Reference · sources behind every page
Resources
This hub is a guided path through material that already exists. When a detail here disagrees with the official Raspberry Pi documentation, the documentation wins; tell the teacher so the hub can be corrected.
Official Raspberry Pi documents
| Document | Use it for | Licence |
|---|---|---|
| Raspberry Pi Documentation (source) | The technical source of truth for hardware, boot, configuration and software | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
| Getting started: install an OS with Raspberry Pi Imager | The current Imager procedure; the screenshots on the Imager page come from here | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
| USB mass-storage boot | Boot order, EEPROM, the early Pi 4 exception, SSD power | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
| Configuration (raspi-config) | Every raspi-config menu explained | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
| Raspberry Pi Imager download · releases | Current installer for Windows, macOS, Linux (2.x as of August 2026) | Apache-2.0 (software) |
| Raspberry Pi OS downloads | Image files, including the 64-bit desktop image used in class | Various |
| The Official Raspberry Pi Beginner's Guide, 5th edition (PDF) | Illustrated reading for the hardware chapter; its Imager screenshots are older than the version you use | CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 |
| Raspberry Pi 5 product brief | Ports, specifications and a labelled photograph of the Pi 5 | Official reference |
| Raspberry Pi 400 product brief | Rear-panel diagram and specifications | Official reference |
| Raspberry Pi 4 Model B datasheet | Ports, GPIO pinout, electrical limits | Official reference |
| pinout.xyz | Interactive 40-pin reference with BCM and physical numbers | CC BY-SA |
Guides and how-tos
- Remote access, official documentation (CC BY-SA 4.0): SSH, VNC,
scpand finding your Pi on the network, with current screenshots. - Thonny: the beginner Python editor you will use from Week 4. It comes preinstalled with Raspberry Pi OS with desktop; the site has a short intro video.
- Markdown Guide: basic syntax and GitHub's writing and formatting guide. For Assignment 1 and every README you will write.
- Raspberry Pi OS setup notes (M. Paquette): fixes for the clock, USB gadget mode, and other recurring issues.
- The Fall 2026 course outline and Assignment 1 are on Omnivox.
Open teaching material behind the hardware chapter
- ET3010: Single Board Computers and Raspberry Pi Basics (CC BY-SA). Good SBC-versus-microcontroller framing; its 2016 installation steps are obsolete.
- SparkFun Raspberry Pi 4 Kit Hookup Guide and Introduction to Raspberry Pi GPIO and physical computing (CC BY-SA 4.0). Image-rich assembly and GPIO explanations.
- OER Commons: Raspberry Pi resources, setup to first program (CC BY-SA 4.0). Lesson structure; check its screenshots against the current Imager.
- Raspberry Pi Foundation: Setting up your Raspberry Pi. A gentle student walkthrough of the physical setup.
Licences and reuse
| Label | What it allows in teaching |
|---|---|
| CC BY-SA 4.0 | Copy, adapt, translate and include in slides or pages, with attribution, and share the adaptation under the same licence. The official documentation and the Imager screenshots on this hub carry it. |
| CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 | Same, but non-commercial use only. Suitable for CEGEP teaching. The Beginner's Guide carries it. |
| Apache-2.0 | Software licence of the Raspberry Pi Imager source code. It does not cover product photography. |
| Official reference PDF | Link to it or hand it out as-is. Do not remix whole pages unless an open licence is stated. |
Attribution used on this hub: "Adapted from the Raspberry Pi Documentation, © Raspberry Pi Ltd, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0." Diagrams drawn for this hub are original and may be reused under the same terms.
Glossary
| ADC | Analog-to-digital converter: turns a voltage into a number. The ESP32 has one; the Raspberry Pi header does not. |
| apt | The Debian package manager used by Raspberry Pi OS to install and update software. |
| BCM numbering | GPIO pins named by their SoC signal (GPIO17) rather than by header position (pin 11). |
| Boot partition | The small FAT partition (/boot/firmware) holding firmware, kernel and config.txt. |
| Bootloader / EEPROM | Firmware on the board that chooses the boot device and starts the kernel. |
| Debian, Trixie, Bookworm | The Linux distribution Raspberry Pi OS is built on, and the code names of its releases (13 = Trixie, 12 = Bookworm). |
| GPIO | General-purpose input/output: the 40 pins, 3.3 V, digital. |
| Hostname | The computer's name on the network; reachable as hostname.local through mDNS. |
| Image | A complete copy of a disk, written sector by sector. |
| mDNS | Multicast DNS: how hostname.local is resolved on a local network without a server. |
| MQTT | The publish/subscribe messaging protocol that will carry sensor data from the ESP32 to the Pi (Week 9). |
| PWM | Pulse-width modulation: switching a pin on and off rapidly to produce an average level, e.g. LED brightness. |
| root | The administrator account on Linux; also the top of the file system, /. |
| SBC | Single-board computer. |
| SoC | System-on-chip: CPU, GPU and controllers in one package (BCM2711, BCM2712). |
| SSH | Secure Shell: an encrypted remote terminal. scp copies files over it. |
| sudo | "Superuser do": run one command as root. |
| UFW | Uncomplicated Firewall: the firewall you configure in Week 3. |
| VNC | Remote desktop over the network. |
Adapting this hub
The site is plain HTML, one stylesheet and one small script; no build server is required to host it (GitHub Pages or Omnivox both work). To change content, edit the page fragments in src/ and run python3 build.py, which wraps them in the shared header, stage rail and footer; or edit the generated .html files directly.
- Dates and room appear on the Start page, the Lab page and in the outline; change them once per semester.
- Hostname, keyboard, time zone and network conventions live in the table on the Imager page.
- Imager screenshots in
img/come from the official documentation; replace them with captures from the version deployed in the lab when the interface changes. - The pinout is a data array at the bottom of
assets/site.js; correct it there and every page updates. - Versions to recheck each semester: Raspberry Pi Imager release, Raspberry Pi OS release and Debian base, product briefs, USB-boot documentation.