STICKY: Getting Started with the Raspberry Pi

[Vallius Dax]

My BlackBerry charger reads:

Input: 100-240V ~ 150mA 50-60Hz
10-20VA

Output: 5V-700mA

Can I use it with my RasPi? Also, what does 10-20VA mean?
I'm sorry to ask all this, but I'm a total beginner in this matters...

Focus on the Input and Output... Also VA sounds like it might have been VAC (AC Voltage) Or that it lists the high end below so it'd be like 100-110 VAC and 240-260 VAC...

In the end as long as the resulting output is 5V 700mA-1.2mA it should work perfectly fine. Even if your power supply took 10,000,000VAC and 5000A as long as it spit out 5v 700mA it'd work not that I reccomend people working with that much volts or amps typical plug connections in North America are 100-110VAC and would supply 15 Amps assuming building code is being followed.

Just in case anyone stumbles upon this, VA is VoltAmps, which is what AC power *SHOULD* be measured in. For non critical applications it can basically be considered to be equivalent to Watts.

[Godmil]

Quick question, I keep seeing people posting links to tool and updates with simple 'sudo apt-get install ...' commands, but how could I find out what all is available?

[abishur]

Quick question, I keep seeing people posting links to tool and updates with simple 'sudo apt-get install ...' commands, but how could I find out what all is available?

If you're using Debian, then searching here

http://www.debian.org/distrib/packages#search_packages

will show you what packages there are, but it can be rather catch 22 as you tend to need to know the approximate name of the package you're looking for. If you want a GUI solution, there's always Synaptic which let's you browse genres. If you want to go that route, you could try googleing for a windows program for debian like "Minesweaper for Debian" or "Word program for Debian" stuff like that.

Now I say that, but it's possible that the package you find won't have an easy download via apt-get on the pi yet, in which case it should be possible to build it from source, but the above is a good place to start

[Godmil]

Excellent, thanks for the tips

[steffanwms]

please help, im new to raspberry pi and running raspbian on the sd card, im running something in "LX terminal" to make and ssh server (something like that) and it says rm: remove 'write-....blah blah blah................._rsa_key.pub' ? i need to sy yes, i've tried 'y' and 'yes' but it doesnt work please help! dont laugh coz ive never used linux before only mac and windows!!
thanks in advance
(i was gonna use the 'absolute beginner forum', but as of last night its been locked for some reason)

[SimonSmall]

To steffanwms - First, welcome. Don't be put off by being new to Linux. Second, you do need to be a bit clearer with your posts: I suspect that the lack of replies is because people read your post and don't know how to answer. Here's how to ask your question better, and how I have interpreted what you asked:

"running raspbian... something in LX terminal" - You are running a Raspian image, in the Graphical display with the LX Terminal window open, meaning you are typing at a command line

"make and ssh server (something like that)" - You are trying to run ssh? Your description is a bit unclear

" it says rm: remove 'write-....blah blah blah................._rsa_key.pub' " - The Pi is telling you something that you don't understand? The full wording of the message will allow someone to recognise straight away what is happening; the way you have written it means we have to guess

"i need to sy yes, i've tried 'y' and 'yes' but..." - You have, I assume, guessed what you need to do but your previous wording means we cannot be sure that that is what you should do

It is common, and often said, that you set up remote access to the Pi from another computer. The Pi part of this works without you doing anything. You would need to connect both Pi and the computer to your home network (if you are at home) and install the other half of the ssh connection on the other machine. Try looking here: http://elinux.org/RPi_A_Method_for_ssh_blind_login

If that is what you are trying to do, you might be doing it wrong. If it is not, can you explain your question a bit better?

[steffanwms]

To- SimonSmall
Thanks so much, for the reply. I just have got no idea with linux because i've used mac all my life. I've had no experience with Linux, and also no experience with LX Terminal. I'm Really sorry about the jumbled up post. Thanks for having so much patience!

Basically, what im trying to do is use the Pi as an SSH server, so Time Machine and/or Putty on Windows would back up wirelessly, over the home WiFi network. In a way I thought i'd make a cheap alternative to a Time Capsule, because £249 (or similar) is way too much! I googled for tutorials (visiting the eLinux page on SSH servers) and i copied and pasted the command line - "rm /etc/ssh/ssh_host_* && dpkg-reconfigure openssh-server"
into terminal, which selected public and private folders on the Pi. The first step before activating SSH, (for security). The command line was successful, but then asked an, "Are you sure?" type question. I wanted to select "Yes" obviously, but being a complete novice this simple problem baffled me. I tried typing "y" in and "yes", to no avail. Its a really really stupid question, I know! And google didn't have any answers, presumably because nobody would ask such a stupid question! !!!

