The Official Raspberry Pi Beginner’s Guide, 5th Edition

I am thrilled to announce the release of The Official Raspberry Pi Beginner’s Guide, 5th Edition – the latest incarnation of my book on the world’s most popular single-board computer, brought bang up to date for the Raspberry Pi 5 and the new Debian Bookworm-based Raspberry Pi OS software.

The new Beginner’s Guide has enjoyed a complete overhaul. Brian Jepson, the new head of publishing at Raspberry Pi Press, has introduced a new production approach which has resulted in a book that’s sleeker, cleaner, and more accessible than ever before – and at a beefy 278 pages, it’s also the longest edition yet.

That extra length comes courtesy of the inclusion of a bonus chapter on the Raspberry Pi Pico and Pico W microcontrollers, which serve as excellent companions to the main Raspberry Pi single-board computers. There’s also a fully updated getting started guide for setting up the Raspberry Pi 5, as well as the Raspberry Pi 400 and Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W.

This is my first time working with Brian, and it’s been a blast – from getting to grips with a whole new and considerably sleeker production process, which will mean easier updates in the future, to going through the material with a fine-tooth comb to make the book the best it could possibly be. Thanks too go to everyone else involved in the process: editor Liz Upton, interior designer Sara Parodi, Nellie McKesson in production, Brian O’Halloran for new photography, graphics editor Natalie Turner, head of design Jack Willis, and of course returning illustrator Sam Alder, plus all the others at Raspberry Pi Press.

The publication of the 5th Edition in English won’t be alone on the shelves for long, either, with Brian having confirmed translations into more languages than ever before: Danish, French, German, Greek, Italian, Polish, Japanese, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish, and Swedish.

The Official Raspberry Pi Beginner’s Guide, 5th Edition is available in all good bookstores now, in Raspberry Pi Stores and authorised resellers, and online with global delivery from the Raspberry Pi Press store; a digital copy will also appear, free of charge, in the Raspberry Pi Bookshelf app on Raspberry Pi OS in the next few days.

I hope you have as much fun reading it as I did writing it.

The Official Raspberry Pi Beginner’s Guide, 4th Edition and Translations

The Official Raspberry Pi Beginner's Guide 4th EditionMy introductory Raspberry Pi book, The Official Raspberry Pi Beginner’s Guide, has now been released in a fourth edition, bringing updates for the Raspberry Pi 4 8GB, Raspberry Pi 400, and new software revisions.

Bundled with every Raspberry Pi Desktop Kit sold, and available in paperback and free-as-in-speech Creative Commons-licensed DRM-free PDF, The Official Raspberry Pi Beginner’s Guide has proven incredibly popular. The latest release includes updates to reflect changes in the Raspberry Pi OS and bundled software, alongside coverage of the all-in-one Raspberry Pi 400 and higher-specification Raspberry Pi 4 8GB.

The new edition is also now available in translation for the first time: As well as the original English edition, The Official Raspberry Pi Beginner’s Guide can now be read in French, German, Italian, and Spanish, with additional translations in the works. As always, my thanks go out to the translation team at Raspberry Pi Press for making that happen.

The Official Raspberry Pi Beginner’s Guide 4th Edition is available to buy now in all the above languages with global delivery from the official website; it can also be downloaded under free-as-in-speech terms as a Creative Commons-licensed PDF file, unencumbered by DRM. For anyone considering picking up a Raspberry Pi 400, a print copy of the book is also bundled in the Raspberry Pi 400 Desktop Kit as well as in the Raspberry Pi 4 Desktop Kit.

The Official Raspberry Pi Beginner’s Guide, 3rd Edition

The Official Raspberry Pi Beginner's Guide Third EditionThe latest version of my beginner-focused Raspberry Pi book, The Official Raspberry Pi Beginner’s Guide, is now available – and it brings with it a major change to the projects included within.

The Second Edition release of the book concentrated on bringing the popular publication – bundled with all Raspberry Pi Desktop Kits – up-to-date for the release of the Raspberry Pi 4 and the Raspbian ‘Buster’ operating system. This Third Edition, meanwhile, migrates the programming and electronics projects to newer versions of their respective development environments: Scratch 3 and the Thonny IDE.

Thonny, the default integrated development environment for Python programs, is largely just a visual change: the latest version of the software simplifies the user interface compared to earlier releases, so all instructions and screenshots in the book have been updated accordingly.

Scratch 3 is a bigger shift. As well as coming with a refreshed user interface, Scratch 3 changes certain core aspects of its operation compared to Scratch 2 – with the result that Scratch 2 programs aren’t guaranteed to work within Scratch 3 without modification. This Third Edition updates all the Scratch-based projects to ensure they work correctly in Scratch 3, complete with all-new instructions.

The Official Raspberry Pi Beginner’s Guide Third Edition also includes a number of other improvements, from updates for other new and changed software through to a few minor errata from earlier editions.

The Official Raspberry Pi Beginner’s Guide Third Edition is available now from all good bookshops and e-tailers, while a free PDF copy can be downloaded from the MagPi Magazine website –  or you can order a print copy for international delivery.

The Official Raspberry Pi Beginner’s Guide, 2nd Edition

The Official Raspberry Pi Beginner's Guide, 2nd EditionWhile today’s big news is the launch of the Raspberry Pi 4 single-board computer – which I have treated to a wealth of benchmarks over on Medium – it comes with a supporting product release: the second edition of the popular Official Raspberry Pi Beginner’s Guide, updated for the new hardware.

Inside the book, which is being made available for purchase in a print edition and for free download and redistribution under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike-NoCommercial licence, the content has been overhauled and updated for the Raspberry Pi 4 and latest Raspbian ‘Buster’ operating system. From the two HDMI ports to the new USB Type-C power connector, all imagery and instructions are bang up-to-date for today’s new hardware release.

The Official Raspberry Pi Beginner’s Guide 2nd Edition is also being bundled with the Raspberry Pi 4 as part of the Raspberry Pi Foundation’s official starter pack: those opting to buy their Pi that way will receive the Raspberry Pi 4, microSD with NOOBS and Raspbian ‘Buster’ pre-loaded, power supply, case, keyboard, and mouse, plus a printed copy of the book to help get them started.

As with the first edition, there’s more to the book than just plugging it in and clicking around the Raspbian desktop: you’ll find step-by-step instructions for programming in Scratch and Python, hardware projects for the Raspberry Pi’s GPIO port, and instructions and examples which use the Sense HAT and Camera Module accessories.

The book is available now in print from all good bookshops and Raspberry Pi resellers, in the Raspberry Pi Store in Cambridge, or can be downloaded for free under the Creative Commons licence on the official Raspberry Pi website.