A First Look at a Pi

6 min readDec 31, 2020

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This article is probably for a beginner, as it only covers the necessary steps required to start up a Pi. If you already are familiar with these, then this might not be a relevant article for you. It’s much like a documentation page with all the steps written, starting from creating a bootable SD Card to installing the OS on the Pi.

This article, I’m writing while I’m still exploring and finding my way out with a Pi. I got a brand new Raspberry Pi 4, the latest version in the series. Look wise it’s smaller, something similar to the size of a credit card. It’s amazing to see how a tiny device has got so much space to be able to hold so many connections at a time. I also have started the Raspberry Pi Bootcamp course on Udemy alongside, as it covers all the basics needed for a beginner.

Pi Origins

Let’s start with some history. Raspberry Pi was initially developed aiming towards promoting the study of Computer Science at the School level, with the idea that these mini computers will be affordable to the common man. The project was started in 2008 by the Raspberry Pi Foundation, a UK based Charity. The first Raspberry Pi was sold by the Foundation was in 2011. Then, again in 2015, a lighter version with reduced configurations, Raspberry Pi Zero was also introduced, with a much cheaper price.

Pi Products

Now we will see a list of all the products sold by the Foundation. As we saw above, it has been around for almost a decade now. Overall, it has four versions released, starting from the First Stage in 2011 to the Fourth Stage, the latest one in 2019. Each stage also comes with different variants like A+ or B+, depending on their hardware configurations. The latest version has a new variant, Raspberry Pi 400 which has a keyboard built-in with the Pi making this a complete computer kit. There are also the Zero and Zero W variants with reduced configurations, with Wireless and Bluetooth configuration installed in the later versions.

Apart from these mini computers, they also provide other accessories, such as HATs (Hardware Attached on Top) which includes the Sense HAT for Temperature or Humidity sensors, TV HAT for decoding the Digital TV Streams. There are also the Camera and the Fan modules which can be installed externally on a Pi.

There’s a lot more in the list, if interested please do check here.

Latest version of Pi

From History of the Pi and then the Specifications, now we move on to see what I’ve got in my Pi.

Fig. Raspberry Pi with all the parts labelled

It has got 8GB of RAM, 4 USB ports, 2 Micro HDMI ports, one SD Card slot, one camera port, 40 GPIO pins, one 3.5mm audio jack, one ethernet port and a power source.

Install Raspberry Pi OS

Here comes the fun part. We need an Operating System to work on a Pi. So we’re gonna boot up our Pi with an OS loaded into a USB drive. The OS we’ll use in the article is the official one, provided by the RPi Foundation, called the Raspberry Pi Operating System. It is based on the Debian Distribution, optimized specially for the RPi project. It was formerly known as Raspbian OS, which was a 32bit OS, whereas the latest version comes with both 64bit and 32bit OSes.

The official way to flash our SD Card with the Raspberry Pi OS is by using a specific tool called a Raspberry Pi Imager. This tool lets us choose an OS from a list and writes the SD Card without much of a hassle. Below, I’ve shown the steps for loading the SD Card with the RPi OS using the Imager.

1. Raspberry Pi Imager Interface asking to Choose an OS and a SD Card to load the bootable OS. 2. Choosing an OS from the list available. 3. OS is chosen, need to chose the SD Card option now.

4. Choose the SD Card from the list. 5. SD Card is also chosen. Now final option is to Write the image on the SD Card. 6. Final confirmation that the SD Card will be erased/formatted before writing the image.

7. Selected OS is being downloaded and written on the SD Card. 8. After writing has been done, it also verifies the write. 9. Successful write confirmation.

In brief, it provides a list of OSes, we choose one from them, then we choose the SD Card. Clicking on Write option downloads the Raspberry Pi OS image, flashes it into the SD Card, and also verifies the installation.

Okay, it’s time to put the SD Card into the Pi and start it.

1. SD Card is put into SD Card slot on the back side of the Pi. 2. Connect the USBs for the Keyboard and the Mouse. 3. Connect one end of the HDMI cable to the Pi and the other end to a Screen.

4. Connect the Pi to a Power Source. 5. Red and Green LEDs indicates active power supply and SD Card setup.

The Pi is all set and ready to go. As soon as the Power connection is provided, the Pi starts and we can see two LEDs blinking on it. The Red LED indicates that the Pi has got an active power supply. The Green LED indicates the SD Card is properly set up.

The first time boot up would take some time, then it flashes the Screen with a Desktop like below. It starts with certain questionnaires to set the locations and language, setting up the internet with a LAN connection or a Wi-Fi network, then installing the latest updates.

NOTE*: The order of the connections (SD Card, USB, HDMI and Power) matters, changing this may not boot up your Pi itself. I faced some problems initially, when unknowingly I was connecting these in some random order.

The last thing that I do in this article is to connect the Pi virtually using it’s IP address. To do this, first we need to get the IP address from the Pi itself using ifconfig. Then from another system, I’m pinging the IP address as shown below, as both of them are on the same network, this connection would start up immediately.

1. Left image is a screenshot from the Pi with its IP. 2. Right image is a screenshot from another System which connected the Remote Pi using SSH

Conclusion

This article was a basic introduction of how to startup with a Pi. It started with some history, some product details and then finally installing the Raspberry Pi OS and booting it up. I’m looking forward to doing some ML/AI stuff on my Pi, and will write more when I do so.

Till then, Good Bye. And A Happy New Year!!