SimonSmall, thank you very much for pointing everything out to me. And pardon my stupidity!!

Cheers, steffanwms

[Monkeyboys]

Simple question from a complete beginner just opening up the Raspi box for the first time ... Can I use a laptop screen instead of a stand-alone computer monitor in order to view input and output? If I can use the laptop screen do I have to somehow disable the Laptop CPU (correct term?) so that the laptop acts as no more than a monitor?

[abishur]

Simple question from a complete beginner just opening up the Raspi box for the first time ... Can I use a laptop screen instead of a stand-alone computer monitor in order to view input and output? If I can use the laptop screen do I have to somehow disable the Laptop CPU (correct term?) so that the laptop acts as no more than a monitor?

Short answer, you can't do what you're describing, those ports on laptops are designed to be output ports, and even in the case that you had an HDMI or DVI input (which I've only seen available via add-on cards) I've never seen anything that could run the monitor while the laptop itself was off.

However, you can use the laptop to SSH or VNC into the pi. SSH is perfect if all you want is text, you'll need VNC if you want a GUI environment, but both those options would require the laptop to be on as well.

[subdiaz]

Hi,

I study informatics and engineering in Hungary, on the best technical university of Hungary. I've got two rpi, the first limited edition's model B, and a revision 2 model B with half GB of memory.

First, I tried with a low-cost keyboard, a noname mouse, an HDMI fullHD LCD, a power supplied USB hub with 10 ports, and a huge 2.5A micro USB power supply. I use a Samsung 8 GB class 6 SDHC (and sometimes a Kingston 32 GB class 10 SDHC) with Debian Wheezy.

The keyboard was not correct, because some keys was working, the others not.

I've got a very good keyboard with no extra functions, with no lights, etc. So, it is a very good keyboard, but it needs minimal power. And I've got a very good gamer mouse, but for the first times, not plugged in. The other things did not changed.

This keyboard is better, but some keys still not working. This is a USB keyboard, with no ps2 / usb converters. For example, "a" and "s" not working. It's a hungarian painted keyboard, but pi uses it as an english keyboard, it's okay, no problem, z and y are y and z. But, the button painted "z" is not y, this makes nothing. The button painted "y" makes z good.

Most of the rpi OS, the factory login + password is "pi" and "raspberry". I can't type it, because the password contains "a", "s" and "y" as well. I can't turn it on. :-'(

I asked it in a hungarian unofficial rpi forum, and here too. Please help me.

Sorry for my very bad english grammar, I should learn it
thx
___
Gergő from Hungary

[abishur]

Hi,

I study informatics and engineering in Hungary, on the best technical university of Hungary. I've got two rpi, the first limited edition's model B, and a revision 2 model B with half GB of memory.

First, I tried with a low-cost keyboard, a noname mouse, an HDMI fullHD LCD, a power supplied USB hub with 10 ports, and a huge 2.5A micro USB power supply. I use a Samsung 8 GB class 6 SDHC (and sometimes a Kingston 32 GB class 10 SDHC) with Debian Wheezy.

The keyboard was not correct, because some keys was working, the others not.

I've got a very good keyboard with no extra functions, with no lights, etc. So, it is a very good keyboard, but it needs minimal power. And I've got a very good gamer mouse, but for the first times, not plugged in. The other things did not changed.

This keyboard is better, but some keys still not working. This is a USB keyboard, with no ps2 / usb converters. For example, "a" and "s" not working. It's a hungarian painted keyboard, but pi uses it as an english keyboard, it's okay, no problem, z and y are y and z. But, the button painted "z" is not y, this makes nothing. The button painted "y" makes z good.

Most of the rpi OS, the factory login + password is "pi" and "raspberry". I can't type it, because the password contains "a", "s" and "y" as well. I can't turn it on. :-'(

I asked it in a hungarian unofficial rpi forum, and here too. Please help me.

