My First Raspberry Pi
pi@raspberrypi ~ $ cat /proc/cpuinfo
Processor : ARMv6-compatible processor rev 7 (v6l) BogoMIPS : 697.95 Features : swp half thumb fastmult vfp edsp java tls CPU implementer : 0x41 CPU architecture: 7 CPU variant : 0x0 CPU part : 0xb76 CPU revision : 7 Hardware : BCM2708
Revision : 000e Serial : 0000000084eb15c5 |
- 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 file
Raspberry 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.
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.
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.
pi@raspberrypi ~ $ ifconfig
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr b8:27:eb:eb:15:c5 inet addr:192.168.0.223 Bcast:192.168.0.255 Mask:255.255.255.0 UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1 RX packets:244 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:244 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 RX 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) |
- 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

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 The programs included with the Debian GNU/Linux system are free software; Debian GNU/Linux comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY, to the extent |
- You are logged in to Raspberry Pi
sudo passwd root |
sudo passwd -l root |
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install tightvncserver |
#!/bin/sh ### Customize this entry # Set the USER variable to the name of the user to start tightvncserver under eval cd ~$USER case "$1" in |
- 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 |

sudo chown root:root /etc/init.d/tightvncserver |
sudo chmod 755 /etc/init.d/tightvncserver |
sudo update-rc.d tightvncserver defaults |
sudo /etc/init.d/tightvncserver start |
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
