Raspberry PI setup

Setting up a Raspberry PI (macOS)

Topics

• Formatting SD card
• Flashing OS
• Boot Configuration
• WIFI
• Bluetooth
• SSH
• OS Version Check
• Updates
• Upgrades
• Space Cleanup
• Text Based Browsers
• VNC Server (RealVNC)
• Vim
• USB Access
• TensorFlow
• Docker
• NodeJS
• Hostname
• Password
• Network Connection over USB
• Audio
• MongoDB
• Running and Debugging Python Code
• SSH Chrome Extension
• PiCamera Stream
• GitHub

Formatting SD card

diskutil list

Find partition with with external, physical properties on the list.

sudo diskutil eraseDisk FAT32 BACKUP MBRFormat /dev/disk2
Password:
Started erase on disk2
Unmounting disk
Creating the partition map
Waiting for partitions to activate
Formatting disk2s1 as MS-DOS (FAT32) with name BACKUP
512 bytes per physical sector
/dev/rdisk2s1: 31085888 sectors in 1942868 FAT32 clusters (8192 bytes/cluster)
bps=512 spc=16 res=32 nft=2 mid=0xf8 spt=32 hds=255 hid=2 drv=0x80 bsec=31116286 bspf=15179 rdcl=2 infs=1 bkbs=6
Mounting disk
Finished erase on disk2

Flashing OS

https://etcher.io/

Boot Configuration

 cd /Volumes/boot
➜  boot
touch wpa_supplicant.conf
vim wpa_supplicant.conf

cd D:\
ni -Type File wpa_supplicant.conf
vim .\wpa_supplicant.conf

WiFi

Content of wpa_supplicant.conf

ctrl_interface=DIR=/var/run/wpa_supplicant
update_config=1
country=PL

network={
    ssid="YOURSSID"
    psk="YOURPASSWORD"
}

Disable WiFi on boot

On device with built-in WiFi add a line dtoverlay=pi3-disable-wifi to boot configuration:

cd /Volumes/boot
sudo vim config.txt

Ref.: https://git.io/vFje3

Bluetooth

Disable Bluetooth on boot

On device with built-in Bluetooth add a line dtoverlay=pi3-disable-bt to boot configuration:

cd /Volumes/boot
sudo vim config.txt

Ref.: dtoverlay=pi3-disable-bt

Enable SSH

touch ssh

ni -Type File ssh

Connecting

Verify WIFI

ping -c 3 raspberrypi.local
PING raspberrypi.local (192.168.1.20): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 192.168.1.20: icmp_seq=0 ttl=64 time=12.041 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.20: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=19.085 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.20: icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=11.659 ms

--- raspberrypi.local ping statistics ---
3 packets transmitted, 3 packets received, 0.0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 11.659/14.262/19.085/3.414 ms

Connect via SSH

ssh pi@raspberrypi.local

Default password: raspberry

You could eventually update your SSH fingerprints:

ssh-keygen -R raspberrypi.local
ssh pi@raspberrypi.local

OS Version Check

Checking installed OS version from comandline:

cat /etc/os-release

PRETTY_NAME="Raspbian GNU/Linux 9 (stretch)"
NAME="Raspbian GNU/Linux"
VERSION_ID="9"
VERSION="9 (stretch)"
ID=raspbian
ID_LIKE=debian
HOME_URL="http://www.raspbian.org/"
SUPPORT_URL="http://www.raspbian.org/RaspbianForums"
BUG_REPORT_URL="http://www.raspbian.org/RaspbianBugs"

Update/Upgrade setup

• Update

sudo apt-get update

• Then Upgrade

sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

• [Optional] Cleanup

sudo apt-get clean

Text Based Browsers

When running on lite edition (or just when booting into CLI mode) the text browsers are tremendous help sometimes.

Elinks

sudo apt-get install elinks

Lynx

sudo apt-get install lynx

lynx https://www.raspberrypi.org/

Enabling VNC Server

• Install/Reinstall VNC server in one go:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install realvnc-vnc-server realvnc-vnc-viewer

• Enable VNC server in raspi-config:

sudo raspi-config

Interfacing Options > VNC > Would you like the VNC Server to be enabled? > Yes The VNC Server is enabled

Let the PI reboot

• Start VNC server manually:

sudo systemctl start vncserver-x11-serviced.service

• Stop VNC manually:

sudo systemctl stop vncserver-x11-serviced.service

• To stop VNC server from running at boot:

sudo systemctl disable vncserver-x11-serviced.service

Vim

Install Vim

sudo apt-get install vim

Syntax Highlighting in Vim

" Vim5 and later versions support syntax highlighting. Uncommenting the next
" line enables syntax highlighting by default.
"syntax on

sudo vim /etc/vim/vimrc

and removes quotes before syntax on.

Plugin Manager for Vim

The vim-plug is used here.

