Exploring Raspberry Pi: Interfacing to the Real World with Embedded Linux

This is a superb piece of technical writing, truly a joy to read (speaking as a computer geek, of course!). Not only is the coverage of great breadth, but most topics are covered in great depth, too. The examples are clear and concise, and I have followed many of them on my Linux laptop with networked Raspberry Pi. The chapter on software cross-development was particularly useful, and be sure to watch the author's YouTube video on the same subject. Although the book is about the Raspberry Pi, I found that reading it greatly increased my knowledge of Linux-based software development, including clearing up many mysterious points that I haven't found well-explained until now. Although it is a masterful work, it is also quite technical, so this might not be the best book for people just starting out with programming and computers. But if you are a "maker" wanting to use a Raspberry Pi, I consider this book to be an essential gold mine of information and techniques. A slight shortcoming: many of the printed diagrams are quite small (no doubt to keep the page count down - it's already a big book), but the companion website for the book has large color versions of many of the diagrams.

I'm amazed at the amount of useful information in this one book, covering everything from the interfacing requirements for the Raspberry Pi GPIO (including analog, digital, I2C and SPL formats), to understanding how to control larger, heavier current workloads using the low voltage, low current RPi outputs to switch transistors, op amps, and other devices and isolate circuits to avoid loop back interference or damage/destroy your RPi. The author spends significant time and goes in depth to explain serial and parallel voltage and current, how to calculate resistor values to attain desired a low, safe current limit for your circuits, and the importance of pull-up and pull-down resistors for digital circuits. Even if you have prior experience with basic electronics, the chapters that cover the essential math for calculating voltage drops, current, and power dissipation are well worth taking the time to review. I also like the author's familiarity with many common electronic components and integrated circuits, and their emphasis on which ones are most commonly used for specific applications. You can go through this book and spend maybe $100 to stock up on most/all? of the components that they reference, and build any and all of the examples in this book. The explanations are very clear and as simple as necessary, and you *will* walk away from this book with enough knowledge to build real, working circuits to control and respond to external devices using any RPi. This book would make an ideal textbook for a 200 level college course on robotics, because it covers everything soup-to-nuts, from concept to design to implementation.

Make no mistake, this is not for beginners. You need to know how to program already, or you will be totally lost. And as far as EE stuff, you have to be a quick learner, and pretty smart to be able to starting building circuits from this book. That said, the book provides enough information to both build the circuits and program the code without needing any other training. But coming in cold you will struggle a bit. This is an advanced book. I would still advise to get this book! Because you can supplement if you get stuck. But this book takes you through every part of the pi from the hardware to the custom linux kernel, and explains everything in gory detail. It teaches the fundamentals of every interface on the pi: gpio, spi, i2c, uart, wireless, you name it. And it teaches you the basic concepts so that you are empowered to hook ANY device to it. Its not just a cookbook for say, connecting a temperature sensor to i2c. It teaches the electrical interface, protocols, and linux code to hook up any i2c decive and write your own driver code. My background is a c# web developer with hobby level ee knowledge. I had no problems with hitting the ground running with everything in the book, even coding in c, which i have no really ever done professionally, and not for 20 years. Get this book.

Fairly comprehensive for both beginner hardware meddlers (me) and beginner programmers (not me). There is a lot of material to absorb, so for me, it's more of a reference than a book to "read". But I find it more thorough than much of the online "tutorial" material associated with the Pi. A good book to have on the bookshelf. Minor complaints: there are lots of monochrome photos and diagrams of boards. The photos are too dark and rather indistinct, which is the unfortunate norm for reproduction on unglossy paper. The diagrams likewise are often too dark; I suspect they were reproduced from colour originals. The edition I have goes up to the Pi Zero. Some day, it should be updated to add newer models (4, Zero 2) and to deemphasize or even remove the older models.

This book covers a lot of area but be prepared to work hard if you read it. The examples are available for download on Github. The book is absolutely excellent. Clearly written with a great amount of detail, though the reader must realize there is a limit to how much info can be packed in a single book. Although beginners could read this book, I believe that it would be slow going for them. If you don't have some technical background I would suggest you look for a more basic book. This book covers topics such as RPi boot up sequence, Linux commands, hardware interfacing and useful projects. I'm an EE with programming experience in Windows and I found the Linux section easy to understand, but very slow going, due to the vastness of Linux. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in putting in the effort required to really learn the RPi and how to interface to other computers.

