Buying a Raspberry Pi 4 and Installing Raspbian Buster
Introduction
When you purchase a Raspberry Pi 4, you will need some additional items to make it operational. These include: 1) monitor, 2) keyboard, 3) mouse, 4) power supply, 5) HDMI cable to connect to the monitor, and 6) an operating system (Raspbian Buster) on a micro SD card.
Purchases
From: Pimoroni Ltd. https://shop.pimoroni.com/products/raspberry-pi-4?variant=29157087445075
Raspberry Pi 4–4GB RAM (1 GB and 2 GB models are also available.)
From Staples: https://www.staples.com/dell-23-monitor-e2318hr/product_2767069
Dell E Model E2318HR 23" LED Monitor, Black (Similar HDMI monitors are ok.)
From: Adafruit: https://www.adafruit.com/product/4112
Official Raspberry Pi Keyboard — Black and Gray
From Adafruit: https://www.adafruit.com/product/4113
Official Raspberry Pi USB Optical Mouse — Black and Gray
From Chicago Electronic Distributors: https://chicagodist.com/collections/raspberry-pi-systems-and-accessories
C1145 Raspberry Pi Heat Sink (Default Title)
C1216 Raspberry Pi 4 Power Supply in White or Black (Black)
C1220-red Official Raspberry Pi 4 Case (Red/White)
C1219 Micro-HDMI to Standard HDMI Adapter
From Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-Ultra-UHS-I-Memory-Adapter/dp/B00M55C0NS/ref=sr_1_5
SanDisk Ultra 32GB UHS-I/Class 10 Micro SDHC Memory Card With Adapter
Putting the Raspbian Bluster Image On Your Micro SD Card
Go to https://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads/ and click on the RASPBIAN icon. For Raspbian Buster with desktop, click on the Download ZIP button. The Raspbian Bluster Image downloads to your PC, Mac or Linux computer. It should appear something like: 2019–07–10-raspbian-buster-full.img
You need to “flash” this image file to a micro SB card. If you do not have balenaEtcher on your computer go to: https://etcher.io and download it.
Put your micro SB card in its holder and insert it into your computer. Start the balenaEtcher application and drag your image file (2019–07–10-raspbian-buster-full.img) to the + icon about Select Image. Click the Flash! button and wait till the process finishes. Remove your micro SB card holder.
Hooking Things Up
The image below is to help with the hook ups. You can see the labels for the USB ports (2.0 and 3.0), Power Port (via USB-C), HDMI inputs (via 2 micro HDMI ports), and the Micro SD Card Slot.
Connect the following to your computer:
a) the USB mouse and the USB keyboard into the USB 2.0 ports.
b) the HDMI cable from your monitor into one of the micro HDMI ports.
c) the micro-SD card into its slot.
d) the micro USB-C end of the power supply into its Power Port.
Power Up!
Turn on your monitor.
The Raspberry Pi does not have a power switch. To turn it on, you plug it in. To turn it off, you unplug it.
Plug in the power supply to start the boot-up process.
On the first boot of the Raspbian Buster OS, it automatically expands “RAM” to the capacity of the micro-SD card.
Follow the instructions on your monitor to configure your Raspberry Pi.
You will need the password to your wifi network.
The Configuration Application (raspi-config)
Setup parameters can be easily changed using the raspi-config progam.
Click Menu in the upper left corner of the screen.
Select Preferences in the dropdown menu.
Select Raspberry Pi Configuration under Preferences.
The graphical user interface of the raspi-config program is easy to follow.
You can also use raspi-config from the command line (in a Terminal window). For detailed information on this go to:
https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/configuration/raspi-config.md
Updating Raspbian Buster
It is a good idea to update and upgrade your Raspberry Pi before installing new software.
From the Desktop, open a Terminal window by clicking its icon (on the top command bar). Type:
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get upgrade
nano Editor
The nano editor is included with the Raspbian Buster software. It can be used from the command line in a Terminal window. A short introduction to the nano editor is at: https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Nano/Basics_Guide
How to Edit config.txt
The Raspberry Pi computer does not have a conventional BIOS. It uses the text file, “config.txt” (stored on the mini SD) for storing some configuration parameters.
From a terminal window type:
$ sudo nano /boot/config.txt
An example of using the config.txt is to change your display size. The file config.txt contains the following lines:
# uncomment to force a console size. By default it will be display’s size minus
# overscan.
#framebuffer_width=1280
#framebuffer_height=720
Uncomment the above 2 lines and type in your desired width and height.
Save the file. Reboot your Rasperry Pi computer by typing:
$ sudo reboot
to put your changes into effect.
More information on config.txt can be found at:
https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/configuration/config-txt/README.md
Where To Go From Here
The Raspberry Pi Foundation provides lots of support for Raspberry Pi owners. Throughly explore their web site at: https://www.raspberrypi.org
They offer free PDF editions of their monthly magazine, MagPi, and other resources at: https://www.raspberrypi.org/magpi/issues/
There are many exciting projects to do!