Sorry for my very bad english grammar, I should learn it
thx
___
Gergő from Hungary

It would probably be good to start a new thread for this issue, but the immediate question that springs to mind is "what all are you plugging into the hub?" There is a known usb issue that is being worked on, involving mixing speeds of USB devices (such as a low speed usb 1.1 keyboard or mouse and a usb 2.0 hard drive or other usb 2.0 devices) Try removing the 10 port usb hub from the mix and seeing how your keyboard operates.

[subdiaz]

It would probably be good to start a new thread for this issue, but the immediate question that springs to mind is "what all are you plugging into the hub?" There is a known usb issue that is being worked on, involving mixing speeds of USB devices (such as a low speed usb 1.1 keyboard or mouse and a usb 2.0 hard drive or other usb 2.0 devices) Try removing the 10 port usb hub from the mix and seeing how your keyboard operates.

I tried without the 10 port usb hub, with just the keyboard, and the problam was the same. I came back to the PC-store, and they gave back the money. The MS-keyboard was defective.

[mertresvag]

mahjongg said:

Although... the 5V is only used to feed a 3.3 Volt regulator, as the R-PI (SoC) itself runs on 3.3volt, so it probably will run on much lower voltages than 5V (like 4.6 Volt). But the "5V" also goes to the R-PI's USB connectors, and what is connected there might be less forgiving.

According to the schematic the 5V input is not regulated by the PI, this looks like a bad idea. The 5V is feed to a NCP1117-3V3 regulator (output 3.3 Volt). This regulator has a Dropout Voltage of 1.2 Volt. This means that if the input voltage goes down to 4.5 Volt the regulator is likely to stop working.
And what does stop working mean? With older regulators they just send the unregulated input voltage to the output. The data sheet does not tell what will happen if the input power goes down to 4.5 Volt, But I hope the output drops to 0V.

The output from the NCP1117-3V3 is feed to a LP2980-2V5 (this gives out 2.5 Volt) and a NCP1117-1V8 (1.8 Volt). The LP2980 is used as it has a Dropout Voltage as low as 120 mV.

All 4 voltages, the 5 Volt, the 3.3 Volt, the 2.5 Volt and the 1.8 Volt are feed into the BCM2835 chip.

My advice is to invest in a good PSU or make one yourself.

M.

[Costatec]

I recently got a RPi and loaded an SD card with wheezy-Raspbian. I connected a USB mouse & keyboard with power provided by my Kindle 5 volt 0.85 amp supply via the micro-USB port.
When it booted up I got to the GUI but the mouse froze. This happened several times and other weird things.
I tried two more power supplies one of which was a 2.5 amp (very stable) supply. They all showed the same problem. I even tried a few USB cables!
I then contemplated soldering the supply directly to the board when I found that you could use the GPIO port! The RPi then worked fine with all 3 supplies.

I think that it is important to stress that the supply should be connected via the .GPIO ONLY, not through the micro-USB as this can save a lot of grief!

[Pr4tik91]

i have downloaded the wheezy raspbian about three times already and the Checksum id never matches?
what shall i do?

[abishur]

i have downloaded the wheezy raspbian about three times already and the Checksum id never matches?
what shall i do?

Where are you downloading it from, where are you getting the checksum from and are you checking the .img file or the .zip file?

[gtoby001]

There is a better way with just a single command
"sudo adduser ****"
(replace **** with the name)
(without quotes)

JeremyF said:


SH4RK3Y said:


I'm brand new to Linux based OS and i was just wondering how to do the basics such as setting up a new profile eg not having 'Pi' as user id and getting a feel for the programs that come pre-installed if anybody could help or point my in the direction of instructions would be greatly appreciated.(sorry if i said something that makes no sense but as i said i'm brand new to this)


Pre-installed programs are few at the moment as far as I know, just a web browser, Python, and MIT Scratch.

When you get your Pi, to make a new user (as far as I know)

sudo useradd NAME

sudo mkdir /home/NAME

chown NAME:users /home/NAME




Don't forget to add your NAME to the sudoers list too (if you want to sudo with it) - there is a post elsewhere on the forums for this, can't see it at the moment

[fraxel1234]

Hi, when i try to login on my pi it says my user name is incorrect. i typed exakly pi in to it i doesent work. Help?

[abishur]

Is this a fresh install?

What OS are you using?

What are you typing into the password field?

