Setup

Install an operating system and set up wifi and security on the RP

SD Card

The SD Card contains the RP's operating system. It supports a number of Linux distributions some of which are designed specifically for the RP.

The SD Cards are swappable between RPs so you can use yours in any machine.

To burn an operating system onto an RP, the best software to use is Etcher. Download it here:

balenaEtcher - Flash OS images to SD cards & USB drivesbalenaEtcher

We will be using the Raspian operating system. This is the official RP operating system. Download the Rapsian Buster with desktop and recommended software from the link below by clicking Download Zip. This version included the software that we will need like Python.

Raspberry Pi OS – Raspberry PiRaspberry Pi

Open Etcher and select the Raspian Image. Under Select Drive, navigate to your SD card.

Click FLASH!

Not all SD Cards a compatible with the RP. A good resource to check if yours is compatible is https://elinux.org/RPi_SD_cards

To minimise the chance of the SD card becoming corrupted always make sure that you shut down your RP properly before turning it off. To do this in the terminal type sudo halt

Setting Up Raspian

When you first boot up Raspian you should see this:

Click through the setup wizard, setting the country

Set the password to atticlab so that everyone can access the installation

Wifi

Select the school wifi network and use your own key or one provided by me:

Next check to see if the software has any updates available.

Configuration

Once your PI has rebooted, click the PI Menu button and navigate to Preferences > Raspberry Pi Configuration

You can access configuration from the terminal with the command sudo raspi-config

The configuration dialog lets you change the settings that we have just set, such as the password.

Set the hostname (the RP's name) to something of your choosing

Under the Interfaces tab, enable all of the interfaces. This controls the ways in which you can interact with the RP

Click OK and let the machine reboot