Introduction: Raspberry Pi Setup Tutorial

By Github
About: AVR | Raspberry Pi | Robotics | All new tech | Animator
Raspberry Pi is a single board computer(SBC) which have capabilities to work like a general Desktop/Laptop computer can do. Plus it can be use to play with a lot of peripherals like LED, sensors, motors, etc to make DIY projects using on board GPIO Pins. Overall you will have a great experience working with a Pi

Step 1: BUYING a RASPBERRY PI ONLINE

These are the official distributors -

RS components

Element14

Adafruit

Raspberry pi is also available at Amazon

Step 2: OTHER ACCESSORIES NEEDED

  • SD card - Compatible SD card list
  • Display - Along with monitor, keyboard and mouse are also needed.
  • Power Supply - Element14 & RS Components. Power supply also available at Amazon. You can also use a standard Power-bank to power a Raspberry Pi.
  • HDMI cable - To connect Raspberry Pi to a HDMI monitor.

  • HDMI to VGA adapter - To connect Raspberry Pi to a VGA monitor.

Step 3: GETTING STARTED

  • First of all you need an image of an operating system(OS) available for Raspberry Pi
  • You can either download Noobs (This is operating system installer for Raspberry Pi) or can download any operating system image available on the above link
  • For beginners the recommended OS is Raspbian but you can download any os image you want
  • After downloading the image you need to write that image on the SD card. For this you need 2 tools - SD card formatter & Win32 diskimager
  • Now insert your SD card onto a computer on which you have downloaded above software and OS image.
  • Format the SD card using SD card formatter. If you face any problem refer this link
  • Write the image on SD card using win32 diskimager. Refer link 1, 2
  • After writing the image on SD card insert the SD card on Raspberry Pi SD card slot. Plug the monitor, mouse and keyboard to Raspberry Pi and power on the board.
  • Now the boot process will start.
  • When booting is completed login prompt will appear
  • Type “pi” in raspberrypi login and press enter. Default password is “raspberry”. Then type “startx” to load the Graphical User Interface(GUI)
  • Now the GUI will load. To start with your new OS you can open terminal by clicking on Menu>Accessories>Terminal
  • Type in “sudo raspi-config”. (sudo is a command in Linux which gives you superuser privilege which is needed sometimes for run some commands)
  • Select Expand Filesystem to expand the available free space on SD card. This is basically re-partitioning your SD card. When you write the OS image on your SD card a partition is created which can not be used until you re-partition it
  • Select Change user password to change the password if you want
  • Select Internationalization options to set time zone, language, keyboard layout(Set keyboard layout to US English)
  • To connect to a network click on WiFi icon on top right side of computer monitor screen
  • Type in terminal “hostname -I” to check your network IP address
  • To check available RAM go to Menu>Accessories>Task Manager
  • Check available space. Type in terminal — “df -h”
  • To update system packages type in terminal “sudo apt-get update”
  • Upgrade os “sudo apt-get dist-upgrade”
  • Update firmware “sudo rpi-update”
  • Always remember to do updates on regular basis
  • Change time zone — “dpkg-reconfigure tzdata”. Or to update date and time manually type — sudo date -s “Fri Feb 10 12:04 IST 2017” (This is for example. IST is Indian Standard Time. USe the time zone of your country in that place)
  • Shutdown type — “sudo halt”. Reboot — “sudo reboot”
  • Check os version — “cat /etc/os-release”
  • If there is an error in executing any command just type sudo before it
  • Media player -
    • Kodi — sudo apt-get install kodi
    • VLC — sudo apt-get install vlc
    • OMX player — sudo apt-get install omxplayer
  • Setting OMX player as deafult -
    • sudo apt-get install omxplayer
    • sudo apt-get install xterm
    • Right click on any video file > Open with… > Select “custom command line” > write the following command in box for “command line to execute” —  xterm -fullscreen -fg black -bg black -e omxplayer -r %f
  • For any audio file just remove “fullscreen” from above command.

Step 4: LEARNING PYTHON

Step 5: UNDERSTANDING GPIO PINS

Now basic setup for your Raspberry Pi is done. There are lots of software available in Raspbian pre-installed which you can use like Python, Scratch, Sonic Pi, Sense Hat emulator, Wolfram, Mathematica, few python based games pre-installed. So enjoy working with Pi. Hope this tutorial helps. For any further problem or problem related to this tutorial fell free to ask. Have a great experience.