Difference between revisions of "RaspberryPiQuickStart"

Latest revision as of 21:45, 31 July 2012

Bringing up a Raspberry Pi (model B) from scratch

See http://www.raspberrypi.org/quick-start-guide for more information.

• Needed

1. 5v .7 amp or better power supply feeding a micro USB connector, or a powered USB hub such as the Intrex HUB-GH901P (7 ports with 5v/2A power supply) in combination with a regular to micro USB cable.
2. USB hub if not covered by previous step.
3. USB mouse.
4. USB keyboard.
5. Monitor with HDMI input, *digital* DVI plus DVI to HDMI adaptor, or hi res TV with RCA composite input. It's possible to bring Linux up with a serial connection but this is out of scope.
6. HDMI, DVI or composite video cable.
7. SD or MMC card with at least 2gb capacity.
8. Temporarily need a means of copying data to the SD/MMC card, such as a laptop having an SD card socket.
9. A Linux or Windows system to copy the SD card image to the card (temporary).
10. A wired ethernet connection is needed for the RP to determine the time of day or to do software updates, but otherwise isn't necessary.

• Preparing the SD card. Reference http://raspberrypi.org/downloads for details. Linux is assumed: for Windows see the downloads page, get the SD card made, then jump to "Starting the Raspberry Pi".

1. Download the image file for Raspbian Wheezy (Debian) Linux, check it's SHA1 checksum against the published value, and then uncompress the zip file to a .img file, OR just use the ECE workbench laptop at Splat Space by booting Linux (the default), logging in as trihack/trihack and cd'ing to /tools/raspberrypi/files.
2. Insert the SD card and do a "mount" command to see what device it was mounted as and then unmount it (on the ECE laptop there should be a file browser window and if you right click on the device under "Places" and then left click "Eject" that will get the job done).
3. Do a dd of the uncompressed image file to the SD device as root (or just run the "./make-sd" script on the ECE bench laptop.) This takes a long time. It would be prudent to checksum the resulting SD image (done by the script). That takes a long time too.
4. Use "sync" to make sure the SD card is fully written and then remove it and plug it into the Raspberry Pi.

• Starting the Raspberry Pi

1. Turn on the monitor.
2. Connect the ethernet to a router that offers DHCP access to the Internet.
3. Connect the monitor/TV, keyboard, and mouse. Then and only then apply power by connecting the micro USB connector. (And per advice from the RP gods, always remove power first before changing any other connections.)
4. After a few seconds a blizzard of text lines should appear on the screen, followed by a klunky graphics dialog that is the "raspi-config" program running as root.

• Initial Configuration

1. If your SD card is more than 2gb use the "expand_rootfs" to stretch the root partition to use all of your card. It's best to stop and restart the config after this by tabbing to "Finish" and using enter, then "sudo raspi-config" to restart the config program.
2. Use configure_keyboard to set your keyboard type.
3. Use change_locale (I suggest both en_US locales, with the default as just en_US).
4. Use change_timezone.
5. Use memory_split to give your self more graphic memory and less memory for processes or visa versa (I strongly recommend the visa versa until/unless you have the hots for playing with video).
6. Use ssh, boot_behaviour, and update according to your preferences. The update command very very efficiently updates the system.
7. Tab to "Finish" and use enter to get to a shell prompt.

• What you've been waiting for

1. Enter "startx" to switch to a graphical desktop. If you set this as the default with the above boot_behaviour option, then you don't have to do this again after the next reboot. The Midori icon allows running a lightweight web browser. Beyond this, explore!

Petesoper 15:45, 31 July 2012 (MDT)