Utter OT q about Arduino

A genuine Arduino Uno is a good place to start - and then search for free e-books. Most reference materials assume a Uno or compatible.

Prolly depends on what you want to build...

--
Socialism is the philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance and the  
gospel of envy. 

Its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery. 

Winston Churchill

I guess it depends on how comfortable you are with - spending time solving puzzles in areas you are not familiar with, - writing programs, and - wiring up electronics

The Arduino doesn't require a lot of knowledge in either electronics or programming; most "starter kit" packages include instructions on both that will get you started.

/My/ recommendation is to get a "starter kit" package, and take it from there. These kits come with an arduino, wires, a small prototyping board (to assist with wiring), battery pack, and a few devices (like LEDs, potentiometers, buzzers, resistors, and switches), and a booklet of simple projects. Typically, these basic kits are low cost, and have enough challange to tell you whether or not working with an Arduino is for you.

Once you get past the basic kit, you will be in a better place to evaluate the benefits and drawbacks of the variety of Arduino (and Arduino-like) devices around.

FWIW, I fiddled around with an Arduino for a week or two, then got a handfull of ATTiny85 boards, a Raspberry PI, and a few NodeMCU boards. Now, you can't stop me :-)

HTH

--
Lew Pitcher 
"In Skills, We Trust"

An Arduino Uno from the 'source', install the standard Arduino software on your PC (Linux, MS or whatever) and away you go.

--
Chris Green

Sorry, missed the OP.

Elegoo starter kits are the way to go.

No usenet group ... but your search engine of choice will discover a lot of other resources.

If you're already doing things with a Raspberry Pi then you probably already understand how to attach things to GPIO lines, and so on, and may well have a good stock of components. If that's NOT the case then you may benefit from one of the many starter kits that come with a selection of common components to play with ... but if you already know your way around a Pi then you probably already have the bits ...

.. except that some Arduino devices have to be programmed over a serial interface, and RS-232 interfaces are quite uncommon on modern PCs. You should either make sure that you choose an Arduino board that can be programmed directly from USB, or get a USB-Serial interface or "FTDI Friend" for programming.

My first "Arduino" board was not an official Arduino, but a "Trinket" board from Adafruit. The trinket is very small and limited, but also very cheap and it does have enough USB hardware to allow programming (though you can't use the USB port as a serial console). The Adafruit support pages are very well written, and gave all the information I needed to get started with the hardware and the Arduino development tools.

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Cheers, 
 Daniel.

I meant to add ... you will read that an Arduino "sketch" is written in "the Arduino language". This is really just C++, but Arduino programs don't have a main() function, they have a setup() function that is called once, and a loop() function that is called repeatedly while the program runs.

The standard Arduino IDE uses the gcc toolchain, cross-compiling for whatever CPU the target board has, so it's a fairly modern version of C++. It has support for recent language features such as constexpr and lambda functions, which can help keep the generated code small.

Don't expect to be able to use e.g. STL containers on some of the smaller devices, though, they don't have the memory. Even the more powerful Arduinos are a lot less powerful than a Pi.

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Cheers, 
 Daniel.

What do you want to do or achieve?

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Cheers 
Dave.

I'll not know that until I get started!

--
"He who will not reason is a bigot; 
he who cannot is a fool; 
he who dares not is a slave." 
  - Sir William Drummond

I finally found a use for a raspberry Pi.

And ordered one.

--
"Anyone who believes that the laws of physics are mere social  
conventions is invited to try transgressing those conventions from the  
windows of my apartment. (I live on the twenty-first floor.) " 

Alan Sokal

Don't worry about getting genuine Arduino, clones are mostly fine. Start with something like this

(cheaper are available from China, but this is hardly expensive) and you can get started with writing and loading programs, handling input (switches) and output (LEDs). Once you've got the hang of that add some sensors (a potentiometer is the simplest analogue input device, but light and temperature are popular starters) and some more interesting outputs like stepper motors. By the time you've fiddled with those you should have ideas for practical projects and know what to buy next. If you have a basic understanding of the electronics and buy components from Chinese eBay sellers rather than pre-packaged modules you'll save money, but having said that even the most overblown deluxe starter kits aren't /that/ much, although you may be more likely to find useful applications if they cost under a tenner.

I wouldn't get a clone as a matter of principle. The genuine article is cheap enough, and I prefer to support those doing the *real* work.

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W J G

He doesn't know if he likes it yet. :-)