How To Install An OS On A Raspberry Pi

Now although RAM prices have been getting very expensive, the Raspberry Pi remains a popular small computer

And although I released a video showing how to install Pi OS, it’s been quite a while

The installation process is still easy to follow, but a lot has changed and I think it’s worth revisiting the Pi Imager

So how do you install an operating system like Pi OS on a Raspberry Pi and what are the other options now available?

Download Pi Imager:
You can still download the Raspberry Pi imager from the same website as before https://www.raspberrypi.com/software/

The only thing I’ve noticed that’s different here is it no longer references Ubuntu, instead it refers to Linux in general

And what you download for Linux is an AppImage

Now once you download the software, regardless of the OS your computer has, the installation is so easy that it’s not worth covering it

In the case of Linux for instance you’ll download a standalone file, you’ll have to give that executable rights and then run it with elevated privilege

Prepare SD Card:
Now I’m going to assume your computer can access micro-SD cards directly or it’s connected to a hub that can

TIP: If it can only access SD cards, you can get an adapter that will help, although usually you get one when you buy a micro-SD card

The first thing to do is to insert the micro SD card into your computer

TIP: If at any time you see a dialog box to format the card click Cancel because we’ll be overwriting it anyway

Now, run the imaging software and you’ll be prompted to choose the hardware version of Pi that you have and then click Next

This time round there are just so many choices available and I mean there’s a lot

You’ll see the typical desktop versions of Pi OS, but if you scroll down a bit you’ll see Raspberry Pi OS (other)

Click that and there are a few choices here, but crucially, this is where you can choose the Lite version which has no desktop and so is better for a headless Pi

TIP: Click OS in the left hand pane if you want to pick a different OS. Clicking Back takes you back to the choice of hardware

Further down the OS list is Other general-purpose OS

Click that and you’ll find options from Ubuntu to DietPi

Further down still and there’s an option for Media player OS which makes sense for a music centre choice

Click that and you’ve got choices of LibreELEC to PiCorePlayer

Next up we have Emulation and game OS

Click that and you can install RetroPie or Recalbox

Lower down you’ll find Other specific-purpose OS

Click that and the choices go from Falcon Player (FPP) to LoLaOS

If that’s not enough there’s an option for Freemium and paid-for OS

Click that and we’ve got Digital signage OS to Homey Self-Hosted Server

Looking for something completely different?

Well if you click Misc utility images you’ve got a Bootloader option for the Pi 4 family as well as a PINN multi-boot OS installer option

Last but by no means least, you can also just use this to Erase a card or import a custom image

For this example though we’ll be using Raspberry Pi Lite (64-bit)

Once you’ve decided what OS to install, click Next to move onto Storage

Fortunately the app is plug an play, so even if you plug the SD card in now, it will still show up in the list

Sensibly system drives are excluded by default

Pick the card you want to use for storage then click Next

Now we get our Customisation choices, although there is the option to skip these

A unique hostname always make sense, so enter one then click Next

Enter you Localisation details then click Next

Now you need to provide a username and password

Bear in mind, it does warn that the username must be in lowercase although it can contain numbers, underscores and hyphens as well as letters

Once you’ve entered those, click Next

If the Pi needs to connect to a network using Wi-Fi then you’ll need to enter the details here

There is a choice of using a secure network or an open one

An open network being one that only needs the SSID, and so is open to everyone, whereas a secure one needs a password and so is restricted to anyone who knows the password

If the SSID is being hidden by your Wi-Fi AP, then you’ll need to select the option of Hidden SSID

NOTE: There isn’t an option for an Ethernet network unfortunately. So as with Wi-Fi you’ll be relying on DHCP to provide an IP address and mask, a DNS server and a default gateway to the Pi if it’s going to be plugged into a network switch

If you want to assign a static IP address to the Pi, you’ll have to do this after the installation for most operating systems

Regardless, of whether you configure the Wi-Fi settings, you’ll want to click Next to move on

Remote access typically involves using SSH, so you’ll want to opt to enable the SSH server

There is a choice of authentication mechanisms, password or key authentication

Password authentication will involve supplying the password of the user that was created earlier when you login, but it’s more secure to use key authentication

For key authentication to work you’ll have to supply the public key of the user’s private/public key pair

As well as typing this or pasting it in, you can also point the app to a file on your computer

How you setup key pairs is outside the scope of this video, but I do have videos showing how you can do that for Linux and Windows for instance

Once you’ve made your choice, click Next

Interestingly, we now have an option called Raspberry Pi Connect when you install Pi OS

This is a cloud service that will let you access a Pi from anywhere over the Internet

Personally I don’t trust cloud services like this as hacking is usually a matter of WHEN not IF

But it is there as an option, although you’ll need to pay for a subscription

Now click Next and you can review your choices

Bear in mind, there is an App Options button in the lower left you might want to check out

This lets you decide if you want to hear a sound when the card is ready, eject the media at the end, send analytics to the developer and show warnings

There is also an option for a Content Repository

This to me makes more sense for customised installations as you can set the repository source as a custom file or URL

Regardless, you’ll need to click Write to then format and install the OS to the SD card

There is a slight delay and then you’ll need to confirm you want to erase and overwrite the card

Then you just have to wait a while for this to complete as SD cards are slow to write to and the imager will also verify the installation

Remote Login:
With the card now ready you can remove it from your PC, install it into the Pi and power it on

Leave it for maybe 5 minutes to fully boot up

At some point it will get an IP address from your DHCP server and you’ll typically want to know that in order to login to the Pi

Now, if you connect a monitor to the Pi, then with Pi OS at least, you’ll see that IP address displayed at the login prompt

You could of course check your DHCP server to see what IP addressed was leased

Or login locally and run the following command to see what IP address is assigned

ip -br addr

It’s then a matter of connecting to your Pi using SSH, for example

ssh pitest@192.168.1.150

Having said that, if your’re logging in from computer on the same network you might be able to use the local domain option instead, for example

ssh pitest@pitest.local

Reserving an IP address for the Pi in your DHCP server makes sense if your firewall restricts outbound access

The alternative is to create a static IP address on the Pi although how you do that depends on the OS you’ve installed

Either way, if you have a local DNS server then update that so you can access the Pi using an FQDN going forward

Update Software:
The last thing to do is to update the OS and all the packages installed to make sure everything is up to date

Pi OS is based on Debian so as it uses the APT package manager we can do the following

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y

Bear in mind this will take quite a while, especially on a Pi Zero W

Once it’s done, reboot the computer for this to take affect

sudo reboot now

Now I would strongly suggest installing a firewall like UFW to lock down remote access to the Pi

And I do have another video on how to install and configure UFW

But in any case, you now have a Pi running Pi OS, and it’s down to you to decide what you want to do with it

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