Raspberry Pi Model A+, B, B+, and Zero

This is the base Nerves System configuration for the Raspberry Pi A+, B, B+ and Zero. This is not the configuration for the Raspberry Pi 2 or 3.

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Feature	Description
CPU	700 MHz ARM1176JZF-S for A+, B, and B+, 1 GHz ARM1176JZF-S for the Zero
Memory	256 MB for rev 1 boards, 512 MB for rev 2 and the Zero
Storage	MicroSD
Linux kernel	4.1 w/ Raspberry Pi patches
IEx terminal	HDMI and USB keyboard (can be changed to UART)
GPIO, I2C, SPI	Yes - Elixir ALE
ADC	No
PWM	Yes, but no Elixir support
UART	1 available - ttyACM0
Camera	Yes - via rpi-userland
Ethernet	Yes
WiFi	Requires USB WiFi dongle
Bluetooth	Not supported

Supported USB WiFi devices

The base image includes drivers and firmware for Ralink RT53xx (rt2800usb driver) and RealTek RTL8712U (r8712u driver) devices.

We are still working out which subset of all possible WiFi dongles to support in our images. At some point, we may have the option to support all dongles and selectively install modules at packaging time, but until then, these drivers and their associated firmware blobs add significantly to Nerves release images.

If you are unsure what driver your WiFi dongle requires, run Raspbian and configure WiFi for your device. At a shell prompt, run lsmod to see which drivers are loaded. Running dmesg may also give a clue. When using dmesg, reinsert the USB dongle to generate new log messages if you don't see them.

Installation

If available in Hex, the package can be installed as:

1. Add nerves_system_rpi to your list of dependencies in mix.exs:

   def deps do [{:nerves_system_rpi, "~> 0.5.2"}] end

2. Ensure nerves_system_rpi is started before your application:

   def application do [applications: [:nerves_system_rpi]] end

Image credit: This image is from the Fritzing parts library.