Читать книгу Raspberry Pi For Dummies - McManus Sean, Evans Jonathan, Sean McManus - Страница 28

It’s possible to buy a microSD card with Raspberry Pi OS already installed. If you’ve already got a microSD card, you can skip to Chapter 3 now.

If you want to use a different operating system on your microSD card, or want to reuse an old microSD card that has no software on it yet, you’ll need to set it up first.

To set up a microSD card for your Raspberry Pi, there are two steps. You carry these out on another computer, not your Raspberry Pi.

 Download the image file of the operating system you want to use. The image file is a special format that describes all the different files that need to be created on the microSD card.

 To convert the image file into a microSD card that will work on the Raspberry Pi, you need to flash the card. You can’t just copy the file across. (Flashing is a process for copying an operating system onto the microSD card. During the process, the many files required by the operating system are extracted from the single image file you download.)

Raspberry Pi Imager is simple software that downloads the operating system and flashes it to the microSD card for you. It’s available for the Windows, macOS, and Ubuntu operating systems. You can download it from www.raspberrypi.org/software and install it in the same way as any other software for your computer.

When you run Raspberry Pi Imager, you see a simple user interface, as shown in Figure 2-1. When it runs, you need to give the software permission to make changes on your computer, even though it will only be changing your microSD card.

If you press Ctrl+Shift+X on Windows, you can open the advanced settings. Here, you can set up the Wi-Fi for your new SD card, enable SSH for remote access to the Raspberry Pi, set the hostname for the Pi on your local network, and change the locale settings (time zone and keyboard layout). On macOS, press Cmd+Shift+X to access options to disable overscan, set the hostname, and enable SSH.

Sean McManus

FIGURE 2-1: The Raspberry Pi Imager software.

To use the software, follow these steps:

1 Click Choose OS.Here you choose which operating system you’d like to use. We offer advice on your choice in the next section. If you’re eager to get started straight away, click Raspberry Pi OS (other), and choose Raspberry Pi OS Full, including recommended applications. This will give you the software you need for the rest of this book. Your operating system is stored (or cached) on your computer, so it can be flashed to another card later without needing to download it again.

2 Click Choose Storage.You need to tell your computer where your SD card is. Take care here: The selected drive will be wiped, and the software can show options that include USB drives that are plugged in or even your watch when it’s plugged in to charge. To be safe, you could disconnect other drives you’re not using. Select your microSD card. Remember to eject or unmount the drives before disconnecting them to avoid losing data.

3 Click Write.The operating system is downloaded (if necessary) and written to your microSD card.

When it finishes, you’re ready to insert your microSD card into your Raspberry Pi, and connect it up as described in Chapter 3.