Boot & configure

Wire the station with the power unplugged

1. Boot drive in place: the microSD card in its slot, or the SSD in a blue USB 3 port. With an SSD, confirm the card slot is empty: the bootloader tries the card before USB.
2. Keyboard and mouse into the black USB 2 ports.
3. Micro-HDMI cable from HDMI0 (the socket nearest the power socket) to the Pi screen. Switch the screen to that input.
4. Ethernet cable if the class network is wired.
5. Power supply into the wall, then USB-C into the Pi. On a Pi 5, press the power button if it does not start by itself.

First boot

The first boot is slower than every later one. The system expands its file system to fill the drive, applies your Imager settings, generates SSH keys and reboots itself once. Allow up to five minutes and do not touch the power. You will see, in order: a rainbow square or a Raspberry Pi logo, scrolling text, a black screen, and then the desktop or a login prompt.

Open a terminal: click the terminal icon in the top bar or press Ctrl+Alt+T. You should see a prompt like username@lastname-pi:~ $, with your own username and hostname. That line already proves two things: they both made it onto the drive.

Prove it booted from your drive

Booting is not the same as booting from the intended device. Two commands settle it.

$ findmnt -no SOURCE /
/dev/sda2
$ lsblk -o NAME,SIZE,TYPE,MOUNTPOINTS,MODEL
NAME   SIZE TYPE MOUNTPOINTS    MODEL
sda    238G disk                Samsung Portable SSD T7
├─sda1 512M part /boot/firmware
└─sda2 238G part /

Read it this way: the root file system / is on the second partition of the boot device, and the NAME and MODEL columns tell you which device that is. sda means a USB disk, so /dev/sda2 with your SSD's model in the MODEL column proves an SSD boot. A microSD boot shows /dev/mmcblk0p2 on device mmcblk0, with the card's size and no USB model. Either is correct; what matters is that it matches the drive you wrote and its size matches the label. (On the Pi 5, an NVMe drive would appear as nvme0n1; you will not see that in this course.)

Record the OS version and the identity of the system as well; you will hand these in.

$ cat /etc/os-release | head -n 3
$ hostnamectl
$ uname -a

Configure the system

raspi-config: the Raspberry Pi settings menu

Most Pi-specific settings live in one text-mode menu. Arrow keys move, Enter selects, Tab jumps to Select/Finish, Esc backs out.

$ sudo raspi-config

The same settings are in the desktop under Menu → Preferences → Raspberry Pi Configuration, if you prefer a window.

Update the installed software

apt is the package manager of Raspberry Pi OS (Debian). The image on your drive was built weeks before today, so update it once now. It can take several minutes on the class network.

$ sudo apt update            # refresh the list of available packages
$ sudo apt full-upgrade -y   # install the newer versions
$ sudo reboot                # if a kernel or firmware update was installed

The terminal page explains what those words mean; for now the pattern to remember is update the list, then upgrade the software.

Network and Wi-Fi

If Imager's Wi-Fi settings worked, the Pi is already online and the network icon in the top bar shows signal bars. To check, and to find the Pi's address:

$ hostname -I          # the Pi's IP address(es), e.g. 192.168.4.23
$ ip -brief address    # every interface: eth0 is Ethernet, wlan0 is Wi-Fi
$ ping -c 3 raspberrypi.com

• Class network not joined? Click the network icon in the top bar, pick the network, type the password. Or sudo raspi-config → System Options → Wireless LAN.
• College enterprise Wi-Fi (asks for a username)? Click the network icon and choose the network; the desktop dialog can handle 802.1X credentials, Imager could not.
• Wi-Fi off entirely? Check rfkill list. If it says "Soft blocked: yes", the WLAN country was not set: fix it in raspi-config → Localisation Options → WLAN Country.
• The Pi announces hostname.local on the local network (mDNS). Some routers block it; then use the IP address from hostname -I instead.

Reach the Pi from another computer

From here on, you will do most of your work on the Pi through a terminal opened from the lab PC or your laptop. Both computers must be on the same network.

1. Find it

   On the PC (Windows PowerShell, macOS Terminal or Linux terminal):

   $ ping lastname-pi.local    # your hostname + .local; Ctrl+C to stop

   Replies mean the Pi is reachable by name. "Could not find host" means mDNS is blocked on this network: use the IP address you got from hostname -I on the Pi.

2. Open a terminal on it with SSH

   $ ssh username@lastname-pi.local   # your-username@your-hostname.local, or username@IP

   The first time, SSH shows the Pi's key fingerprint and asks Are you sure you want to continue connecting? Type yes. Then enter your Pi password (nothing appears while you type; that is normal). The prompt changes to username@lastname-pi:~ $: you are now typing on the Pi. exit returns to the PC.

   Windows 10 and 11, macOS and Linux all ship an ssh command. No extra software is needed.

3. Optional: the Pi's desktop over the network with VNC

   On the Pi: sudo raspi-config → Interface Options → VNC → Yes. On the PC, install RealVNC Viewer (a portable version needs no installation), connect to lastname-pi.local, accept the fingerprint, and log in with your Pi username and password. Useful when you have no spare screen; not needed for anything in this course that a terminal cannot do. The official remote-access documentation covers SSH and VNC in more depth.

4. Fallback when there is no usable network: USB gadget mode

   The Pi can present itself as a network device over a single USB cable to the PC. Follow the gadget mode procedure, documented for the Pi 4, then the ping and ssh steps above work over the cable. The Pi 400 cannot do this; its USB-C port carries power only.

Shut down cleanly

$ sudo poweroff    # or: sudo shutdown now, or the desktop menu → Shutdown
$ sudo reboot      # restart without removing power

On the Pi 5, a short press of the power button opens the shutdown dialog; pressing it twice shuts down. Holding it forces power off and should be reserved for a frozen system.

Checklist for this stage

• Boot drive in place (microSD in its slot, or SSD in a blue USB 3 port with the card slot empty); keyboard and mouse in black USB 2 ports; HDMI0 to the right screen; power last
• First boot completed, including its automatic reboot; desktop or login shows my username
• findmnt -no SOURCE / shows the device I wrote (/dev/sda2 for a USB SSD, /dev/mmcblk0p2 for a microSD card), and lsblk matches my drive's model or size
• I saved the output of findmnt, lsblk, hostnamectl, head -n 3 /etc/os-release and hostname -I
• sudo apt update and sudo apt full-upgrade finished without error
• From the lab PC, ping hostname.local answers and ssh user@hostname.local gives me a prompt on the Pi
• I shut down with sudo poweroff before touching the power cable

Check yourself