Silverman - Instant Raspberry Pi Gaming

Shea Silverman has been using computers since he was two years old. He has always been drawn to technology, video games, education, and the public sector. He is currently a member of the Orlando hackerspace FamiLAB, alumni of the University of Central Florida, and is working toward his Masters in Nonprofit Management. His article entitled Hacking, Learning, and the Raspberry Pi was published in 2600: The Hacker Quarterly , and he was a technical reviewer for Raspberry Pi Networking Cookbook , also published by Packt Publishing.

You can find more information at http://www.sheasilverman.com.

I would like to thank my wonderful wife, Kristene, who provides unending encouragement and support for my projects. I would like to thank my friends and family for their ongoing support and finally Liz, Eben, and the Raspberry Pi Foundation for the creation of the Raspberry Pi, and the wonderful community that has flourished since its release.

Jacob Bates is a web developer at the University of Central Florida (UCF). He received his Bachelor's degree in Computer Engineering from UCF, and has continued to tinker with integrating hardware and software in his free time. He has developed software for the Arduino, Raspberry Pi, Android, and iOS platforms, including a Star Trek "Red Alert" system for his office.

Daniel O'Connor is an experienced developer and open data advocate, with years experience in a large variety of web and traditional software development paradigms, based in Adelaide, Australia.

Daniel works within the valuation and real property industry, having worked with key players such as RP Data, Valuation Exchange and Herron Todd White to deliver innovative enterprise solutions.

When not at a day job, he can often be found participating in a large variety of open source work (http://github.com/CloCkWeRX/) and tinkering with his Raspberry Pi.

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Preface

Since its introduction, the Raspberry Pi has spawned an enormous community, based around the $35 Linux computer. The device has created a huge hacking community, new business ventures, educational programs, student-learning opportunities, and of course, tons of gaming opportunities.

The Raspberry Pi is a powerful device, based around a 700 MHz ARM processor, 512 MB of RAM, HDMI and composite outputs, general purpose input/output pins, and a strong GPU. The idea of porting video games was formed even before release. One of the first demos was running Quake 3 Arena at 60 FPS. After that demo, a segment of the community focused on bringing over as many games as possible.

Now, there are multiple Raspberry Pi gaming distributions, one-step installers, official game ports from developers, and dozens of emulators available. The official Raspberry Pi App Store even has a section just for games.

With its low price point, large community, and vast amount of games, the Raspberry Pi is the perfect device for the gaming enthusiast.

What this book covers

Flashing your SD card (Simple will teach you how to properly load various operating systems for your Raspberry Pi from the most common desktop software.

Connecting your Raspberry Pi (Simple) will introduce to you the various ways to set up a Raspberry Pi. It will primarily instruct you on how to set up the device for the optimal gaming environment.

Moving files to the Raspberry Pi (Intermediate) will explain and demonstrate the multiple ways to connect to the device, and transfer files from one system to the other. You will learn how to use USB flash drives, Secure Copy over SSH, and Linux file download tools such as wget.

Using the Raspberry Pi Store (Simple) will introduce and explain the different features of the official app store for the Raspberry Pi. You will create an account, log in, and download your first application.

Setting up PiMAME (Intermediate) is a collection of emulators and tools for gaming on the Raspberry Pi. You will be shown how to use the installer that will automatically download, set up, and configure the gaming environment for you, as well as how to use the tools and programs included in the collection.