These are my notes on how I create SD and configure SD cards for a Raspberry PI.
Note that there is a YouTube Video that discusses this REPO.
I have switched to using the 64-bit version of raspios. The version I last tested is 2023-05-03-raspios-bullseye-arm64-lite
as shown below in the section: Use the command line on Linux.
The 64-bit version simplifies the install of things like ICE40 FPGA development toolchain.
I have used two methods for formatting and installing an image onto an SD card.
Install and use the Raspberry PI SD card imager as documented here:
https://www.raspberrypi.com/software/
On my Ubuntu 20.04 system, I did this to install and run it:
snap install rpi-imager
rpi-imager
I could get the basic image onto an SD card like this, but the ctl-shift-X configuration menu failed.
When this completes, check to see if your PC mounted the new SD card image... and if so, then click what ever is necessary to cleanly unmount it so you can then remove it.
wget https://downloads.raspberrypi.org/raspios_lite_arm64/images/raspios_lite_arm64-2023-05-03/2023-05-03-raspios-bullseye-arm64-lite.img.xz
plug in the SD card and figure out to what device it is connected:
lsblk -p
IF YOU DO THE FOLLOWING WRONG, IT CAN INSTANTLY AND PERMINANTLY DESTROY EVERY FILE ON YOUR ENTIRE PC! READ THESE INSTRUCTIONS CAREFULLY... TWICE!!
Look at the output from lsblk and figure out where the SD card was mounted & the device
path. The following assumes that it is /dev/sdc
Make very certain you use the right device in the following command! You have now been warned twice!
Wipe out any existing data on the SD card:
sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdc count=1 bs=1M
I remove and re-insert the SD card at this point (to make sure that the OS does not
think it is in use) and then install the image downloaded with wget above:
xz --decompress --stdout 2023-05-03-raspios-bullseye-arm64-lite.img.xz | sudo dd of=/dev/sdc bs=4M conv=fsync
When this completes, check to see if your PC mounted the new SD card image... and if so, then click what ever is necessary to cleanly unmount it so you can then remote it.
Put the SD card into your PI & power it on, let it boot and answer the questions to configure the password, timezone, and reboot the PI.
When it comes back on line, open a terminal window (or SSH into it) and apply any updates:
sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade -y
sudo reboot
After the PI reboots, run raspi-config:
sudo raspi-config
System Options/Boot
Hostname
Boot/Auto Login Select boot into desktop or to command line
Console Autologin Text console
Interfacing Options
Turn on SSH
SPI
I2C
Turn on camera
Finish
reboot = yes
You should be able to ssh into the PI at this point. If you get an error like this:
pi@raspberrypi.local: Permission denied (publickey,password).
and you are using command-line ssh then disable any local configuration you might have for ssh and log in like this:
ssh -F /dev/null pi@raspberrypi.local
I install an editor that I like:
sudo apt install vim -y
...and configure options that I like by creating a file named .vimrc in the PI home directory
and the root home directory that contains this:
set ts=4
setlocal cm=blowfish2
set mouse=
set ttymouse=
set noshowmatch
let g:loaded_matchparen=1
:set t_BE=
If you cannot paste the above in to .vimrc while running vim, then do it using nano or cat like this:
cat - > ~/.vimrc
set ts=4
setlocal cm=blowfish2
set mouse=
set ttymouse=
set noshowmatch
let g:loaded_matchparen=1
:set t_BE=
and then press ^D (or CTRL-D if you prefer).
I also prefer the same .vim settings when I am root:
sudo cp ~/.vimrc ~root
I add the following to the end of my .bashrc because the defaults don't make sense to me:
export LC_CTYPE=C
export LC_ALL=C
export COLLATE=POSIX
export EDITOR=vi
# nix the annoying quoted ls output...
export QUOTING_STYLE=literal
alias ll='ls -lF'
alias ls='ls -F'
Prepare your git environment for future use:
sudo apt install git
git config --global user.email "me@example.com"
git config --global user.name "John Q. Public"
Since I often run my PI headless but like to be able to add an HDMI monitor to a running system from time to time, I want to force the PI to assume there is an HDMI monitor when it boots so that it does not default to something else that will prevent me from seeing the screen unless the PI boots with one already plugged in.
This can be done by adding the following to the /boot/config.txt file:
hdmi_force_hotplug=1
hdmi_group=1 # use CEA modes
hdmi_mode=16 # 1080p60
If the PI will not be used with WiFI or bluetooth, I remove the drivers like this:
sudo apt purge bluez -y
sudo apt autoremove -y
...and I disable the kernel drivers for them by adding the following lines to
the /boot/config.txt file:
dtoverlay=disable-wifi
dtoverlay=disable-bt
To develop i2c applications in C:
sudo apt install libi2c-dev -y
Note that the default clock speed for the i2c on the Raspberry PI is 100khz. To change
it to a faster speed, edit the speed, change the i2c configuration in the /boot/config.txt
file like this:
#dtparam=i2c_arm=on # original configuration
dtparam=i2c_arm=on,i2c_arm_baudrate=400000 # new configuration
(This assumes you already have ssh set up on your primary workstation.)
On the Raspberry PI, as the pi user, create a .ssh directory with the proper permissions:
mkdir ~/.ssh
chmod 700 ~/.ssh
Copy over your authorized_keys from your PC:
scp -F /dev/null ~/.ssh/authorized_keys pi@raspberrypi.local:.ssh/authorized_keys
At this point, you should be able to log into the PI with your ssh key.
It is now advisable to disable password-based ssh access to your PI so that noone
can access it over the network without your private ssh key. To do this, edit
the /etc/ssh/sshd_config file and change the following comment line:
#PasswordAuthentication yes
by making a copy of it (so you remember what the original/default is), remove the
# and change the yes to no so it looks like this:
#PasswordAuthentication yes
PasswordAuthentication no
This change will not be applied until the next reboot or you restart the sshd server like this:
sudo /etc/init.d/ssh restart