Raspberry Pi OS Lite¶
To get a minimal install of Raspberry Pi OS download the Raspberry Pi OS (32-bit) Lite image.
This tutorial is done using 2020-08-20-raspios-buster-armhf-lite.zip
Burn the image to the SD card with balenaEtcher
If your using a Debian based OS you can install and have it on the menu.
Add Etcher debian repository
echo "deb https://deb.etcher.io stable etcher" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/balena-etcher.list
Trust Bintray.com’s GPG key
sudo apt-key adv --keyserver hkps://keyserver.ubuntu.com:443 --recv-keys 379CE192D401AB61
Update and install
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install balena-etcher-electron
Burn the image to the SD card with Etcher
Insert the SD card and connect a mouse, keyboard and monitor to the Raspberry Pi and boot up. After the screen stops scrolling you will need to log in. The user name is pi and the password is raspberry. At this point you have an Operating System (OS) but nothing else.
Setting up the Raspberry Pi OS¶
First some settings need to be changed using raspi-config. After booting up and logging in type in the following.
sudo raspi-config
Use the Up/Down arrow keys to move in a menu and the tab key to move between menus and the spacebar to select options. The following are for the US, adjust as needed for your country.
Network Options
Hostname set the name you want to be visible on the LAN
Localisation Options
Change Locale to en_US ISO8859-1 tab to Ok and press Enter
Default Locale en_US tab to Ok and press Enter
Time Zone, Select US then your time zone.
Change Keyboard Layout
Generic 104-key PC
Other, then English (US)
English (US) for the keyboard layout
The default for the keyboard layout
No Compose key
Change WLAN Country to US
Interfacing Options Enable the following
SSH
Advanced Options
Expand File System
Finish and Reboot
Setup the User¶
To change the user from pi to yourself you first have to create a temporary user and log in as that user. You can’t change pi while logged in as pi.
At the Rpi log in as user pi with the password raspberry
If you have another PC connected to a LAN you can now work from that PC via SSH. At the Rpi type in hostname -I to find out the IP address of the Rpi.
To SSH from another Linux PC on the LAN
ssh pi@192.168.n.nnn replace n's with your Rpi's address
If not using SSH then you will have to do this on the Rpi.
sudo adduser pia
set the password and press enter until you get the is this correct then y
Allow the new user to run sudo by adding the user to sudo group:
sudo adduser pia sudo
Reboot the Rpi
sudo reboot
On the Rpi log in as pia with your password
If your doing this from another PC on the LAN ssh back in as pia
ssh pia@192.168.n.nnn
Change the user name of pi to your user name in my case it’s john sudo usermod -l newUsername oldUsername
sudo usermod -l john pi
Change the home directory name to your name again for me it’s john
sudo usermod -d /home/newHomeDir -m newUsername
sudo usermod -d /home/john -m john
Update the password to your favorite password
sudo passwd john
Reboot the Rpi
sudo reboot
On the Rpi log in as your new user name
If your doing this from another Linux PC with the same user name ssh back in as you by just using the IP address
ssh 192.168.n.nnn
Delete temporary user and folder
sudo deluser pia
sudo rm -r /home/pia
Update everything
sudo apt update
sudo apt dist-upgrade
sudo apt clean
You can now setup auto login
sudo raspi-config
System Options
Boot / auto Login
Console Autologin
Finish and Reboot
At this point we have an up to date OS with nothing else.
Static IP Address¶
If you want to have the same IP address on the Rpi
Find the IP of the router with
ip r | grep default
default via 192.168.1.1 dev enp5s0 proto dhcp metric 100
Now edit dhcpcd.conf
sudo nano /etc/dhcpcd.conf
Change the following lines to the address you want and remove the #
# Example static IP configuration:
#interface eth0
#static ip_address=192.168.0.10/24
#static ip6_address=fd51:42f8:caae:d92e::ff/64
#static routers=192.168.0.1
#static domain_name_servers=192.168.0.1 8.8.8.8 fd51:42f8:caae:d92e::1
# Example static IP configuration:
interface eth0
static ip_address=192.168.1.135/24
#static ip6_address=fd51:42f8:caae:d92e::ff/64
static routers=192.168.1.1
#static domain_name_servers=192.168.0.1 8.8.8.8 fd51:42f8:caae:d92e::1
Ctrl x then y then enter to save. Reboot to apply and log back in at the Rpi.
