technologybaba

 

Ah… here I am again … Well I recently shifted and once again its a shared accommodation (Same story different place) and once again I didn’t wanna be put up with doing a headless install on the Pi2 B. Also this time, I’d saved up a bit (skipped beer for about 3 weeks) and was feeling itchy about spending so I went up on Amazon and ordered the Pi 3. And then while I was at it – decided to get myself a monitor as well.

 

So after shifting into my new digs and unpacking – I decided it was time to fire up the new Pi 3 B. And behold, I dove right into the pile of the bits and bobs (the usual suspects – USB cables, flash drives, memory cards , adaptors and stuff )  and finally found an unused SanDisk 64GB Micro SD Card (Class 10) and I was elated.

So I proceed to format and flash the SD card and loaded the latest version of Raspbian from the Pi Web site. And just when I thought that the Pi3 B was now up and ready for the taking – bang, there it came up with the boot up problem. Seems like there was an issue with the Panel files in (~/.config/lxpanel/LXDE-pi). After wasting about 90 minutes, I decided to just re-flash the SD card with NOOBS.

Here are a key points to note:

1. If you are using an SD card upto 32GB – the Windows Disk Formatting utility allows you to format the SD card with the File Format as either NTFS or FAT32 (Most of you would already know this).
2. What’s interesting is that if the SD Card is larger than 32GB – then the default Formatting Options available are NTFS and exFAT – FAT32 is not supported by the Windows Disk Formatting Utility.
3. Now,  but now NOOBS didn’t fire up and I was once again flustered. A bit of digging around led me to the fact that for NOOBS to work as a bootable CD, the SD card needs to be formatted with the FAT 32 option as the Raspberry Pi does not support exFAT.
4. To get out of this I used EaseUS Partition Master (The Free version of course) and finally booted up the Pi3 B.

 

One of the biggest advantages of the Pi3 B over the Pi2 B is the inclusion of on-board Bluetooth and WiFi support. This frees up 2 Additional USB Ports on the Pi3 B or the USB hub which I preferred as I had a couple spare lying around (Damn, I’ve got way too much stuff, I thought to myself, but hey it did come in handy and so I silenced my inner voice of reason).

So after the “sudo apt-get updated” , “sudo apt-get upgrade” and “sudo apt-get clean”  and a reboot , it was time install VNC Server. But wait! – Hold the presses, this just in, the latest version of Raspbian comes with the VNC server ! Yippee!!! All you’ve gotta do is enable it from the Raspberry Pi Configuration Settings. The same goes for the SSH Interface as well.

 

So that’s me booted up and running the Pi3 B.

 

Next up on the docket is see if Bluetooth works as flawlessly as expected or whether I need to enable a few packages / install a few dependencies and stuff like that.

Exciting Times Ahead!

 

Techno-stu!!!

 

 

I’ve been using the Raspberry Pi  Generation 2 Model B for over a year and half now. Trust me when I say the journey so far has been nothing short of a roller coaster ride, filled with a lot of learning, fun, enjoyment , frustration (yeah when shit doesn’t work) and the innate satisfaction that follows when you’ve cracked that nagging problem.

All this while, though, I worked on the Pi2 B without a monitor / TV (didn’t have one) and so had to start with the headless installation. Now this was particularly challenging because :

1. No Monitor – which means you need to SSH / Telnet into the Pi from your PC using Putty. (Thank God for Simon Tatham).
2. The Pi2 B does not have WiFi – however, this can be overcome by building a bridged connection from your PC
3. I have the New Dell XPS 15 and it did not have an Ethernet port (and I wasn’t feeling too rich to spend on a Dell Thunderbolt hub).

Instead I got a Netgear PR200 N300 Trek and used it as WiFi Extender / Hotspot and connected the Pi2 B via Ethernet cable and it worked like a charm! (I could of-course connect the Pi 2 B to the home router – however due to my shared accommodation situation and a bit of a nagging Room-mate – I decided the above approach was much less stressful).

The Pi is really a gift to this generation! the computing capabilities, it offers are immense and great tool for anyone with a hunger to learn and tinker around.

Not to mention, if you cannot afford to buy a Wireless network drive, but really wanted one, you could just build yourself a Low Powered Network Storage Drive using the Pi  – all you need is the Pi, an Internet connection and any spare flash drive or USB hardrives you already have.

 

Some might say that the Pi has its limitations – with ARM architecture, you cannot install a few big applications /software (Oracle Database being one) , but you need to understand is that the Pi wasn’t built to please the power hungry , capacity hogging, heavy configuration giants. It was built to please those who wanted to do a lot but with very little !

So, come on, get your feet wet, your hands dirty with some programming and fun and you have a world to explore.

Visit: https://www.raspberrypi.org/ for more information !

 

 

Techno-stu!!!