This is my first Raspberry Pi and here is my hand on experience. Before this, let me show you the specification of my Raspberry Pi. Here I login to Raspberry Pi and list the hardware information:
[email protected] ~ $ cat /proc/cpuinfoProcessor : ARMv6-compatible processor rev 7 (v6l)BogoMIPS : 697.95Features : swp half thumb fastmult vfp edsp java tlsCPU implementer : 0x41CPU architecture: 7CPU variant : 0x0CPU part : 0xb76CPU revision : 7
Hardware : BCM2708 Revision : 000e Serial : 0000000084eb15c5
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My Raspberry Pi is a Model B 512MB RAM, details as follow:
- SoC Broadcom BCM2835 (CPU, GPU, DSP, and SDRAM)
- CPU: 700 MHz ARM1176JZF-S core (ARM11 family)
- GPU: Broadcom VideoCore IV, OpenGL ES 2.0, 1080p30 h.264/MPEG-4 AVC high-profile decoder
- Memory (SDRAM): 512 Megabytes (MiB)
- Video outputs: Composite RCA, HDMI
- Audio outputs: 3.5 mm jack, HDMI
- Onboard storage: SD, MMC, SDIO card slot
- 10/100 Ethernet RJ45 onboard network
- Storage via SD/ MMC/ SDIO card slot
Preparing the image fileRaspberry Pi must boot from SD card which the bootloader is installed. I'm download the
Raspbian “wheezy” (Debian-based Linux distro) image file from official homepage which is recommended by Raspbian Pi.
To write the image file to SD card I'm using Image Writer for Windows (
Win32DiskImager)
Writing image file to SD card
- Insert a SD card (I'm using 8GB SD) to the computer.
- Download the Raspbian image file and save it to any location of computer
- Extract the zip file (2012-12-16-wheezy-raspbian.zip 495,214KB) which include the 2012-12-16-wheezy-raspbian.img file to any location
- Download Win32DiskImager and extract it to any location
- Run Win32DiskImager by double click Win32DiskImager.exe
- Select the correct drive from Device and choose the 2012-12-16-wheezy-raspbian.img as shown in
- figure below
- Click on Write button to start writing image file to SD card
- Remove the SD card from computer once writing completed.
Connecting the Raspberry Pi
According to the Raspberry Pi datasheet, it should not connect the power to the USB port of computer since it draw about 700ma while computer USB port can only provide 500ma max. So I use my own Samsung handphone charger as the supply for Raspberry Pi.
I'm using an AV cable (RCA) to connect the Raspberry Pi video output to my Samsung TV (AV1 input) which does not have HDMI input.
Finally insert the SD card to the slot and a USB keyboard is used to connect to the USB port of Raspberry Pi.
Booting and Launching desktop GUI
- Turn on the power, wait about 40 seconds to let the Raspberry Pi booting up
- A configuration menu shoud appear and you should make your own selection

- You should enable SSH from the menu (SSH is enabled by default, you don't have to change this). In the future, you still able to enable SSH from terminal command line with the following code.
sudo apt-get install ssh #this line may not require sudo /etc/init.d/ssh start sudo update-rc.d ssh defaults |
- Select Finish after making all the selections
- Raspberry Pi should launch the terminal command line
- Enter startx to launch the LXDE desktop GUI (Graphical User Interface), it takes about 10 seconds to show the following screen.
Determine the IP address
Raspberry Pi (Raspbian) does not have an static IP address, it is set to DHCP by default, you should get your Raspberry Pi IP address before you continue the rest of steps.
There are any many ways to determine the IP address of Raspberry Pi. You can login to Raspberry Pi and enter ifconfig to the terminal command line. It should look like this:
[email protected] ~ $ ifconfigeth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr b8:27:eb:eb:15:c5inet addr:192.168.0.223 Bcast:192.168.0.255 Mask:255.255.255.0UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1RX packets:244 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0TX packets:244 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000RX bytes:18766 (18.3 KiB) TX bytes:29921 (29.2 KiB)
lo Link encap:Local Loopback inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0 UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1 RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)
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I personally like to use net scanner to get IP address without sitting infront of the device.
- Download and run SoftPert Network Scanner
- Select Options>IP address>Detect Local IP Range from menu as shown in figure below
- Select your network's IP ranage. I'm select 192.168.0.138 for my IP as shown in figure below
- Click on Start Scanning icon to start the scanner
- Figure below shows the detected IP address from my local area network, the IP address of Raspberry Pi is detected as 192.168.0.223
SSH to Raspberry Pi
Once you had enable SSH, you can access your Raspberry Pi from other computer over network.
- Turn of the Raspberry Pi
- Remove keyboard and AV cable from Raspberry Pi
- Connect a network cable to Raspberry Pi
- Turn on Raspberry Pi
- Waiting Raspberry Pi to booting up
- Download and install PuTTY
- Login Raspberry Pi using PuTTY as shown in figure below (remember to use your own Raspberry Pi IP address)

- Enter pi for login user
- Enter raspberry for password and it should look like this
login as: pi This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.';s password: Linux raspberrypi 3.2.27+ #250 PREEMPT Thu Oct 18 19:03:02 BST 2012 armv6l
The programs included with the Debian GNU/Linux system are free software; the exact distribution terms for each program are described in the individual files in /usr/share/doc/*/copyright.
Debian GNU/Linux comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by applicable law. Last login: Sun Jan 27 06:18:46 2013 from toshiba.lan
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- You are logged in to Raspberry Pi
Enable and Disable root password
You may want to login as root, but I would not encourage
You may want to remove root password if you had enabled login as root
Installing TightVNC
If you want to take full control of your Raspberry Pi with GUI over network, TightVNC is a good software.
SSH to Raspberry Pi and enter command below to start installing TightVNC
sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install tightvncserver
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#!/bin/sh ### BEGIN INIT INFO # Provides: tightvncserver # Required-Start: $local_fs # Required-Stop: $local_fs # Default-Start: 2 3 4 5 # Default-Stop: 0 1 6 # Short-Description: Start/stop tightvncserver ### END INIT INFO
### Customize this entry
# Set the USER variable to the name of the user to start tightvncserver under export USER='pi' ### End customization required
eval cd ~$USER
case "$1" in start) su $USER -c '/usr/bin/tightvncserver :1' echo "Starting TightVNC server for $USER " ;; stop) pkill Xtightvnc echo "Tightvncserver stopped" ;; *) echo "Usage: /etc/init.d/tightvncserver {start|stop}" exit 1 ;; esac exit 0
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You may not access to /etc/init.d without login as root, hence you have to use method below to transfer file from /tmp folder to /etc/init.d folder.
- Save the above file (tightvncserver) to /tmp folder of Raspberry Pi, I'm using WinSCP
- Using command below to move tightvncserver file from /tmp folder to /etc/init.d folder
sudo mv /tmp/tightvncserver /etc/init.d/tightvncserver |
You should have tightvncserver in /etc/init.d as shown in figure below
The file /etc/init.d/tightvncserver must owned by root
sudo chown root:root /etc/init.d/tightvncserver |
Make the file executable
sudo chmod 755 /etc/init.d/tightvncserver |
Run the file on every reboot
sudo update-rc.d tightvncserver defaults |
To start TightVNCserver manually
sudo /etc/init.d/tightvncserver start |
To stop TightVNCserver manually
sudo /etc/init.d/tightvncserver stop |
Dwonload/Installing and Running TightVNC viewer
- Dwonload TightVNC from http://www.tightvnc.com/
- Install TightVNC Viewer (Tightvnc server is not necessary)
- Launch TightVNC Viewer, picture below shows the TightVNC connection screen