User bin Directory¶
To add a bin directory and make .bashrc add that to the path so any executables you place in the /home/username/bin will run from the command line or as a program you need to edit the /home/username/.bashrc file. From the users home directory open a terminal and do the following.
ls -a
If bin is not there add it
mkdir bin
nano ~/.bashrc
Add the following to the end of the file
# set PATH so it includes user's private bin if it exists
if [ -d "$HOME/bin" ] ; then
PATH="$HOME/bin:$PATH"
fi
# set PATH so it includes user's private bin if it exists
if [ -d "$HOME/.local/bin" ] ; then
PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH"
fi
Press Ctrl X then y then enter to save the changes
Install OpenBox¶
From either a SSH connection or on the Rpi.
Install Xorg, Xinit and X11 Utilities
sudo apt install --no-install-recommends xserver-xorg xinit x11-xserver-utils
Install Openbox LXTerminal LightDM
sudo apt install openbox lxterminal lightdm
Auto Login
sudo raspi-config
System Options
Boot / Auto Login
Desktop Autologin Desktop GUI
Finish and Reboot
Install the OpenBox menu configuration tool which must be ran on the Rpi4 and not from SSH
sudo apt install obmenu
Remove any unused packages with
sudo apt update
sudo apt autoremove
sudo apt clean
While we are cleaning up lets delete all the empty directories with
find . -type d -empty -delete
Finally reboot and the Rpi should log you in automaticly.
sudo reboot
After the reboot you will be at a completly blank screen if your logged in.
Right click in the Rpi to open a terminal and test that you have the path set to include your bin directory. Look for /home/your name/bin in the path
echo $PATH
/home/john/bin:/usr/local/sbin:... lots of paths
Right click and the menu pops up. Press Ctrl + Alt + Right or Left Arrow keys to switch desktops. Alt Tab to switch between running programs.
Start a GUI program at bootup¶
Add an autostart file
sudo nano /etc/xdg/openbox/autostart
Add the full path of the program followed by a space and an ampersand
/home/john/bin/coop &
Ctrl x the y then enter to save
Reboot and your program should start at boot up.
Disable DPMS Screen Blanking¶
To completely disable DPMS X11 screen blanking, add the following to a file in /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/10-monitor.conf
First check to see if the directory /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d exists with
ls /etc/X11
If xorg.conf.d is not there create it with
sudo mkdir /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d
Now create the file 10-monitor.conf
sudo nano /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/10-monitor.conf
Add the following
Section "ServerFlags"
Option "BlankTime" "0"
Option "StandbyTime" "0"
Option "SuspendTime" "0"
Option "OffTime" "0"
Option "NoPM" "true"
EndSection
Ctrl x then y then enter to save the file Reboot
Check whether the screen blanking has been disabled with this command on the Rpi not via SSH:
xset q
To be able to login without having to type in a password you need to create a SSH key and copy it to the remote PC.
ssh-keygen creates the public and private keys. ssh-copy-id copies the local-host’s public key to the remote-host’s authorized_keys file. ssh-copy-id also assigns proper permission to the remote-host’s home, ~/.ssh, and ~/.ssh/authorized_keys.
First see if you already have a SSH key on the local PC with the following command.
ls -al ~/.ssh/id_*.pub
If you have a key skip to the next step if not create one now with
ssh-keygen
Copy the key to the remote PC with the following command assuming both PC’s have the same user name. Change the IP address to match your remote PC’s IP address
ssh-copy-id 192.168.1.140