The Always-Up-to-Date Guide to Setting Up Your Raspberry Pi

Whats a Raspberry Pi?

The Raspberry Pi is a small, $35 computer that fits in the palm of your hand.

It runs Linux as well as a handful ofother low-power operating systems.

The Raspberry Pi also has its own official operating system,Raspbian.

Other operating systems exist, buttheyre mostly made for specific projects.

The Raspberry Pi has gone through several iterations since its launch in 2012.

The newest version is theRaspberry Pi Model 3.

The Raspberry Pi Model 3 is not the only version available right now.

Thee areplenty of compact displays availableif you dont want to dedicate a full monitor to the Pi.

A USB keyboard and mouse: to control your Pi, youll need a keyboard and mouse.

At this point, pretty much any USB keyboard and mouse will work.

If your system doesnt have a card reader, a cheap onelike this($6.75) will do.

Once youve collected together all those accessories, its time to set it up.

Its a much simpler process, and the one well use here.

Put your SD card into your box or SD card reader.

Pick the offline and online grid install option.

This version includes Raspbian in the download itself.

You may need to format your SD card as FAT.

You canfind guides to do this for Windows and Mac here.

Extract the ZIP file and copy the entire contents of the folder to your SD card.

Once its complete, eject your SD card and insert it into the Raspberry Pi.

First, connect your HDMI cable to your Raspberry Pi and your monitor, then connect your USB devices.

If youre using an ethernet cable to connect to your router, go ahead and connect that as well.

Finally, once everything is connected, go ahead and plug in your power adapter.

Eventually, youll see a screen asking you to install an operating system.

nudge the checkbox next to Raspbian, then click Install.

Now, let NOOBs fire off the installation process, which can take 10 or 20 minutes.

Congratulations, your Raspberry Pi is basically ready to go.

hit the online grid icon (its the one with two computers) in the top right corner.

Select your Wi-Fi connection name, and drop your password.

Thats it, youre now connected to Wi-Fi.

If you have an older Pi and youre using a Wi-Fi adapterlike this, the process is the same.

Thats all there is to it, now you’re free to start playing around with Raspbian.

Thankfully, you do have ways to connect to the Pi remotely.

Neither of these are required by any means, but theyre nice to know about if you need them.

Once youre done with that, its time to really start digging into it and making something new.