Buying a Raspberry Pi and Installing Raspbian Stretch
Introduction
When you purchase a Raspberry Pi, 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 Stretch) on a micro SD card.
Purchases
From: Adafruit: https://www.adafruit.com/product/3775
Raspberry Pi 3 — Model B+ 1.4GHz Cortex-A53 with 1GB RAM
From Staples: https://www.staples.com/dell-23-monitor-e2318hr/product_2767069
Dell E Model E2318HR 23" LED Monitor, Black
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 Adafruit: https://www.adafruit.com/product/1995
5V 2.5A Switching Power Supply with 20AWG MicroUSB Cable
From Adafruit: https://www.adafruit.com/product/608
HDMI Cable — 1 meter — Official Raspberry Pi
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 Stretch Image On Your Micro SD Card
Go to https://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads/ and click on the RASPBIAN icon. For RASPBIAN STRETCH WITH DESKTOP, click on the Download ZIP button. The Raspbian Stretch Image downloads to your PC, Mac or Linux computer. Unzip and put it on your desktop. It should appear something like: 2019–04–08-raspbian-stretch.img
You need to “flash” this image file to your micro SB card. If you do not have Etcher 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 Etcher application and it will ask for your image file (2019–04–08-raspbian-stretch.img). Click the Flash! button and wait till the process finishes.
Hooking Things Up
The image below is to help with the hook ups. You can see the labels for the USB ports, per (power) in, HDMI input and Display (DSI) connector.
Connect the following to your computer:
a) the USB mouse and the USB keyboard into the USB ports
b) the HDMI cable (into the tan slot) and the other end to your monitor
c) the microSD card (its slot is on the mid-left bottom of the Raspberry Pi under the Display DSI connector)
d) the microUSB end of the power supply into PWR IN.
Power Up!
Turn on your monitor.
Plug in your power supply. The Raspberry Pi does not have a power switch. To turn it on, you plug it in. To turn it off, you unplug it.
On the first boot, raspbian-stretch images (later than the 2019–04–08-raspbian-stretch.img) boot up with a configuration application running. Follow the instructions to easily configure your Raspberry Pi.
You will need the password to your wifi network.
The Configuration Application (raspi-config)
Click Menu in the upper left corner of the screen.
Select Preferences in the dropdown menu.
Select Raspberry Pi Configuration under Preferences.
For detailed information on raspi-config go to:
https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/configuration/raspi-config.md
Updating Raspbian Stretch
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. Type:
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get upgrade
nano Editor
The nano editor is included with the Raspbian Stretch 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!
