Start GPIO Script on startup

Question

I have searched far and wide and tried a million different methods, but nothing works.

This is the scenario.

I have an RPi A+, it is connected to a sound sensor via GPIO.

I need this script to start when the Pi starts up. The Pi won't be near me or connected to a screen, so if the power fails and the Pi reboots, the script must start running again.

What I have now is a working script in a .py file.

The basic function = Detect sounds > log entry into database > send me an email.

I have nothing else, the .py file is just on my desktop.

Please help in plain English. My coding is not very good, and I had many people helping me make this happen, so I am not competent enough to create a script like this by myself - just for context on my skill level.

So basically, all I need is: Pi = on > Script = running. If the Pi goes off and back on again, the script must fire again without ay intervention and start detecting sound.

Thanks so much!

Answer 1

First of all make your python script as a standalone, it should start with something like #!/usr/bin/python and could be executed only by typing the script name in shell.

Then take a look at several topics such as "starting a python program at boot". You will find several methods :

• put in rc.local (with &) => not good for a service
• put in crontab @reboot directive (with &) => may not be implemented in all Linux distros
• put in init.d : https://raspberrypi.stackexchange.com/questions/13415/using-init-d-script-to-start-my-python-program-on-startup => the best solution but may be difficult to apprehend