im-coder-lg / Rasb-pi

:strawberry: Raspberry Pi experimentations

Raspberry Pi

Some information for the raspberry pi:

Here is a bit of the information I like to have quickly when setting up my raspberry PI. However if you are look for more accurate information, I would adivse looking at raspberry's official documentation.

Getting Started

Install the OS

To start with a Raspberry Pi, you first need to install an image of an OS in a micro SD card.

• Get the OS on the raspberry website
  • Raspbian is a good choice.
• Get the OS on the micro SD using a tool like live linux or Win32DiskImager
  • If you have any problem of memory with the SD card, use SDformatter

Refresh the OS

To make sure you have all of the latest update on the OS you have just installed use:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

You can also make a dependency check using

sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

Or you can also add an auto accept flag to validate all of the required insallation

sudo apt-get update -y && sudo apt-get upgrade -y

Set the date

Sometime the date on the raspberry pi can be out of sync if not connected to a time server in your network or on the internet. To change the time, you can either use for example:

sudo date --set="30 December 2013 10:00:00"
# or
timedatectl set-time [THE DATE]

To change the time zone, you can use:

sudo dpkg-reconfigure tzdata 

General configuration

Configure the raspberry pi

This is to access the main configuration for the raspberry pi:

sudo raspi-config

You can then follow the instructions on the screen to make the update.

Most of the configuration can be done through raspi-config, so use it!

Start the graphical interface if available using:

sudo startx

Reboot

In order to validate some change, reboot will be necessary.

sudo reboot
# or
shutdown -r now

Connect to the Raspberry Pi

The default login password is:

login: pi
password: raspberry

Also the root password needs to be setted from the pi user using:

sudo passwd root

SSH

You can connect via SSH using an ethernet cable between the rasbperry pi and your pc or directly over wifi in your home network.

Don't forget to enable ssh connection using sudo raspi-config > 5) Interfacing Options > SSH

The tools you may use:

• The terminal via ssh e.g.:

ssh pi@169.254.25.25 -p 22

• Using Putty:
  • Use Session > logging, then put the ip address it will ask the username, password.
• Using a remote desktop software line VNC:
  • you will need to install it both on your computer and on the Raspberry pi

If you have just turned on the raspberry pi, wait a couple of seconds for it to boot up before trying to connect over ssl.

You can also configure the static ip in the ect/network/interfaces config file.

Connecting using VNC

You get to have the gui and the control of the raspberry pi. This work a bit like a remote desktop.

On newer version of raspbian, vnc should already be pre-installed. Don't forget to enable ssh connection using sudo raspi-config > 5) Interfacing Options > VNC

Use VNC viewer to connect to your raspberry pi (vnc server) using its IP and username, password.

Wifi and Internet

Set up the wi-fi dongle

For the previous generation of Raspberry pi there was no dongle integrated, and it needed to be bought independently.

To configure it, find some example configuration files in this repo. Once you made a change use ifconfig to check your wlan0 has been updated.

Default Method

Find the default configuration for the interface, then:

sudo nano /etc/network/interfaces

Then add this to the file, don't forget to update your wifi SSID name and password to connect.

allow-hotplug wlan0
iface wlan0 inet dhcp
wpa-ssid "<SSID name>"
wpa-psk "<password>"

Apply the changes with:

sudo ifdown wlan0
sudo ifup wlan0

WPA supplicant Method

This one basically uses another configuration file (both in the wifi folder of this repository).

Update the interface file like before, using the correct interface information. Then create the wpa_supplicant.conf file with:

sudo nano /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf

And add your network information:

network={
	ssid="<Network SSID>"
	psk="<Password>"
    key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
}

Don't forget to reboot to validate the changes.

Set a default IP

You can choose anything between the range of local private ip.

Using cmdline.txt

In order to easily connect to the raspberry pi over ethernet, you may want to set it with a default ip (eth0 interface).

For that edit the file called cmdline.txt at the root of your SD card and set the ip parameter like ip=169.254.25.25.

Configuring dhcpcd.conf

Edit the dhcpcd.conf file with the network configuration you wish to set up.

#static IP configuration

interface eth0		  	# The interface name
static ip_address=192.168.1.15/24	 # The new static IP
static routers=192.168.1.1
static domain_name_servers=192.168.1.1

Reboot for the changes to take place.

More configuration

You can configure a cron job on your raspberry pi for script that you want to execute at a certain rythme:

Example of a cron job and definition:

 .---------------- minute (0 - 59) - */2 means every two minutes
 |  .------------- hour (0 - 23)
 |  |  .---------- day of month (1 - 31)
 |  |  |  .------- month (1 - 12) OR jan,feb,mar,apr ...
 |  |  |  |  .---- day of week (0 - 6) (Sunday=0 or 7) OR sun,mon,tue,wed,thu,fri,sat
 |  |  |  |  |
 *  *  *  *  *  user /path/to/script.sh

There are two ways to add a cron job. First by adding it to the crontab at /etc/crontab which is the system cron jobs.

sudo crontab -e

Don't forget to reboot in order to have the job work

Or the second way is by creating a cron job in a file placed in /etc/cron.d. The syntax is the same and should work right away (if not, reboot).

Start Coding

Processing

The raspberry pi has a built in Processing IDE.

• Get Started with Processing

Raspberry Pi projects

Retro Gaming

To enable your raspberry PI to become a retrogaming console using Retropie

Media Center

Transform your raspberry pi into a media center, streaming movies from a hard drive or Youtube, ...

It was called XBMC first, but has been rename to kodi.

• OSMC is a good one.

Install a Apache, PHP, MySQL web server

Configure Apache

First install apache: (Resolving error AH00558)

sudo apt-get install apache2

Edit the config of the apache:

sudo nano /etc/apache2/apache2.conf

to set the server to localhost, print that at the end of the file, localhost is 127.0.0.1

ServerName localhost

Then give read qccess to apache on the folders where the files that apache will run are (usually in a /www folder)

sudo chown -R www-data:pi /var/www/html/
sudo chmod -R 770 /var/www/html/

Verify that it works (ssh):

wget -O verif_apache.html http://127.0.0.1
cat ./verif_apache.html  # if the file exists, then apache has been successfully installed

Configure PHP

First install php:

sudo apt-get install php v5

Delete any index.html in the /www folder, so you can test that php works

sudo rm /var/www/html/index.html  # delete index.html
echo "<?php phpinfo(); ?>" > /var/www/html/index.php  # create index.php

Verify that php works:

wget -O verif_apache.html http://127.0.0.1
cat ./verif_apache.html  # if you see php version 5.x.x then it works

Instal MySQL and tools

Here are some tool you will need to install in order to better use your webserver. It is mainly to interact between your php and the MySQL database.

sudo apt-get install mysql-server --fix-missing
sudo apt-get install mysql-client php5-mysql
sudo apt-get install phpmyadmin