[maxmal]

SD card: writing image EXTREMELY frustrating. (still zero results)
I agree with a previous poster that with all the brain power out there doing highly sophisticated things, no one has made a simple-to-use piece of software that can write the !@#$ image on a sd card.
I did read the "guide for beginners" linked from this thread, I did download and unzip everything, then since the "easy" method didn't work I even download the flashnul....nothing.
So, on one side people say "don't buy a preloaded, it's a scam or at least it won't have the latest version";
on the other hand the do it yourself procedures is not too easy (subjective opinion) and most of all is not working (objective fact). SO what am I supposed to do?
I want to like the RPi; I already love its idea and everything that comes with it, but the developers/inventors should have thought about how to make it truly accessible (imagine going through this process with a class of students!). And they said this was originally created with education purposes in mind. Agggghhhh.
Max M
ps: for the record, I use a windows xp laptop (though I have access to a Windows 7 machine as well if needed)

[abishur]

ps: for the record, I use a windows xp laptop (though I have access to a Windows 7 machine as well if needed)

I've never had any problems using win32 disk imager.

Good Tip: For whatever reason SD card readers built into laptops have varying qualities, if you're having troubles with a built in SD card reader, buy the cheapest external one you can find and the troubles generally vanish.

Step 1: Download the .zip file from the downloads page, once downloaded make sure to extract the .img file inside it. If you try to write the .zip file nothing will happen. If you try to copy and paste the .img file onto the SD card nothing will work. You must use a program designed for taking .img files and transferring the contents on a destination drive.

Step 2: Take your SD card and do a quick format of the card so that you have a single FAT32 partition the size of your SD card. While not strictly necessary, it does make troubleshooting immediately clear. Either you did it right and have stuff on your SD card, or you did it wrong and the SD card is blank.

Step 3: Open win32disk imager. Where it says "image file" choose the .img file you extracted from the .zip file.

Step 4: Where it says device choose the drive letter of your SD card. IF YOU CHOOSE THE WRONG DRIVE YOU WILL ERASE ANY DATA ON THE DRIVE! MAKE SURE YOU HAVE PROPERLY CHOSEN THE CORRECT DRIVE LETTER

Step 5: Click on the button that says "write" if you hit "read" it will read the contents of your SD card and save them in the .img file you've selected. What this means is that where before you had an image file that was about 2 GB full of the Pi OS, you now have a file that is completely empty (or if you didn't format your SD card, whatever was on the card)

Step 6: Grab a drink while it take the time to write the .img file to the SD card.

Step 7: Once it's done, you should be able to see a single FAT32 partition with a handful of files. If you do not see these files, you did it wrong, rinse and repeat.

Step 8: Insert the SD card into the pi and plug the power in. The SD card must be inserted prior to applying power to the Pi

Step 9: Enjoy the fruits of your labor

[maxmal]

Abishur, thank you so much. I was doing everything already, the problem was exactly what you mentioned: the disk imager was not seeing the sd card. I put it into a card reader I have sitting around and it finally gave me the options to see the driver. I am writing now while the disk imager too, is writing
Everything seems to be proceeding well.
I wish this issue were mentioned in the "beginners" instructions as an easy to fix bump, so people would not be too discouraged even before they start.
Thanks again,
Max

[wannahavepi]

Hi!

Being new to the Pi, I wanted to keep things as straightforward as possible. I bought a preloaded SD card from The Pi Hut - SanDisk Ultra 16GB class 10 Raspian. I bought a Pi from Allied Electronics along with a 1A power supply and an HDMI cable.

Now that I've received it and set it up, it doesn't appear to boot. Hooking up nothing but the SD card and power, I get a solid red power LED. The green LED blinks once and that's it. TV screen is blank/no signal. I did the best I can to check the SD contacts and they look good. Where do I go from here? Hardware problem? Bad SD card?

Thanks for any assistance!

[abishur]

Sorry for the delay in responding. The best thing to try is to format the SD card and load the most recent img from the downloads page using something like win32disk imager. Back here

http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/3534

It was announced that certain RAM modules were incompatible with older images (such as one that might have come on a pre-loaded SD card), so put on the fresh one and let us know if that fixes the issue

[arnolding]

Thanks for the detailed start guide, Abishur.

Unfortunately, my model B cannot normally boot-up.
The PWR red LED is light up, but the ACT (or original OK) green LED lights up for just one second when plug-in power.

I've tried different cards, - Transcend SDHC 4GB class 4, and SDHC 16GB class 10.
And I used Win32DiskImager v0.7 to burn 2012-12-16-wheezy-raspbian img to card.
The power line is 5V 850mA.

Any step I missed?

arnold