Anatomy Of A Raspberry Pi
This is a great picture that was put out by the official Raspberry Pi website and it details perfectly what everything on your Pi is.
I will just give a quick run through of what everything does so it isn't all just names to you:
| Name | What is it? |
| Power | I think this one explains it self though it is worth mentioning the Raspberry Pi is powered through a Micro-USB cable (Purchased separately). |
| SD Card | The SD Card (or rather SD Card slot) is needed to install whatever OS you want to run (purchased separately). The minimum is 2GB though the recommended is 4GB. |
| GPIO | AKA general purpose input/output, these pins are not within the scope of this guide though I will include some resources to help you get started. |
| GPU | The GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) powers all the flashy stuff
and makes up for the sub-par CPU. |
| CPU | The CPU is clocked at just 700Mhz so is not too impressive. It is up to the impressive GPU to handle the heavy lifting so the CPU mainly takes a back seat. |
| 512MB RAM |
The amount of RAM (Random Access Memory) that is available. Part of this is shared with the GPU. |
| HDMI | Probably the most common video output today. HDMI will out put both sound and video to your TV up to resolutions of 1080p. |
| LAN | There are no wireless capabilities on the Pi so you have to use an ethernet cable connected to the LAN port on your Pi to a corresponding one on your router. Of course you can also buy a USB wifi adaptor if that is more suitable to your needs. |
| USB 2.0 | Used to connect mainly your mouse and keyboard though of course you can connect anything that uses a USB connector e.g. Wifi adaptor. |
| LEDs |
The LEDs have the following meanings : ACT - D5 (Green) - SD Card Access
PWR - D6 (Red) - 3.3 V Power is present FDX - D7 (Green) - Full Duplex (LAN) connected LNK - D8(Green) - Link/Activity (LAN) 100 - D9(Yellow) - 100Mbit (LAN) connected |
| Audio | A simple 3.5mm jack for use if you don't have HDMI or you want to use headphones or another set of speakers. |
| RCA Video | An alternative video out (at a low resolution) for use with displays without HDMI. |
On the next page I will detail what other equipment is needed to use the Pi to its full potential.