Raspbian

Time to complete this is about 1 hour 20 minutes. If you already have an image, the required software, and have done it before it will go much faster.

Download the latest version of Raspbian. For general use, download the full version. If you are certain that you want a headless installation with no GUI desktop, download the Lite version. I usually use the Lite version with no desktop.

For the Lite version, a 4Gb MicroSD is likely sufficient but use at least an 8GB card for the full version. The required size of your disk depends a bit on your expected use. In early 2016, the sweet spot in pricing for these cards is 16GB.

Unzip the image and write it to the MicroSD card. On Windows, I use Win32 Disk Imager. More detailed instructions and instructions for other operating systems may be found on Raspberrypi.org's Installing Images.

Insert the MicroSD into the Pi.

NOTE: Versions of Raspbian later than December 2016 ship with SSH disabled. SSH may be enabled by adding a file named ssh to the boot directory of the SD card. See https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/a-security-update-for-raspbian-pixel/

Connect to the Pi

Time to complete is about 15 minutes.

From the initial boot, there are three ways to connect to the pi.

1. A Raspberry Pi is a computer that may be operated by connecting with a mouse, keyboard, and monitor.
2. Using SSH over an Ethernet connection. If you are not familiar with SSH, we will review it later in this guide.
3. Often, I find it easiest to connect to it using the USB to Serial console cable. This allows me to use my main computer's equipment while working on the Pi in a terminal window. See the Adafruit overiew for full details on using the USB to console cable.
   • If you use the Adafruit guide and wish to install PuTTY, this PuTTY page instead. Also, don't download just the putty.exe but the A Windows installer for everything except PuTTYtel instead.

Boot the Pi

Time to complete is about 5 minutes.

As soon as you insert the USB to console cable into your computer, the Pi will start to boot. If you are using a keyboard and monitor, plug in your power to boot the Pi.

This next set of instructions assumes you are using the USB to console cable.

1. Use PuTTY to connect to the serial COM port of the USB connection
2. Hit enter to show the login screen
3. Login using the default user: pi and the default password: raspberry. (We will change these shortly.)

Hint, putty allows easy copy/paste. To copy from the putty session to the clipboard, just highlight the required text using the mouse. To paste into the putty session from the clipboard, press the Shift and Insert keys.

Run first boot setup

Time to complete is about 10 minutes.

Start the configuration software to expand the filesystem, change the password, and change the hostname. Enter the configuration with this command, sudo raspi-config.

• Select and execute Expand Filesystem
• Select and execute Change User Password
• Select and execute Internationalization Options
  • Change Locale to your locale.
    • Use spacebar to select/deselect
    • Deselect en_GB.UTF-8 UTF-8
    • Select en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8
    • OK
    • Select en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8 as default and then OK
  • Change Timezone to UTC.
• Select Advanced Options and select and execute Hostname. Pick a unique and easy to remember hostname. This will be used to connect later.
• Reboot your system sudo reboot now.

The pi may be shutdown from the command line with, sudo shutdown now. Wait about a minute and remove power.

Connect to the Internet

Time to complete is about 40 minutes.

auto wlan0
allow-hotplug wlan0
iface wlan0 inet dhcp
    wpa-conf /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf

network={
ssid="your_wifi_identifier"
psk="your_wifi_password"
proto=RSN
key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
pairwise=CCMP
auth_alg=OPEN
}

sudo ifdown wlan0
sudo ifup wlan0

Update and upgrade

Time to complete is about 5 minutes. This does not include the amount of time required to upgrade. Upgrading your system may take an hour with a slow connection and many upgrades.

It is important to keep your pi's software up to date. This is commonly done using apt-get. The main keywords to know are update, upgrade, install, and remove. So let's make the system current.

• Update the packages list, sudo apt-get update.
• Upgrade software packages to the current version, sudo apt-get upgrade.
• Relax, this might take a while. Maybe grab lunch.

Network magic

Time to complete is about 5 minutes.

This step does nothing more than make it easier to find your Pi on your network. It uses Zeroconf, provided by Avahi on Linux, Bonjour on Windows, and included in Apple.

1. Install sudo apt-get install avahi-daemon. (Note, on recent versions of Raspbian this is already installed and working.)
2. Your system can now be found at hostname.local, where the hostname is that which you entered back in Run first boot setup.
3. For your Windows machine, download and install Bonjour Print Services.

Connect to Pi using SSH

Time to complete is about 30 minutes.

SSH is a safe and efficient way to connect to your Pi over the network or the Internet. It is enabled by default but for highest security, I recommend a few configuration changes and installing your own personal keys. This guide assumes you are connecting from Windows or another Linux system. For Windows use PuTTY and for Linux use OpenSSH. It may be necessary to install PuTTY but OpenSSH comes installed on Linux.

• Verify that SSH is enabled, sudo raspi-config then Advanced Options and then SSH. (Note, on recent versions of Raspbian this is enabled by default.)

Improving security

Some general rules to security are:

• Do not use default passwords
• Use multifactor authentication
• Do not provide shell access unless it is needed
• Do not provide services you do not need
• Do not needlessly expose services
• Apply security patches
• Prevent physical access
• Use quality cryptology

Firewall with iptables

(advanced) At this point, your pi is functional, connected, and reasonably secure. It can be made more secure with iptables which will only allow the types of traffic you permit. See RPi iptables sections 1-3, start through Basic rule set.

Connect remotely to the Pi's desktop

Time to complete is about 20 minutes.

Sometimes, it is necessary to view the desktop interface of a Raspberry Pi from a remote location or without an attached keyboard and monitor. Both VNC and RDP are available to help. VNC and RDP are client-server remote desktop protocols.

Moved to Connect to the Raspberry Pi using VNC or RDP

NetworkManager CLI (advanced)

Moved to RPi NetworkManager CLI.

Add the Adafruit Raspberry Pi repository

(deprecated) See Adafruit Raspberry Pi repository

Install node.js

See Node.js on Raspberry Pi

(optional) Node.js is a JavaScript runtime environment for developing server-side Web applications. It uses an asynchronous event driven framework that is designed to build scalable network applications. I install it on nearly all of my pi to provide a framework for building user interfaces that can actually do something.

Learn more about node from Node.js, Express, Adafruit, and search.

Occidentalis

(deprecated) See Occidentalis