Getting Started with Raspberry Pi (model 3B+)
Raspberry Pi is a credit card sized computer, but don’t let it’s small size fool you, With its Built-in Broadcom 1.4GHz quad-core 64 bit processor, low energy on-board Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and USB Port Built on the latest Broadcom 2837 ARMv8 64 bit processor, it is truly a power house in its capabilities. In this article, I am going to mention how to get started with Raspberry Pi and what are the first steps that has to be performed.
For the purpose of this article I am going to be using Raspberry Pi 3B+ model.
On its own, if you buy Raspberry Pi it will only include the mother board. Along with it, you will need the following:
- SD card.
- Power Source/Battery bank with micro USB Cable.
- HDMI Display.
- Mouse and Keyboard.
- A case (Optional but highly recommended for Protection).
Installing the Raspberry Pi OS on the SD card.
Raspberry Pi OS or Raspbian is the official OS, which can be used for all the models of Raspberry Pi.
We are going use the Raspberry Pi Imager to Install the OS on our SD card, You can use the link given below and download the Imager for Windows, MacOS, Ubuntu.
After downloading and installing the Imager. Open the application.
You will have the option to select the Image file and the system detected SD cards. Select them both and click on WRITE.
It will format the SD card and create a bootable SD card that can be used by the device.
Start the Raspberry Pi Desktop
Insert the SD card to your device and connect the pi with a monitor, keyboard, mouse and a power source. Once you turn on your device for the first time, Pi will boot up and will prompt for initial settings such as setting your current region, Language, Login credentials, Wi-Fi, software update.
Once you are done with your initial settings Restart the device and you are good to go.
Setting up SSH
In order to be able to remotely connect with your Raspberry Pi, we are going to enable SSH.
Open Terminal in your Pi and type the below command:
sudo raspi-configThis will open the configuration tool for your pi, to enable SSH, Go to Interfacing options.
In here, select SSH:
And enable SSH server.
Once you have enabled SSH login, You can see your pi’s IP address using the following command:
ifconfigNow, test if you are able to SSH into the device from another device in the network.
ssh pi@<Rpi IP address>Once your SSH is successful, you no longer need an external display, you can make use of any other device in the same network to connect to your Raspberry Pi. In order to maintain the same IP address of Pi, we can configure the static IP address of RPi in the Router setting. This will ensure that the Router always assigns the same IP address in an event of a Re-start.
Configure static IP address
The below mentioned article explains how to quickly reserve IP address for your device.
We are now done with the basic set-up of your new Raspberry Pi. You can now customize it to your needs and explore its limitless capabilities.
