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Raspberry Pi

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Raspberry Pi: Getting Setup…

If you have any questions or get stuck as you work through this in-class exercise, please ask the instructor for assistance. Enjoy!

Formatting the SD card and Installing Raspberry Pi OS

  1. Download a copy of Raspberry Pi Imager from the Raspberry Pi website. Instructions on how to set up your SD card with Raspberry Pi OS can be found here.
  2. Raspberry Pi OS is now installed onto the SD card!
    • If you are on windows, eject the drive before removing the SD card.
    • If you are on a mac the drive will be ejected for you. Go ahead and remove the SD card.
    • Insert the card into the SD port of the Raspberry Pi, connect the peripherals, and power it up.

Initial Setup of Raspberry Pi OS

  1. With all peripherals installed, allow the Raspberry Pi to boot into the desktop.
    • The first thing you’ll be prompted to do will be to set up a new password, for the purposes of this lab set the password to be raspberry, or skip this step.
    • When prompted, reboot your raspberry pi.
    • Set the date and time on your raspberry pi:
      • Open the terminal by clicking on the icon on the top bar (see icon on right). terminal.
      • In the terminal enter this command & press enter: sudo date -s “mm/dd/yyyy hh:mm”.
      • Once this is done, enter this command & press enter: sudo apt-get update. (Outside of workshop, you would want to upgrade as well, but that would take a long time so we will not!)
    • Navigate around, you’ll see a taskbar at the top of the desktop with the Chromium web browser icon (see right). Try launching it! taskbar.
      • After launching the web browser, see if you can connect to google.ca.
      • If you can, then your network settings are set up.

Installing new Software on Raspberry Pi OS

  1. In a new terminal shell, we will install Python.
  2. Enter the command sudo apt-get install gimp.

Basic Python Programming, Hello World and Nano

  1. With Python installed, open the terminal and enter: python3 l. A new prompt should show up “»>”. This is the Python shell.
  2. Here simple Python commands can be executed. Try entering x = 5, then y = 8. These variables, x and y, are now set as the values 5 and 8.
    • Type in x+y and press enter.
    • Try some other basic arithmetic commands with these variables!
    • When you’re done type: exit() and press enter.
  3. In case we want to save a program, we need to be able to create new files. To do so, we will use nano.
    • Enter this command, sudo nano hello_world.py.
    • In the nano window, type in message = ‘Hello, world!’ then on a new line print(message).
    • Now, to save the file, enter the keystroke ctrl+x, then press Y, then Enter. You should now be back in the terminal.
    • From here, type in python3 hello_world.py.

Extended Configuration

  1. In the case that you need to, or want to, edit any of the core settings of the Raspberry Pi, open a terminal and execute this command: sudo raspi-config.
  2. There are multiple configuration options here, to learn more checkout this website.
  3. For an example of a useful feature, we will enable auto-login on the Raspberry Pi.
    • After executing raspi-config navigate to Boot Options and press Enter.
    • Navigate to Desktop/CLI then to Desktop Autologin and Enter.
    • You’ve now enabled autologin to the desktop.
    • Navigate to the main menu, and hit Tab then Exit and reboot the Pi. It should now autoboot.

Important Things:

  1. How to shutdown the Raspberry Pi
    • In the terminal, enter this command sudo shutdown -h now.
    • After installing large applications, update and upgrade your raspberry pi (ONLY UPGRADE WHEN YOU HAVE A LOT OF TIME).

NEXT STEP: Kiosk Computer