Raspberry Pi User Guide 3rd Edition

I just received my CanaKit Raspberry Pi starter kit and this User's Guide by Eben Upton. The book is very up to date and explained everything I needed to know and needed to do to get the Raspian Linux O/S installed on the Pi, and get the board fired up. The details in the book matched the board and the actual software screens exactly. I had read part of the book before the kit came. Using this book, I had the Pi up and running Raspian in the GUI mode with a display, mouse, keyboard, and wireless WiFi in less than an hour after opening the box. I am not new to computers or electronic hardware, but I had not used Linux in many years, and had never set up a Linux system ever before. I am extremely pleased with this book. It provides a balance of console commands and explanation of the GUI apps. It also gets you into programming Scratch and Python just a bit, and also into the GPIO hardware interfacing just a bit. Now that I am up and running, I will be seeking out some more detailed reference books on Linux. -pete

This book serves as a good introduction to Raspberry Pi, and Linux operating systems in general. It starts off by outlining the basic functionality of the Pi, including how to configure your Pi for different purposes, from server administration to Python programming, and even how to use it to manipulate hardware. The book is very well-written and easy to understand (as many Wiley books are), so even a complete beginner should have no problem learning with this book.The only downside to this book is that even though this edition was only published in 2014, it's already a little bit outdated, especially with the recent release of the Raspberry Pi 2 Model B. You'll find that some of the commands listed in the book don't work 100% correctly, at least if you're using the most current version of Raspbian. However, a quick Google search of the problem, will turn up plenty of results on how to resolve the issues. Most of the time, it simply involves eliminating a word or two from a command, because it became obsolete between the time this edition was published and now.However, I would still recommend this book to anyone looking to start tinkering with a Raspberry Pi. I bought this book a few weeks ago, and with this book (and the help of a friend), I was able to quickly get a web server up and running where I am currently hosting a personal website, and I may even by another Pi to tinker around some more. I almost gave this book 3 stars due to the issues I had with some of the commands, but I think this book still functions as a good primer to the Raspberry Pi, and based on the quality of the content, deserved at least 4 stars.

I just bought my rasberry pi 3 b+ so i needed a book to get me started. This is the book. It goes over all the essentials, first talks quickly about the versions and their revisions. A,B,B+. Tells you how to hook up the essentials, mouse, keyboard, display, and then how to get your OS on the board, then an explanation on python programming. It then goes into some uses for it, home theater, minecraft pi, webserver, and how to use a camera with it, then talks about it's gpio port, which is it's gateway to other projects and boards to use sensors and using breadboards and resistors to make your own projects. It's just a starter to get familiar at the things you will probably use it for in your project. But it's just a starter book, it lets you know how to start, but you'll have to go from there. Overall, to me a really cool little device thats strong enough to be a small computer for you on the go, or the brains behind your next project, be it a robot, smart drone, network protector, etc.

I purchased the Raspberry Pi User Guide along with a Raspberry Pi unit as a gift for my husband; the book was a suggested item when I purchased the unit. He loves it! He uses it to practice writing code (I believe he has even written a few programs for his work using the unit). At first, he jumped right in to using the Raspberry Pi unit without reading the book, however, after slow goings, he picked up the book and read it cover to cover. He even began highlighting and marking passages for future reference. After asking for a review, he says "Five stars, the book explains how to use and the capabilities of the unit in an easy to understand manner. Even a complete novice to the world of computer science and code writing would be able to get started using this book."

I purchased the Kindle edition of this book to read on the 2nd generation (black and white) keyboard Kindle. The illustrations leave a little to be desired when viewed in Black and White. However, once purchased I was also able to view it using the Kindle app on both Windows 7 desktop and on my Windows phone running Windows 8.1. Both of the latter support color and made the illustrations and photos much easier to read and decipher.One of the nice things about this book is that it was written by a member of the Raspberry Pi team. It gives a good perspective on why the Raspberry Pi was developed and describes some of the rationale you'd expect from an insider.I was a little disappointed that the book didn't have more in-depth coverage of the details of the hardware. Because it was called a "User Guide" I expected its coverage to be an exhaustive reference. It's more of a "survey" of the Raspberry Pi's capabilities.

Definitely for the beginner. If you don't know Linux or anything about hardware this is the book for you. If you are intermediate or advanced and have used the Linux command line this book is probably not too much help. It does have some (but not enough) information specific to the Raspberry PI hardware. For me it was a bit to beginner. The first section on the history and development of the PI and the project was interesting. For the price it was OK.