I'm a long time Linux user at work and home. I've been playing with the Raspberry Pi for a few years now as a basic Linux computer, but I always felt that interfacing it to other devices would make this a much more powerful little platform. This books covers all that's necessary to do that, but beware - it's not for those who don't want to dive deep into the technical details. Dr. Molloy teaches computer science at the college level, and there's detail here that represents that background. But it's all extremely well-supported within the book, along with his dedicated book website. All of the code examples he writes can be found there, along with excellent supplemental material. The book starts from basics - Raspberry Pi hardware, basic Linux commands, basic circuits for interfacing, etc. He then gets into the depths of how to interface all of these together. I'm fortunate to have enough background in these areas to weave through this, but those with less of a computer or electronics background might want to have a local geek or two handy to call in for help when needed. He has excellent coding examples in multiple languages, builds from simple to more complex examples, and provides libraries to continue your own programming projects using the knowledge you have gained throughout the book. I'm an Electrical / Computer Engineer by trade, and I've had an interest in introducing hobby electronics to my kids. When I first saw the Raspberry Pi, I thought this might be the ideal platform on which to develop that. This book is the missing piece to that puzzle for me. It's exactly what I was hoping for, with all the details one could want about making this magnificent little board talk to other devices. I picture many blinking lights and beeping speakers in the months to come as a result of this book! I consider this a bargain-priced book for everything that's contained within it. If there's something you want to connect up to a Raspberry Pi, odds are, there's a solution somewhere in this book. I highly recommend it.

This book is fantastic. I loved Eben Upton's recent book on learning computer architecture through the Raspberry Pi, but I like this one even more. To make this review much shorter - if you want to do projects with the RPi, buy this book. It explains things about how the RPi works in great detail, gives tons of examples of sample circuits, and shows the math as well for calculating current drain and voltage drops for most of the circuits, so you're not just plugging things in blindly. It is full of practical advice on how to wire things up so you do things properly and don't blow up your Pi (like "use an optocoupler if you have an external power supply connected to the load"). Further, it has an extensive section on programming the Pi, showing programs at a variety of complexity levels and running times to turn the GPIO pins on and off (which is what we most care about when programming the Pi).

Dr. Derek Molloy clearly knows his subject! I am impressed with how easily he presents the information, and with the sage advice he delivers to the reader. You will not be overwhelmed. The information is presented in easily-digested tidbits, with advise all throughout the book to "worry about that later", or "see chapter x" (etc.) to keep you from losing your train of thought if this is your first exposure to the material. A very, very easy read. Dr. Molloy consistently delivers only the information you actually need to handle the topic being presented. A very delicate balance that he manages gracefully. This book will take you from your first introduction of the Pi to a "seasoned maker"! I am going to be gifting this book to my friends, co-workers and local clubs. An excellent resource!! I simply can't say enough positive about this book!

Ich besitze mittlerweile sehr viele Bücher zum Thema Raspberry, da ich mehrere parallele Raspi 3B+ Cluster betreibe und jede Menge kleinere und größere Steuerungsaufgaben mit selbstentwickelter Elektronik über Raspis laufen. Daher war/bin ich immer auf der Suche nach weiteren Details. Dieses Buch ist für mich eines der besten zum Raspi überhaupt, weil es neben einer soliden Einführung in das Betriebssystem, die Bedienung sowie Einbindung ins eigene Netzwerk auch einen sehr gut gemachten Einstieg in die elektronischen Spezialitäten und Eigenheiten des Raspis gibt - gleich noch mit Einstieg in die Raspi-spezifische Programmierung der GPIOs und Schnittstellen. Genial! Die Abbildungen sind super gemacht, sehr verständlich und illustrativ. Das Buch bietet tiefergehende Kenntnisse im Bereich Interfacing, Schnittstellen, top erklärt. Und immer bleibt der Fokus auf den Raspi gerichtet und der "Lernwert" selbst mit meiner über 1 1/2-jährigen praktischen Raspi-Erfahrung trotzdem groß. Es macht richtig Spaß sich durch die Themen zu arbeiten. Dieses Werk ist mein ultimatives Raspi-Buch, das den "Kofler, Kühnast, Scherbeck" locker auf den 2. Platz verweist, weil insgesamt auch der Anspruch beim Molloy höher ist, als bei Kofler & Co. Der Molloy wirkt für mich professioneller und wenig verspielt für Leute die mit einem Raspi mehr als nur herumspielen wollen... Ein grandioses Buch! Kann ich jedem, der English versteht und sich ernsthaft mit Raspi beschäftigen möchte, nur ans Herz legen. Best Bang for Your Buck. A must buy!

Professor Molloy gives you an easy approach to understand linux basics using RPI. A great overview in electronics is also given. If you are interested in kernel linux development, this book won't give you deep knowledge on it, except for the last chapter that explains how to create practical LKM (Linux Kernel Modules). Overall a great book for undergrad students searching for real life applications using an embedded system.

Excellent ouvrage, qui traite du Raspberry Pi en profondeur mais le dépasse aussi par ses informations sur Linux et les différents langages de programmation disponibles sur le RPi, ainsi que par son retour aux bases de l'électronique; c'est très bien pour le novice, un peu lassant pour l'utilisateur avancé. Mais il en faut pour tout le monde et on peut facilement sauter les parties sans intérêt. Le site web de l'auteur recèle aussi pas mal de pépites.

Great book with lots of information and code.

Pack with good material from hard experience. Very knowledgeable. Downside is technical details can get obsolete very quickly. Would be a good reference if you are working on a RPi project now!