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How To Set Up Your Raspberry Pi For The First Time
How To Set Up Your Raspberry Pi For The First Time - ReadWrite
How To Set Up Your Raspberry Pi For The First Time - ReadWrite
My Raspberry Pi arrived with the evening mail—by midnight, my husband and I had turned it into a working print server. And neither of us had any background in computer science.
Raspberry Pi is a computer the size of a credit card that’s so simple, anyone can program it. Designed as an introduction to science, technology, engineering, and math for UK grade schoolers, its $35 price tag has made it appealing to hobbyists all over the world.
Despite its diminutive device, Raspberry Pi is powerful enough to process many of the same programs as PCs, from word processors to games. Its small size also makes Raspberry Pi ideal for programming connected home devices—like the aforementioned print server, which has given us the power to make every computer, laptop, and cell phone in our network printer-compatible.
The Story Of Raspberry Pi
Eben Upton first came up with the idea for Raspberry Pi in 2006, when he and his colleagues at the University of Cambridge’s Computer Laboratory were frustrated by the dwindling number of students, and the poor skill levels of those students, entering the program.
See also: Raspberry Pi Vaults Past 2 Million Sold Mark
While current students entering the program often had Web design experience, programming experience was becoming very rare. Upton’s concern? That the price and sophistication of modern computers had made them overly complicated for kids to experiment with.
In the ’70s and ’80s, kids could use an Amiga or Commodore 64 to boot into a programming environment. In later decades, Upton speculated, parents had more reason to forbid the same kind of experimentation on increasingly advanced family PCs. Plus, as computers became easier to use, programming them became more complicated, and tinkering with their inner workings became far less necessary.
Upton wanted to create a cheap, easily programmable computer that would bring back the experimental spirit of an earlier era of computing, by making a device cheap enough so anyone could tamper with it without fear of expensive mistakes. From 2006 to 2008, the official history goes, Upton and his colleagues worked on the prototype that would eventually become the Raspberry Pi. The Raspberry Pi Foundation was established in May 2009, and the first shipment of Raspberry Pis became available in April 2012.
In an interview with Daily Brink, Upton explained how the device got its name:
There’s a history of fruit-named computer companies! There aren’t many that aren’t taken, and Raspberry is one of those. What we wanted to build was something that could run the Python programming language, and so ‘Pi’ was kind of a pun. So the name stuck and it outlived the justification for the name.
Python is the Pi’s recommended programming language, but Linux is its recommended operating system. Nearly every flavor of OS that works on Raspberry Pi—Raspbian, Pidora and more—is a riff on the Linux kernel.
The front of a Raspberry Pi Model B.
Right now, there are two versions of the Raspberry Pi for sale—Model A and Model B, though neither is newer than the other. Model A, which is $25, lacks Ethernet capability, has a single USB connecter, and 256MB of memory. Model B, which is $35, has double the memory, Ethernet, and a dual USB connector. The B is not an improvement on A, and in fact was available first; the A is just a lighter, cheaper version. The Foundation hasn’t ruled out an eventual, more powerful Model C, but probably not for at least “two to three years.”
Getting Started With Raspberry Pi
Raspberry Pi owes its low price tag to advances in integrated chips. Instead of having a CPU, a GPU, a USB controller, and memory each on their own individual chips, Raspberry Pi uses a system-on-a-chip with all those components on a single chip.
Without a lot of chips to take up space, the Pi itself can consist of a printed circuit board which boots up from an SD memory card. So it’s not just cheap, it’s simple, too.
Still, the $35 price tag is a bit misleading. You can’t just buy a Raspberry Pi and expect it to work right out of the box. Here are the accessories you’ll need to get up and running:
- A power supply. Raspberry Pi doesn’t come with one, so you’ll need a micro USB compatible cable in order to plug it into the wall.
- A case. There’s no official one yet, so I put mine in this pink one from Adafruit. Unfortunately, despite what you may have heard, it does not fit in an Altoids tin.
- An HDMI cable or RCA video lead. You can’t use your Pi without a visual display. You can either plug it into a computer monitor with HDMI input using an HDMI cable, or you can plug it into an analogue TV with a standard RCA composite video lead.
- A USB mouse and keyboard. Or else how will you interact with the Pi? Any wired or wireless mouse and keyboard should do; I’m using wireless Logitech products for both.
- An SD memory card. You’ll need one to boot up the Pi. The Raspberry Pi foundation recommends at least 4 gigs to start, but as many as 32 if you want.
- A primary computer. I didn’t get that you can’t just get the Pi running without already owning another computer, Mac or PC. Hopefully you already have one of these, or this project just got a lot more expensive.
Now, let’s fast-forward to the day when your Raspberry Pi and all its accessories arrive in the mail. Here’s what to do, and when to do it.
- An SD memory card reader. The Raspberry Pi doesn’t need this, but your primary computer does so you can transfer installations from it to the Pi. A lot of computers come with a built-in card reader, but if yours doesn’t, you might want to invest in one.
- Put your Raspberry Pi in its case. Unless it’s very customized, it should continue to have holes in it for all of the Pi’s inputs
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- Put the Pi aside and go to your primary computer. Insert your SD card and format it according to the Foundation’s directions. This will install a recovery program on it so you can save your card even if you break it with your tinkering.
- Download NOOBS on your primary computer. Short for New Out Of Box Software, it’s the Raspberry Pi Foundation’s fittingly named distro for first-time Pi users. A distro is a package installation of Linux and its associated software.
- Load your NOOBS download onto the newly formatted SD card.
- Time to get started with the Raspberry Pi. Slide the SD card into the underside of the Raspberry Pi, and make sure it’s oriented correctly; it’d be bad to break your Pi before you turn it on!
- Connect it to the power supply, monitor, keyboard, and mouse.
- The Raspberry Pi will boot up and take you the NOOBS screen. If it doesn’t, check your power supply and HDMI cables and make sure they’re secure.
- Select an OS to install. If you select the default Raspbian, recommended for beginners, Adafruit has a great tutorial on the process. This install will take a while (20 minutes for me) so this is a good time to go do something else.
- Once the file copies, you’ll get a notice that says, “Image applied successfully.” Press return, and the Pi will reboot. Now it will boot into the operating system’s graphical user interface, which looks a lot like Windows 98.
A Raspberry Pi Model B all plugged in.
Do you own a Raspberry Pi? What would you advise new users to do? We’d love to see your input in the comments.
