In this post, we will set up our brand new Raspberry Pi for the first-time use. Getting excited? Let’s go!

To get started with Raspberry Pi, first, let’s get a few extra devices:

  • SD card - get this from my old camera
  • HDMI cable - to connect to a monitor or TV
  • Keyboard and mouse
  • Power - a 5V micro USB power supply, used by most Android phones nowadays
  • Internet - either an ethernet cable or a wifi adapter like this. Make sure you have a ethernet cable to begin with, since wiki may need extra configuration at beginning.

Now once have all the devices (except SD card) get up, let’s do the software part

  • Copy OS to SD following this. There are quite a few options available, and I picked the most common one Raspbian. It is derived from Debian with some optimization specifically for Raspberry Pi.
  • Log in for the first time. The default username is “pi”, and the default password is “raspberry”.
  • After that, you will be directed to the “raspi-config”. Or you can bring it up by type sudo raspi-config
  • You can bring up the GUI by typing startx
  • Update/upgrade the system/softwares:

sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get upgrade

Now you are up running with the new Raspbian.

In the next post, I will set up remote access and hook it up with external storage.

Updated: