Laptop as a monitor

[Alabada]

Hello! I am completely new to using the raspberry pi, and have only recently actually gotten mine in the mail. I was trying to follow instructions from a site to set up my laptop as a display for the device, and could not find a particular file it said to edit on the SD card. The guide can be found here: http://pihw.wordpress.com/guides/direct ... onnection/. I have installed the NOOBS pack and am running raspbarian, and when I look for the cmdline.txt file, it is not there. What do I do?

[DeeJay]

Those instructions were written before NOOBS was invented. They are not quite accurate for a Raspbian installation performed by NOOBS. Maybe the author will see this and comment. If not I'll try to explain in a day or so.

NOOBS itself provides an option to edit that file if you return to the NOOBS recovery screen (by using Shift at boot time) once Raspbian is installed.

Of course, if you are doing this because you have no other means (keyboard or display) of accessing your RPi then for now you seem to be unable to progress following those instructions.

[Alabada]

My real problem is that my router is too far from the display (TV) that I use, so I can't set up the wifi. I have an 802.11b/g/n usb wifi adapter if that makes a difference.

[DeeJay]

I don't understand what you are trying to achieve, but if you still want to use the tutorial you have found I suggest you contact the author via the Contact link at the top of his webpages.

[PiGraham]

I assume you don;t have a USB keyboard, so you can't interact with the Pi at the TV.

You can connect to the Pi over a network connection from a PC (Windows, Linux or Mac ).
Watch the Pi display as it boots. It should display an IP address. Hopefully it is left on screen after booting. If you can't see it there may be other ways.

If you have a keyboard and screen you can type

Code: Select all

ifconfig

to list IP addresses of your adapters.

I assume you have connected the Pi via Ethernet to a router. The router will provide the IP address by DHCP.
You can most likely log into the router and see what IP address it has assigned to the Pi.

On my Belkin I type

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192.168.1.1 

into my browser address bar and get to the router web interface.
On the menu there is an option "DHCP client list"
I click that and, after logging in, I see a list of "IP adress Host name MAC Address"
On this list is a host name "raspberrypi" and I can read off the IP address assigned to it.
I can then run my SSH terminal program (I use Putty on Windows).
Select SSH, type the IP address of the Pi and a terminal window open up.
In the terminal the Pi prompts me to login.
You can run any command line program from this terminal, such as wpa_cli.
It's easier to configure WiFi through the X-Windows GUI desktop (startx), but you need to have a screen and keyboard directly connected, or be setup for remote connections (VNC, X-Windows client on your PC).

[pluggy]

He's not connecting it to a router. Its a second hand connection via the ethernet port on a laptop. Its almost all about setting up the laptop.....

[Alabada]

Because my display is too far from the internet source, I was looking for an alternate way of displaying the Pi interface that allowed me to reach the router. I do have a separate keyboard and mouse available to use for the Pi. Perhaps I should just purchase an extended ethernet cable to cross the room until I can connect with wifi?

[pluggy]

If you're running it headless, it doesn't matter if the pi is next door, the far side of the building or if you're prepared to set it up, the other side of the world. There isn't much to see without an actual display connected to the Pi.

[PiGraham]

Because my display is too far from the internet source, I was looking for an alternate way of displaying the Pi interface that allowed me to reach the router. I do have a separate keyboard and mouse available to use for the Pi. Perhaps I should just purchase an extended ethernet cable to cross the room until I can connect with wifi?

Connect the keyboard to the Pi at the TV and configure the WiFi with the GUI utility. Note the IP address of the WiFi adapter.
Now you can remove the keyboard and login via SSH from anywhere your WiFI network reaches.

You don't need Ethernet cable or static IP addresses at all, and you don't need to configure your PC networking if it already connects to the WiFi router..