Installation

curl -fLo ~/.vim/autoload/plug.vim --create-dirs \
    https://raw.githubusercontent.com/junegunn/vim-plug/master/plug.vim

Now configure Vim configuration file to support plugins with vim-plug:

" Star of plugin section
" Specify a directory for plugins
" - Avoid using standard Vim directory names like 'plugin'
call plug#begin('~/.vim/plugged')
" Make sure you use single quotes

" Initialize plugin system
call plug#end()
" end of plugin section

Example setup:

" Star of plugin section
" Specify a directory for plugins
" - Avoid using standard Vim directory names like 'plugin'
call plug#begin('~/.vim/plugged')
" Make sure you use single quotes

Plug 'scrooloose/syntastic'

Plug 'tpope/vim-fugitive'

Plug 'pangloss/vim-javascript'

Plug 'scrooloose/nerdtree'

Plug 'tpope/vim-surround'

Plug 'bling/vim-airline'

Plug 'flazz/vim-colorschemes'

" Initialize plugin system
call plug#end()
" end of plugin section

For details see: vim-plug installation

Enable USB access

• Edit config.txt:

cd /boot/
sudo vim config.txt

Add a line on the end:

dtoverlay=dwc2

• Creaty empty ssh file if not yet created in /boot/ directory:

touch ssh

• Edit cmdline.txt:

sudo vim cmdline.txt

Add a config item modules-load=dwc2,g_ether after rootwait:

rootwait modules-load=dwc2,g_ether

The content of cmdline.txt after modification:

dwc_otg.lpm_enable=0 console=serial0,115200 console=tty1 root=PARTUUID=4cc82cbf-02 rootfstype=ext4 elevator=deadline fsck.repair=yes rootwait modules-load=dwc2,g_ether quiet splash plymouth.ignore-serial-consoles

Docker support

Docker Installation

Docker support is now official with Raspbian Jessie:

SUPPORT_MAP="
...
armv6l-raspbian-jessie
...

curl -sSL https://get.docker.com | sh

Verify installation:

sudo docker run hello-world

Removing elevated requirement

sudo usermod pi -aG docker
logout

(and start your terminal session again, e.g. using SSH)

Example Dockerfile built and run on device

Here is an example of using custom built Docker image to use Blinkt pHAT:

FROM resin/rpi-raspbian:jessie

# dependencies
RUN apt-get update -qy
RUN apt-get install -qy python3
RUN apt-get install -qy python3-pip
RUN apt-get install -qy python3-rpi.gpio
# Cancel out any Entrypoint already set in the base image.
ENTRYPOINT []

# Blinkt
RUN apt-get install -qy python3-blinkt

# app code dependecies

RUN pip3 install request

WORKDIR /root/

# COPY library  library
# WORKDIR /root/library
# RUN python3 setup.py install
# RUN pip3 install request

WORKDIR /root/
COPY examples   examples
WORKDIR /root/examples/
# install app specific  requirements (can be cached already)
RUN pip3 install -r requirements.txt
# code
CMD ["python3", "cheerlights.py"]

Node Support

RaspberryPi

Add support for official relase packages:

curl -sL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_10.x | sudo bash -

To install Node and NPM:

sudo apt-get install -y nodejs

You would probably need this dev tools for some native extensions:

sudo apt-get install gcc g++ make

If you need Yarn:

curl -sL https://dl.yarnpkg.com/debian/pubkey.gpg | sudo apt-key add -
echo "deb https://dl.yarnpkg.com/debian/ stable main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/yarn.list
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install yarn

PiZero

This will install latest version (https://github.com/sdesalas/node-pi-zero):

wget -O - https://raw.githubusercontent.com/sdesalas/node-pi-zero/master/install-node-v.last.sh | bash

This will produce:

wget -O - https://raw.githubusercontent.com/sdesalas/node-pi-zero/master/install-node-v.last.sh | bash
--2017-11-25 18:05:45--  https://raw.githubusercontent.com/sdesalas/node-pi-zero/master/install-node-v.last.sh
Resolving raw.githubusercontent.com (raw.githubusercontent.com)... 151.101.112.133
Connecting to raw.githubusercontent.com (raw.githubusercontent.com)|151.101.112.133|:443... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 1703 (1.7K) [text/plain]
Saving to: ‘STDOUT’

-                                       100%[===============================================================================>]   1.66K  --.-KB/s   in 0.001s

2017-11-25 18:05:46 (1.26 MB/s) - written to stdout [1703/1703]

  % Total    % Received % Xferd  Average Speed   Time    Time     Time  Current
                                 Dload  Upload   Total   Spent    Left  Speed
100   99k  100   99k    0     0  75234      0  0:00:01  0:00:01 --:--:-- 75282
--2017-11-25 18:05:48--  https://nodejs.org/dist/v9.2.0/node-v9.2.0-linux-armv6l.tar.gz
Resolving nodejs.org (nodejs.org)... 104.20.23.46, 104.20.22.46, 2400:cb00:2048:1::6814:172e, ...
Connecting to nodejs.org (nodejs.org)|104.20.23.46|:443... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 16896011 (16M) [application/gzip]
Saving to: ‘node-v9.2.0-linux-armv6l.tar.gz’

node-v9.2.0-linux-armv6l.tar.gz         100%[===============================================================================>]  16.11M   878KB/s   in 27s

2017-11-25 18:06:16 (619 KB/s) - ‘node-v9.2.0-linux-armv6l.tar.gz’ saved [16896011/16896011]

$ node --version
v9.2.0

Yarn support

The generic installation script works without a problem. See Yarn Installation:

curl -o- -L https://yarnpkg.com/install.sh | bash

yarn --version
1.3.2

Hostname Change

Edit configuraction file:

sudo vim /etc/hostname

sudo /etc/init.d/hostname.sh
sudo reboot

Password Change

This is a security risk - please login as the 'pi' user and type 'passwd' to set a new password.

passwd

Network Connection Over USB

On your Mac OS go to >System Preferences > Sharing, select correction interface in Share your connection from dropdown. Then select To Computer Using > RNDIS/Ethernet Gadget and finally enable Internet Sharing service.

