 seconds to watch the video below to learn how to do that.

Help for newbies

If you’re a complete newbie, our help pages are the best place to start in case you’re a bit daunted by where to plug everything in on your very first Raspberry Pi. If you want step-by-step help, you can also take our free online course “Getting Started with Your Raspberry Pi”.

Once you’ve got the hang of things, our forum will become your home from home. Gazillions of Raspberry Pi superfans hang out there and can answer pretty much any question you throw at them – try searching first, because many questions have already been asked and answered, and perhaps yours has too.

Robots, games, digital art & more

screen grab of raspberry pi projects homepage

When you’re feeling comfortable with the basics, why not head over to our projects page and pick something cool to make?

You could program your own poetry generator, create an alien language, or build a line-following robot. Choose from over 200 step-by-step projects!

The Raspberry Pi blog is also a great place to find inspiration. We share the best projects from our global community, and things for all abilities pop up every week day. If you want us to do the heavy lifting for you, just sign up to Raspberry Pi Weekly, and we’ll send you the top blogs and Raspberry Pi-related news each week.

Babbage Bear

And if you got your very own Babbage Bear: love them, cherish them, and keep them safe. They’re of a nervous disposition so talk quietly to them for the first few days, to let them get used to you.

LOVE YOU, BYE

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Raspberry Pi Imager update

2020-12-23

Post Syndicated from original https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/raspberry-pi-imager-update/

Just in time for the holidays, we’ve updated Raspberry Pi Imager to add some new functionality.

New submenu support: previous versions of Raspberry Pi Imager were limited to a single level of submenu. This limitation has been fixed so we can group images into different categories, such as general purpose operating systems, media players, and gaming and emulation.
New icons from our design team: easy on the eyes!
Version tracking: the menu file that Imager downloads from the Raspberry Pi website now includes an entry defining its latest version number, so in future, we can tell you when an updated Imager application is available.
Download telemetry: we’ve added some simple download telemetry to help us log how popular the various operating systems are.

You can go to our software page to download and install the new version 1.5 release of Raspberry Pi Imager and use it now.

We haven’t done telemetry in Imager before, and since people tend — rightly — to be concerned about applications gathering data, we want to explain exactly what we are doing and why: we’re logging which operating systems and categories people download, so we can make sure the most popular options are easy enough to find in Raspberry Pi Imager’s menu system.

We don’t record any personal data, such as your IP address; the information we collect allows us to see the number of downloads of each operating system over time, and nothing else. You’ll find more detailed information, including how to opt out of telemetry, in the Raspberry Pi Imager GitHub README.md.

You can see which OSes are most often downloaded too, on our stats page.

As you can see, the default recommended Raspberry Pi OS image is indeed the most downloaded option. The recently released Ubuntu Desktop for Raspberry Pi 4 and Raspberry Pi 400 is the most popular third-party operating system.

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Supporting Raspberry Pi’s industrial customers

2020-12-16 Roger Thornton

Post Syndicated from Roger Thornton original https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/supporting-raspberry-pis-industrial-customers/

Raspberry Pi computers have always been used in a huge variety of settings, since the combination of low cost, high performance, and ease of use make it an ideal device for almost any application. We’ve seen a large proportion of sales go into the industrial market – businesses using Raspberry Pi, rather than educational settings or individual consumers. Today we’re announcing new support for this group of customers: a dedicated area of our website for industry, and our Raspberry Pi Approved Design Partners programme, connecting businesses that want to integrate Raspberry Pi into their products with hand-picked design partners who can help.

Screenshot from our Industrial web page featuring top performance stats

The industrial market for Raspberry Pi has grown over the years, and now represents around 44% of our annual total sales. We’ve seen this borne out with new releases of Raspberry Pi products: typically sales of a consumer product drop off once a new product is released, but we still see incredible sales of older models of Raspberry Pi. Our inference is that these are destined for embedded applications, where changing to the latest model is not practical.

A new online resource for industry

To support Raspberry Pi’s industrial customers, we have developed a new, dedicated area of our website. Our For industry pages are the best place to go for industrial applications of Raspberry Pi. They provide access to the information and support you need when using our products in an industrial setting, with links to datasheets, compliance documents, and more.

As part of our commitment to industrial customers, we guarantee product lifetimes until at least 2026 on all products. We rarely ever end a product line – in fact, you can still buy Raspberry Pi 1 Model B+ from 2014. And we’ve made it easy for you to take a product through the necessary regulatory compliance steps, with the Raspberry Pi Integrator Programme.

Raspberry Pi Approved Design Partners

Along with our online resources for industry, we’re announcing a new programme to help customers who want to integrate Raspberry Pi into their products, and to recognise companies with specialist knowledge and proven expertise in designing with Raspberry Pi. The Raspberry Pi Approved Design Partners programme is a way of connecting trusted design consultancies with customers who need support designing Raspberry Pi computing solutions into their products.

We’re launching with a select set of designers whom we already know and work with, and we hope to grow this group over the coming years. If your company provides hardware, software, or mechanical design services with Raspberry Pi, and you’d like us to promote your offering on our website, you can find out more about applying to become a Raspberry Pi Approved Design Partner.

If you have a product or a piece of work that uses Raspberry Pi, and you need technical assistance, Raspberry Pi Approved Design Partners have the capacity to provide you with effective help. All our Design Partners have been through a rigorous application process, and we will monitor them regularly for quality and ability. You can be confident that Raspberry Pi Approved Design Partners have the backing of Raspberry Pi, and have access to a deep level of technical knowledge and support within Raspberry Pi.

We’re excited to help customers build fantastic products using Raspberry Pi, and we’re looking forward to working with a diverse range of designers across the world.

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New book: The Official Raspberry Pi Handbook 2021

2020-11-27 Ashley Whittaker

Post Syndicated from Ashley Whittaker original https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/new-book-the-official-raspberry-pi-handbook-2021/

Hey everyone, come and see, come and see! Here’s a great new bookazine from the makers of the official Raspberry Pi magazine. We do love the folks at The MagPi. Clever, they are.

If, like us, you’re over 2020 already, dive into the pages of The Official Raspberry Pi Handbook 2021, and pretend it never happened. That will totally work.

The front cover of the Raspberry Pi Handbook featuring a Raspberry Pi 4 on a dark background

To help you get the most of out of your Raspberry Pi computer, this official Handbook features 200 pages of essential information, inspiring projects, practical tutorials, and definitive reviews.

Beginner-friendly

A blue double page spread on Starter Electronics

If you’re an absolute beginner, you can learn from the Handbook how to set up your Raspberry Pi and start using it. Then you can move on to the step-by-step tutorials that will teach you how to code and make with your Raspberry Pi.

Shiny new stuff

A double page spread about Raspberry Pi 400

You’ll also (re)discover the new Raspberry Pi 400 and High Quality Camera, both released this year. And you’ll find out about the top kits and accessories for your projects.

Be inspired

A double page spread about Reachy robot. Robot is white with big black eyes and a stripy torso

And finally, we’ve also picked out some incredible Raspberry Pi projects made by people in the community to inspire you to get making and coding.

Where can I get the Handbook?

A double page spread on problem solving with Raspberry Pi

You can buy The Official Raspberry Pi Handbook 2021 now from the Raspberry Pi Press online store, or at the Raspberry Pi store in Cambridge, UK.

Personally, we prefer new book smell and the crackle of physical pages but, if you’re less picky and don’t mind on-screen reading, the lovely folks at The MagPi have a PDF version you can download for free.

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