Astro Pi set up help!

[Missscompute]

I won't even try to lie, I'm a learner Raspberry Pi user.
My school just received the Astro Pi had that I requested and I can't seem to make it run properly. I've installed everything properly (according to the given instruction). In the instructions it says after the reboot the rainbow LED lights should be off. Firstly mine are still on.
My next issue was that I tried to run the examples (again, followed all the instructions given) and it says permission denied. I tried running everything using sudo and still no luck, it either comes back with an error or just stop working. When I go into python I can see all the codes though.
Any hints or tips to get this going would be amazing! The kids are really excited to start coding with it.

[Davespice]

Hi there, if the rainbow LEDs stay on then it's likely the drivers haven't installed correctly.

I would suggest to wipe your SD card, install the latest Raspbian on it and then run the install script again. If it's easier to copy and paste the command to start the install script then you can get that from here.

Please reply below if this doesn't work for you.

[Missscompute]

Thanks for the advice, I've wiped the SD card and reinstalled everything. My issue now is that it seems to have taken up all the space on the SD card (only 8 GB) so it now won't start when I type startx... it just takes a long time then comes up with an error message ('no protocol specified'). After a search online it appears that the SD card being full would be the most likely cause for this issue.

[ShiftPlusOne]

Instead of using startx, try 'sudo raspi-config' and enable boot to desktop, then reboot.

[clive]

Also see here: http://www.stuffaboutcode.com/2015/05/a ... arted.html

[Missscompute]

That got it working! Thank you so much, never seen a class so excited about flashing lights!

[Davespice]

Thanks for the advice, I've wiped the SD card and reinstalled everything. My issue now is that it seems to have taken up all the space on the SD card (only 8 GB) so it now won't start when I type startx... it just takes a long time then comes up with an error message ('no protocol specified'). After a search online it appears that the SD card being full would be the most likely cause for this issue.

Ah, I wonder if you didn't expand the file system? You would need to do this if you did a non-NOOBS install.
You can open a Terminal window and enter this command to find out how much free space you have:

Code: Select all

df -h

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Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
rootfs          7.2G  2.6G  4.3G  38% /
/dev/root       7.2G  2.6G  4.3G  38% /
devtmpfs        214M     0  214M   0% /dev
tmpfs            44M  236K   44M   1% /run
tmpfs           5.0M     0  5.0M   0% /run/lock
tmpfs            88M     0   88M   0% /run/shm
/dev/mmcblk0p1   56M   19M   37M  34% /boot

Look at the Size and Avail column for the rootfs row (usually the first row). See I've got 4.3 GB available on mine.
If Size (total size) is saying about 2 or 3 GB then you probably just need to expand the file system to fill the SD card.
Run this command:

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sudo raspi-config

Then you should see this:

Select number 1 Expand Filesystem and press Enter, then go down to Finish, press Enter again and reboot.
Then try the df -h command again and you'll now have loads of free space.

I hope this helps.
Dave

[Johnny5C]

Really good to see some Astro Pi user comments!

The project is getting its legs!