Getting Started with Raspberry Pi - RPI 101

So now that you got your RPI, what to do next ? The RPI (Model B) comes with 512 MB of inbuilt RAM but we require an external SDHC card which will act as the hard disk.

Firstly, the RPI is just a PCB and comes with no extra accessories. So, to get started you will require a SDHC card (4 GB will be good enough), a micro USB power supply and if you want to have a display, then an option is to have a  HDMI display with cable. My setup - 

My setup - HDMI desktop, USB mouse and keyboard

If you don’t want to invest in display, then you can SSH into the device using Ethernet cable. Also, for navigation, you will require USB keyboard and mouse.

So, now if the basic components are ready, we will burn an OS into the SD card to boot up our RPI for the first time. There are many OS available on the download page, but we will start with no frills Raspbian “wheezy”.

I am using a windows 7 PC and so the below steps works for Windows. First of all, you will require a card read/write slot or an external card reader. Insert the SDHC card into the slot. Also, download the image (.img) file of the raspbian wheezy from this page - http://www.raspbian.org/

Now download a utility – Win32diskimager-binary.zip from this page - https://launchpad.net/win32-image-writer/+download

Unzip the file and double click on the Win32DiskImager.exe file. Now, select the downloaded raspbian img file. Also, select the drive number which is related to the inserted SDHC card. Click on write and you can see the following:

If error - "Incorrect function" comes, just ignore it and press OK.

Once the write is done, it will give the prompt and hence you can safely eject the sd card.

Now as the SD card is ready, insert the SDHC card in the slot in the RPI and connect the other components as shown in the figure.

Now power on the RPI and you can see a red raspberry on the screen and some commands running on the display. If you can’t see anything on the display or if the display is flickering, then you need to change the config file in the SDHC card. The config file contains few statements regarding the HDMI/DVI display and they are needed to be modified acc. to the display properties. Refer - http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=5851  

Assuming your display is up and running, you will see the process of booting up. Lot of text will be printed on the screen. Don't panic - your RPI hasn't gone mad, its just booting up.

After a few minutes, you will see the following config screen. 

This screen is used for setting the first time configuration of that OS. 

1.       Expand_rootfs – the extra space in the SDcard will be now used for storage. Hence the whole SD card will be utilized now.

2.       Overscan – If you want to use the whole screen, then disable this option. Read more about overscan here.

3.       Configure keyboard – US keyboard or whatever keyboard you are using

4.       Change_pass – changing the password. The default password is raspberry

5.       Change_locale, change_timezone – set it to your local country and relevant timezone

6.       Memory_split – leave it for now

7.       Overclock – leave it for now

8.       Ssh – if you are using display, then no need to change this parameter

9.       Boot_behaviour – leave it for now

10.   Update – leave it for now

Finally, it will ask for username and password. The login is 'pi' and the default password is 'raspberry'. If you have changed the password in the config screen, then enter the new password.

Write 'startx' on the command prompt and you will see the desktop.

Congratulations !! You have successfully booted your new Raspberry Pi. Happy Tinkering :D