Timtom's notes | Making / Pi

Setup a new Pi

Format your SD card, eg using SD Formatter

Download the image of the distribution you want to use

Official Raspberry Pi OS (formerly Raspbian)

diskutil list and locate the location of the SD card sudo diskutil unmountDisk /dev/disk[n] with the correct disk number Check that the right disk has been unmounted :)

sudo dd bs=1m if=path/to/image.img of=/dev/rdisk[n] It will take a while

Alternatively, use the free Etcher app. I've found that in some cases it might be still necessary to format the SD card first using formatter, even if just replacing an older Pi software.

Enable SSH by putting a blank file called ssh on the boot partition of the SD card eg by doing cd /Volumes/boot and touch ssh

Plug in the Pi to your router using an Ethernet cable. If using a board without Ethernet, two possible ways

Connect a screen and keyboard, boot the device and run sudo raspi-config to configure it.
Use the wpa_supplicant.conf method. If it doesn't work, see workaround below.

Should be able to ssh into it by entering ssh pi@raspberrypi The default password is raspberry

Change the default password asap using passwd!

If unable to connect using the device name, find out the IP allocated to it by looking at the router's DHCP devices list

Start configuring by typing sudo raspi-config

GPIO tinkering

The gpio command is very useful to debug I/O projects. Note that gpio is part of the WiringPi library, which is installed by default on the official Raspberry Pi OS. If you're using the mininmal Raspberry Pi OS, you need to run sudo apt-get install wiringpi to install it.

Setup HifiBerryOS

Download the version of https://github.com/hifiberry/hifiberry-os/releases compatible with the Pi model you're aiming for.

Follow the steps above to flash the image to the SD card.

Since HifiBerryOS is a minimal Linux distribution, it does not include raspi-config. Instead, the OS uses a web interface to set it up. Wait for the device to boot then navigate to http://hifiberry.local to start configuring. Steps

Change device name (will also change its network name)
Change default password - warning, passwords with special characters bork up the web interface. Use a string of letters and numbers only.
Activate SSH if needed

If a WiFi connection is needed, I found that the wpa_supplicant.conf method isn't working properly on HifiBerryOS depending on which release you're using. The config file placed on the card seems to be ignored.

Instead, attach a screen and keyboard, wait for the device to boot up and then login (as root with default pw hifiberry - change it at the earliest possible time!). Edit /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf to look like this

    ctrl_interface=DIR=/var/run/wpa_supplicant GROUP=netdev
    update_config=1
    country=ca

    network={
        ssid="YOURSSID"
        psk="YOURPASSWORD"
        scan_ssid=1
    }

Then run sudo wpa_cli -i wlan0 reconfigure to apply the changes (source).

Check on your router if this did the trick and if the device joined the network. If so, navigate to http://hifiberry.local to complete setup.

Security concerns

It's a good idea to place as many devices as possible behind a firewall and keep them off the internet. However, the Spotify connection will not work without access to the internet... It will still work via Airplay, however.

Deprecated: setup a Pi as an audio bridge

This was before HifiBerryOS, which makes things simpler. Might still be useful for older devices.

Setup a Pi as Airplay target

Install Shairport sync (and dependencies) by typing sudo apt-get install shairport-sync
To enable it to launch at startup, type sudo systemctl enable shairport-sync

Setup a Pi as a Roon Bridge

Run lscpu to check what architecture is running on the Pi - change the download accordingly in the next commands
curl -O http://download.roonlabs.com/builds/roonbridge-installer-linuxarmv7hf.sh
chmod +x roonbridge-installer-linuxarmv7hf.sh
sudo ./roonbridge-installer-linuxarmv7hf.sh

Ideas

Car-speed detector