Raspberry Pi Hacks Ruth Suehle and Tom Callaway Raspberry Pi Hacks by Ruth Suehle and Tom Callaway Copyright © 2014 Ruth Suehle and Tom Callaway. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. Published by O’Reilly Media, Inc., 1005 Gravenstein Highway North, Sebastopol, CA 95472. O’Reilly books may be purchased for educational, business, or sales promotional use. Online editions are also available for most titles (http://my.safaribooksonline.com). For more informa- tion, contact our corporate/institutional sales department: 800-998-9938 or [email protected]. Editors: Brian Sawyer and Rachel Indexer: Ellen Troutman Roumeliotis Cover Designer: Mark Paglietti Production Editor: Christopher Hearse Interior Designer: David Futato Copyeditor: Amanda Kersey Illustrator: Rebecca Demarest Proofreader: Jasmine Kwityn December 2013: First Edition Revision History for the First Edition: 2014-12-06: First release See http://oreilly.com/catalog/errata.csp?isbn=9781449362348 for release details. Nutshell Handbook, the Nutshell Handbook logo, and the O’Reilly logo are registered trademarks of O’Reilly Media, Inc. Raspberry Pi Hacks and related trade dress are trademarks of O’Reilly Media, Inc. Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their products are claimed as trademarks. Where those designations appear in this book, and O’Reilly Media, Inc., was aware of a trademark claim, the designations have been printed in caps or initial caps. While every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this book, the publisher and authors assume no responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from the use of the information contained herein. ISBN: 978-1-449-36234-8 [V] This book is dedicated to Seth Vidal. Seth didn’t live long enough to see this book finished, but within it, a little piece of his hacker spirit will live on forever. Table of Contents Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi 1. Configuration Hacks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Hack 01. Choose and Format the Right SD Card 1 Hack 02. Mount the SD Card 3 Hack 03. Decode the LEDs 7 Hack 04. Update the Firmware 8 Hack 05. Monitor the Raspberry Pi Hardware 13 Hack 06. Overclock Your Pi 17 Hack 07. Overvolt for Higher Performance 20 Hack 08. Get More USB Ports 22 Hack 09. Troubleshoot Power Problems 24 Hack 10. Unbreak Your Raspberry Pi 29 Hack 11. Go Headless 31 Hack 12. Connect with SSH 32 Hack 13. Give Your Pi a Static IP Address 34 Hack 14. Learn to Speak GPIO 36 Hack 15. Connect GPIO Pins to a Breadboard 39 Hack 16. Add a USB Serial Console 47 Hack 17. Add a Reset Button 54 Hack 18. Get Power to the Pi on the Move 56 Hack 19. Test Your Might (in Volts) 57 Hack 20. Add Additional Memory with Swap 61 2. Hacking Linux for the Raspberry Pi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 Hack 21. Build a Cross-Compiler Toolchain 63 Hack 22. Build a Custom Kernel 76 Hack 23. Update to the Latest Prebuilt Kernel 87 Hack 24. Split Memory Between the GPU and Linux Userspace 91 v Hack 25. Update the Firmware and Prebuilt Binary Kernel the Easy Way 96 Hack 26. Emulate the Pi 97 Hack 27. Try Occidentalis: The Raspberry Pi Distro for (Advanced) Education 99 Hack 28. Monitor the Pi’s IP Address 102 Hack 29. Run Android on the Raspberry Pi 107 3. Raspberry Pi Around the House . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111 Hack 30. Share Files with Samba 111 Hack 31. Use Your Raspberry Pi as a Remote Print Server 117 Hack 32. Make Calls with a Raspberry Pi Asterisk Telephone System 121 Hack 33. Build Your Own Web Server 127 Hack 34. Control a LEGO Robot 134 Hack 35. (Appear to) Survive a Gaping Chest Wound 150 Hack 36. Look for Aliens 157 4. Hacking the Outdoors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165 Hack 37. Tell the Temperature Outside (Without Going Out There) 165 Hack 38. Check on Your Plants 172 Hack 39. Make Your Pi Water-Resistant (with a Case) 176 Hack 40. Make Your Pi Water-Resistant (Without a Case) 178 Hack 41. Find Geocaches from Your Car 182 Hack 42. See the Light 188 Hack 43. Listen to Aircraft Transponders 198 Hack 44. Control Aerial Photography 204 Hack 45. Have the Best Holiday Lights Display 219 5. Multimedia Hacks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227 Hack 46. Play Video Files 227 Hack 47. Enable Additional Video Codecs 231 Hack 48. Build a Pi MusicBox 232 Hack 49. Turn Your Pi into a Radio 244 Hack 50. Control the Pi via Touchscreen 247 Hack 51. Emulate Classic Video Game Consoles 255 Hack 52. Connect a DSLR 258 Hack 53. Set Up a Photobooth 262 Hack 54. Turn Your Pi into a Tiny Media Center 269 Hack 55. Watch Movies in the Backseat of Your Car 277 6. Extend Your Pi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287 Hack 56. Control GPIO from a Web Browser 287 Hack 57. Add a Tiny Screen 290 Hack 58. Connect Arduino Shields to Your Raspberry Pi 292 Hack 59. Control a 3D Printer 312 Hack 60. Add a Numeric Keypad 316 vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Hack 61. Add a Heat Sink 322 Hack 62. Enable the Raspberry Pi Camera on Pidora 324 Hack 63. Build a Solar-Powered Lab 326 Hack 64. Build a MIDI Controller (on the Cheap!) 329 Hack 65. Build a Raspberry Pi Supercomputer 337 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 345 TABLE OF CONTENTS vii