Random electronics projects: Raspberry PI Related Notes (Debian)

Raspberry initial configuration

The config script allows to resize the partition to fill the SD card, change timezone, change RAM split and more.

While in \home\pi\ directory run

sudo raspi-config

Check firmware version

The first thing to check is if you pi has the latest firmware

uname -a

You should get a response like

Linux raspberrypi 3.1.9+ #168 PREEMPT Sat Jul 14 18:56:31 BST 2012 armv6l GNU/Linux

Updating installer package

In case you get errors when trying to install something saying package not available try to run the update first.

sudo apt-get update

Then run

sudo apt-get upgrade

to update the packages to the latest version

For more info go to https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/raspbian/updating.md

Installing the auto-updater for firmware

Taken from developer's webpage at https://github.com/Hexxeh/rpi-update

To download and install the updater

wget http://goo.gl/1BOfJ -O /usr/bin/rpi-update && chmod +x /usr/bin/rpi-update

and then run as root ( sudo su )

sudo apt-get install git-core

to install git-core and then

rpi-update

To use a different CPU/GPU RAM memory split use

rpi-update 192

this will allocate 192MB for Linux and the rest (64MB) for the GPU
Possible values are 128, 192, 224.
If a monitor will not be used it is better to use the 224MB for Linux, for XBMC use the 128MB split.

Also check http://elsmorian.com/post/23925914654/changing-raspberrypi-ram-cpu-gpu-ratio for alternative way of changing the memory split.

Setting up static IP

Use vi or nano to edit the interfaces file

sudo vi etc/network/interfaces

and change to

auto lo 

iface lo inet loopback 

iface eth0 inet static 

address X.X.X.X <-Your IP address 

netmask 255.255.255.0 

gateway X.X.X.Y <- Your gateway IP

to assign a dns use

sudo nano etc/resolv.conf

and enter the ip address

Change the timezone

Use

sudo dpkg-reconfigure tzdata

Installing Apache-mySQL-PHP

There is a nice guide with various information at http://www.penguintutor.com/linux/installing-lamp

Run as root

apt-get install apache2
apt-get install mysql-server
apt-get install mysql-client
apt-get install php5
apt-get install php5-mysql

`Using sftp to transfer files`

By default raspberry pi has sftp enabled on port 22 (SSH)

This can be used to transfer files to the pi using an sftp client like winscp or filezilla.

In order to be able to upload files to a specific folder the owner of the folder must change to the desired user. this can be done using

sudo chown -R pi /var/www

`For SMB access follow guide found at`

http://simonthepiman.com/how_to_setup_windows_file_server.php

also check out this link

http://raspberrywebserver.com/serveradmin/share-your-raspberry-pis-files-and-folders-across-a-network.html

To setup a share use

[to_password_protected_folder]
    path = /home/tom
    writeable = yes
    valid users = username1

[no_password_folder]
    path = /home/nobody
    writeable = yes

in config file

The samba password must be the same as the system password and the samba user must exist as a system user.

Install tightVNC for remote access

Follow guide here

https://github.com/raspberrypi/documentation/tree/master/remote-access/vnc

RealVNC can also be enabled from

sudo raspi-config

--> Interface Options

Installing wxpython

First install the dependencies

$ sudo apt-get update

$ sudo apt-get install dpkg-dev build-essential libjpeg-dev libtiff-dev libsdl1.2-dev libgstreamer-plugins-base0.10-dev libnotify-dev freeglut3 freeglut3-dev libwebkitgtk-3.0-dev
Disable the desktop by going into

sudo raspi-config

--> System Options --> S5 Boot/Auto Login --> B1 Console

and then do

sudo pip3 install wxpython

for a specific version use

sudo pip3 install wxpython==4.0.4

for more info look at

https://wiki.wxpython.org/BuildWxPythonOnRaspberryPi

For changing display resolution

https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-5-800x480-tft-hdmi-monitor-touchscreen-backpack/raspberry-pi-config

dtparam=audio=on

hdmi_group=2

hdmi_mode=87

hdmi_cvt 800 480 60 6 0 0 0

hdmi_drive=1

For Enabling the touch functionality

In /boot/config.txt

#SPI must be on

dtparam=spi=on

dtoverlay=ads7846,cs=1,penirq=25,penirq_pull=2,speed=50000,keep_vref_on=0,swapxy=0,pmax=255,xohms=150,xmin=200,xmax=3900,ymin=200,ymax=3900

Random electronics projects

Raspberry PI Related Notes (Debian)