Verify connection from your Raspberry PI:

ping -c 3 google.com

Audio

Setup

• Write down your plugged device card and device number:

arecord -l

• Write down your plugged device card and device number:

aplay -l

• create and edit configuration in /home/pi:

touch /home/pi/.asoundrc
sudo vim /home/pi/.asoundrc

• add default configuration for sound interface based on previous steps results. Example for Sound Blaster Audio card:

pcm.!default {
  type asym
  capture.pcm "mic"
  playback.pcm "speaker"
}
pcm.mic {
  type plug
  slave {
    pcm "hw:1,0"
  }
}
pcm.speaker {
  type plug
  slave {
    pcm "hw:1,0"
  }
}

Verify setup by running speaker-test:

speaker-test -t wav

TensorFlow

Google now ships precompiled wheels of the TensorFlow for both arm7/arm6 architecture. Look into dedicated docs. The TensorFlow is ready for use stright after installation.

Install TensorFlow on Raspbian

Python 2 version does not support precompiled wheels so expect longer installation

Collecting tensorflow
  Downloading https://www.piwheels.org/simple/tensorflow/tensorflow-1.9.0-cp35-none-linux_armv6l.whl (62.8MB)
    100% |████████████████████████████████| 62.8MB 1.4kB/s

MongoDB

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
sudo apt-get install mongodb-server

To allow connection from other machine bind to local network address:

sudo vim /etc/mongodb.conf

bind_ip = 127.0.0.1,192.168.1.13

Services Status Check

If you installed any component as a service and you are interested to check their current status:

sudo service {SERVICE_NAME} status

or list all services statuses:

sudo service --status-all

Here it lists MongoDB service as not running:

 [ + ]  kmod
 [ + ]  lightdm
 [ - ]  mongodb
 [ - ]  motd
 [ - ]  mountall-bootclean.sh
 [ - ]  mountall.sh

Increase Swap File Size

Sometimes when compiling from the source it is usefull to increase swap file size for the duration of the build:

sudo vim /etc/dphys-swapfile

Change from defualt CONF_SWAPSIZE=100 to CONF_SWAPSIZE=2048

Restart swap file service:

sudo /etc/init.d/dphys-swapfile stop
sudo /etc/init.d/dphys-swapfile start
...
free -m
             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:           434        284        149          4         20        173
-/+ buffers/cache:         90        343
Swap:         2047          0       2047

Update Python version

Ref.: Installing Python 3.6 on Raspbian

Install TMUX

tmux wiki When using SSH you could detach current session to background using tmux:

tmux cheatsheet

Backup SD Card

sudo dd if=/dev/disk2 of=~/Desktop/backup.img

where /dev/disk2 is a name of a mounted sd card, ~/Desktop/backup.img is a location of the backup file to be created. After the backup image has been created use Etcher to flush it to new sd card.

Running And Debugging Python Code

When using PyCharm you can configure it to:

• sync your local changes with remote device
• run/debug on remote device

Remote Development on Raspberry Pi

When installing dependencies native to Linux (e.g. one that requires GPIO) you could:

pip install blinkt --no-deps

The same option works in PyCharm install library dialog. This allows to develop on machine without native features that are specific to device.

SSH Chrome Extension

You can connet to your PI device from any other device using Chrome and Google's SSH app extension:

Secure Shell App

PiCamera Stream

Below is verified to be working:

raspivid -o - -n -fps 45 -w 640 -h 480 -vf -hf -t 0 -vs -fli auto | cvlc -vvv stream:///dev/stdin --sout '#rtp{sdp=rtsp://:8554/}' :demux=h264 :h264-fps=45

Requires FLV installed on Raspberry

Note: be aware of FPS ranges required by PiCamera setup and GPU, otherwise you could get cryptic error messages in process output:

Sensor Modes

The requested framerate should be within the range of the sensor mode.

GitHub

Credentials

When using closing repositories from GitHub using https option one can enable credential cache on the terminal:

$ git config --global credential.helper cache
# Set git to use the credential memory cache

$ git config --global credential.helper 'cache --timeout=3600'
# Set the cache to timeout after 1 hour (setting is in seconds)

See: Caching your GitHub password in Git

Account

# gets the username from global config
git config --global user.name
# sets the username in global config
git config --global user.name "UserName"
# gets the email from global config
git config --global user.email
# sets the email in global config
git config --global user.name "username@users.noreply.github.com"

Author

@peterblazejewicz