Quick Start Guide

Operating system installation

Prerequisites:

  • Any Raspberry Pi model

  • A microSD card (preferably speed class 10)

  • A computer with a microSD card reader

Required steps:

  1. Format the microSD card (preferably with the SD Memory Card Formatter)

  2. Download the zipped disk image for the latest version of Raspbian from https://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads/raspbian/

  3. Unzip the disk image

  4. Find the disk number of microSD card using diskutil list

  5. Unmount micro SD card using diskutil unmount /dev/disk<number> e.g. diskutil unmount /dev/disk2s1

  6. Copy Raspian disk image onto micro SD card using sudo dd bs=1m if=<disk image file name> of=/dev/rdisk<number> conv=sync e.g. sudo dd bs=1m if=2018-03-13-raspbian-stretch.img of=/dev/rdisk2 conv=sync

  7. Wait until the copy process is finished (This will take around 7 minutes. You can check the process by hitting ctrl-T)

Enable USB OTG mode

All Raspberry Pi models have been designed to be used by connecting a power supply, monitor, keyboard and mouse.

If You have a Raspberry Pi model with only one USB connector (= any model without a built-in USB hub), then You can use Your computer and a single USB cable to connect and power Your Raspberry Pi by enabling the USB OTG mode (= USB On-The-Go).

Prerequisites:

  • A Raspberry Pi model A, A+, Zero or Zero W (= any model with only one USB connector)

  • A microSD card with Raspbian installed onto it

  • A computer with a microSD card reader

Required steps:

  1. Connect the microSD card to Your computer

  2. Open the file cmdline.txt with a text editor and insert modules-load=dwc2,g_ether after rootwait and save the changes

  3. Open the file config.txt with a text editor and add a line dtoverlay=dwc2 at the bottom and save the changes

  4. Create a new file in the same directory called ssh (without any content or file name extension) e.g. by typing touch /Volumes/boot/ssh

The original instructions can be found on Andrew Mullholland’s Blog at https://blog.gbaman.info/?p=791.

Connect to a Raspberry Pi over USB

Prerequisites:

  • A Raspberry Pi model A, A+, Zero or Zero W (= any model with only one USB connector)

  • A micro SD card with Raspbian installed onto it and enabled OTG mode

  • A micro USB cable

  • A computer with a USB port

Required steps:

  1. Insert the microSD card into the Raspberry Pi

  2. Connect the Raspberry Pi micro-USB cable to the socket labelled ‘USB’ (the other one ‘PWR’ works only as a power socket) and Your computer

  3. Open up Terminal and connect via SSH (Secure Shell) by typing ssh pi@raspberrypi.local

  4. Watch the Network panel in System Preferences: You should see the RNDIS/Ethernet Gadget

  5. The default password is raspberry

  6. In macOS the IP address of the adapter will be 169.254.xxx.xxx on the host side.

  7. To disconnect type exit

  8. To shutdown type sudo shutdown -h now (when connected)

  9. If ssh pi@raspberrypi.local does not work try arp -a

Remove ssh key from known_hosts

Remove line in text file open ~/.ssh/known_hosts

Configure the Raspberry Pi

Run the Raspberry Pi configuration tool

sudo raspi-config

and

  1. Change the hostname (2 Network Options -> N1 Hostname)

  2. Connect to a wireless network (2 Network Options -> N2 Wi-fi)

  3. Enable SPI (5 Interface Options -> P4 SPI)

Install additional Libraries

Using pip3

Test the internet connection

ping 8.8.8.8

Update pip3

sudo -H pip3 install --upgrade pip

Install Adafruit_GPIO (from https://pypi.org/project/Adafruit-GPIO/)

sudo pip3 install Adafruit-GPIO

Install Adafruit_LED_Backpack (from https://pypi.org/project/Adafruit-LED-Backpack/)

sudo pip3 install Adafruit-LED-Backpack

Install Adafruit_SSD1306 (from https://pypi.org/project/Adafruit-SSD1306/)

sudo pip3 install Adafruit-SSD1306

Install Adafruit_IO (from https://pypi.org/project/adafruit-io/)

sudo pip3 install adafruit-io

Using apt-get

Test the internet connection

ping 8.8.8.8

Update/install required software

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install build-essential python-pip python-dev python-smbus git

Install Adafruit_GPIO (from https://github.com/adafruit/Adafruit_Python_GPIO)

git clone https://github.com/adafruit/Adafruit_Python_GPIO.git
cd Adafruit_Python_GPIO
sudo python3 setup.py install

Install Adafruit_LED_Backpack (from https://github.com/adafruit/Adafruit_Python_LED_Backpack)

git clone https://github.com/adafruit/Adafruit_Python_LED_Backpack.git
cd Adafruit_Python_LED_Backpack
sudo python3 setup.py install

Install Adafruit_SSD1306 (from https://github.com/adafruit/Adafruit_Python_SSD1306)

git clone https://github.com/adafruit/Adafruit_Python_SSD1306.git
cd Adafruit_Python_SSD1306
sudo python3 setup.py install

Install Adafruit_IO (from https://github.com/adafruit/io-client-python)

git clone https://github.com/adafruit/io-client-python.git
cd io-client-python
sudo python3 setup.py install