Get Set Pi...
This article is a beginners guide to get started with one of the most popular and favorite hardware of hobbyists, researchers, robotics enthusiasts, students and many more, you got that right "The Raspberry Pi"
A basic info before beginning this, for those of you who don't know what a Raspberry Pi or for convenience's sake a RPi is. Raspberry Pi is a series of single-board computers developed in the United Kingdom by The Raspberry Pi Foundation. These were initially developed with an aim to promote the teaching of basic computer science in schools and in developing countries, but now they are way more than just a teaching tool.
Now that you know what is RPi, it's time we start getting our hands dirty on it.
Stuff required
- A Raspberry Pi (for eg A Pi Zero, RPi 3 or a RPi 4)
- An SD card (at least 8 GB and preferably a 32 GB chip)
- A power supply
- A monitor
- A pair of USB keyboard and mouse
and your are good to go!
The Software
Since the RPi is a computer, you would obviously need an Operating System to run on it. Although it supports a variety of OS like linux, Android (Linage OS) but the most popular is the Debian based Raspbian OS or Raspberry Pi OS (as it is called now), developed exclusively for Raspberry Pi. So that is what I'll be covering in this article.
For writing the OS to the SD card, we’ll be needing a third party software, and if you are going ahead with Raspbian, using the Raspberry Pi Imager is the easiest way to install Raspbian on your SD card.
For downloading the Raspberry Pi Imager, go to the Raspberry Pi Downloads page and select the OS matching your system and the download will start as soon you click the link.
After the download is finished, launch the installer and insert the SD card into your system’s SD card slot. After the installation is completed, by default it will run the application and you’ll be welcomed by the following screen.
Click on the Choose OS button and select the first option, Raspberry Pi OS (32 bit), select your SD card by clicking on the Choose SD Card button and click Write. Caution: If there is any data on the SD card previously, be sure to take its backup because it would be deleted permanently in the process.
This is all you need to do, it’ll take some while in writing the OS to SD card but once it is done, simply eject it from your system and put it in the memory card slot underneath your RPi. Now connect the monitor, keyboard and mouse and power up your Raspberry Pi. You’ll see a red light on your Raspberry Pi and raspberries on the monitor and soon you’ll be welcomed by the following graphical desktop once your Pi is done booting up.
Voila…welcome to the world of Raspberry Pi, your personal single chip computer.! You’ll need to do a few initial setups like your country, language, time zone, WiFi settings etc when you start your RPi for the first time, through which you’ll be guided by the easy to follow Welcome to Raspberry Pi wizard.
Go ahead and start exploring this amazing device, believe me, it surely will amaze you with its capabilities all packed in its very small size. Also feel free to check some of the cool and amazing RPi projects on the official Raspberry Pi Projects page to get you started with the Raspberry Pi.
