Boot to Scratch Raspbian on NOOBS image too big to install

[spooky_tooth]

Hi,

I want to setup a Pi for a child to learn Scratch. At this stage I thought the option on NOOBS would be great but it won't install. It wants 2512 Mbytes and there is only 2367 free. Can I delete some of the other distros on there to create more space? I tried simply removing a couple of folders but that didn't change the available space.

Thanks

[spooky_tooth]

Apologies - managed to create enough space by deleting the other distros before preparing the SD card. I'm doubly sorry because in the meantime I bought a couple of 8 GByte SD cards. Still I'm sure they will be useful eventually.

It's a point for other beginners though - the instructions do say a 4GB card is sufficient and, as it stands, it's not ,

[DeeJay]

Apologies - managed to create enough space by deleting the other distros before preparing the SD card. I'm doubly sorry because in the meantime I bought a couple of 8 GByte SD cards. Still I'm sure they will be useful eventually.

It's a point for other beginners though - the instructions do say a 4GB card is sufficient and, as it stands, it's not ,

Starting from the Raspberry Pi Foundation website at http://www.raspberrypi.org/, and following the link to Downloads and then to the NOOBS Setup Guide. There it says -

if you have an SD card (8GB recommended), then you can download NOOBS for free and install it on your card.

Believe me, I sympathise. I've lobbied to have the 8G requirement for an unmodified card clarified, so I'd be interested to know where it is still wrongly documented.

[FTrevorGowen]

...
Believe me, I sympathise. I've lobbied to have the 8G requirement for an unmodified card clarified, so I'd be interested to know where it is still wrongly documented.

So would I, since I "forwarded the issue", and AFAIK, the documentation was updated. It was also my understanding that NOOBS lite, which only downloads the O.S.('s) required, could install Raspbian on some "4Gb" cards w/o modification. NB:, however, some, but not all, since it depended upon the exact size of the card (they're not all the same). It could also be that the "headroom" has reduced further due to the O.S.('s) having recently been updated.
Trev.

[spooky_tooth]

It's in the ZIP file - the file INSTRUCTIONS-ReadMe.text


NOOBS INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS

1. Insert an SD card that is 4GB or greater in size into your computer.
2. Format the SD card using the platform-specific instructions below:
a. Windows

[MrEngman]

It's in the ZIP file - the file INSTRUCTIONS-ReadMe.text


NOOBS INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS

1. Insert an SD card that is 4GB or greater in size into your computer.
2. Format the SD card using the platform-specific instructions below:
a. Windows

Hi,

The instructions need updating like a lot of the documentation available. However, it is possible to install raspbian using NOOBS on a 4GB SD card. Just needs some additional work.

First, format the SD card with SD formattter using the Format Size Adjustment option ON. When finished formatting unzip NOOBS to the SD card. Then while still plugged into your Windows machine, I assume you are installing it using a windows machine, you need to delete the directories in the OS directory that you do not need. So select the OS directory and delete directories Arch, OpenELEC, Pidora, RaspBMC and RISC_OS and the data_partition directory.

You can now eject the SD card and plug it into your Pi. NOOBS will resize the FAT partition and then you will get a menu showing the OS to install. Select the one you wanted, raspbian booting into scratch I think, and it will say it needs 2512MB but it should now show the space available around about 3110MB or possibly a couple of hundred MB more depending on your actual SD card size.

With my set up SD formatter said my SD card was 3.68GB and when NOOBS got to installing raspbian it said I needed 2512MB and I had 3117MB free. Raspbian installed and ran without problems.

Hope this is useful.


MrEngman

[FTrevorGowen]

It's in the ZIP file - the file INSTRUCTIONS-ReadMe.text
NOOBS INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS
1. Insert an SD card that is 4GB or greater in size into your computer.
2. Format the SD card using the platform-specific instructions below:
a. Windows

Thanks for that. Strictly-speaking that's a (minor) issue to be flagged up to the NOOBS developers on github (https://github.com/raspberrypi/noobs) but such files tend to only be updated just before a major "new release". Mine (and @DeeJay's) concern is/was with the primary documentation here which is (assumed to be) read first by most users and is more likely to be updated during minor releases. (Note: the problem is not within NOOBS itself but due to the growth in size of Raspbian - NOOBS hasn't changed, hence it's banner still reads "1.3.2" cf. other posts here referring to "1.3.7", increments in the 3 digit being due to new releases of any included O.S.'s)
Trev.

[DeeJay]

It's in the ZIP file - the file INSTRUCTIONS-ReadMe.text


NOOBS INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS

1. Insert an SD card that is 4GB or greater in size into your computer.
2. Format the SD card using the platform-specific instructions below:
a. Windows

I agree with you that it is currently inaccurate.

This specific problem was raised with the developers on 21 Feb 2014 via https://github.com/raspberrypi/noobs/issues/176