And many excellent resources can help. For example, the book Hacking Raspberry Pi will really
help you have a pleasant Pi experience. Books like this one help you get your Raspberry Pi working
and troubleshoot problems.
Also, there are many sources on the Internet that can assist you in your Raspberry Pi research. One of
the best comes from the Raspberry Pi Foundation. It maintains a website (www.raspberrypi.org)
filled with wonderful tidbits of information, including Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs), help
forums, and a Quick Start Guide. At this site, you can also find software downloads and the latest
news concerning the Raspberry Pi Foundation and the Pi itself. You should start your Raspberry Pi
investigation at this resource.
Choosing the Operating System
Once you have completed your initial research, the next step is to choose and download an operating
system. The Raspberry Pi Foundation’s website, http://www.raspberrypi.org, offers a choice of several
operating systems.
Did You Know: Preloaded SD Card
If you purchased a Raspberry Pi prepackaged kit, it probably contains an SD card with
the operating system preloaded. If this is the case, you can skip ahead to the section
“Plugging In the Peripherals.”This book is based on the Raspbian operating system, which is recommended for learning Python, and
for those new to the Raspberry Pi. To download the operating system, open an Internet browser, such
as Mozilla Firefox, and go to http://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads/, as shown in Figure 1.6.
FIGURE 1.6 The Raspberry Pi operating system downloads page.Downloading the Operating System
You need an SD card reader on the system where the operating system file will be downloaded to. If
you have different computers, such as a Windows machine and a Linux machine, available to you,
choose the machine you feel the most comfortable using.
After choosing a machine, download the operating system from http://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads/.
Click either the Raspbian file listed after Image that ends in “.zip” or the Raspbian file listed after