Install Raspberry Pi OS to an SD card

Installation Methods

There are a few ways to "flash" an operating system to an SD card:

• Graphical method with the Raspberry Pi Imager.
• Using the Linux terminal to manually flash the OS.
• Alternate command line tool, similar to the Raspberry Pi Imager: https://github.com/tonicsoft/raspios-headless-imager

Raspberry Pi Imager

The Raspberry Pi Imager is a graphical program that automatically writes an Operating System for the Raspberry Pi computer to an SD card, and configures common options.

Install Raspberry Pi OS using Raspberry Pi Imager

The imager program looks like this:

To use it:

1. Choose OS → Raspberry Pi OS Lite (64-bit)
2. Insert the SD in your computer
3. Choose storage (detect your SD automatically)
4. In the configuration option:
   1. Enable SSH
   2. Enable set host name
   3. Set username and password. (typically: pi, raspberry)
   4. Enable configure wireless LAN
   5. Enable set local settings
   6. Save and write
5. Safely unmount and eject the micro SD card.

Manual method

Restore an SD card image to a suitable SD card, using the dd command-line from a Linux terminal.

Identify your SD card

Use lsblk to identify your SD card's partition.

Run the following command before and after connection the SD card to your computer.

lsblk

The new device listed in the output should match your SD card.

Replace "YOUR_SD_CARD_DEVICE" below with the path to your SD card, found under /dev (e.g. /dev/sdx).

Danger

If you get the path wrong, you may cause irreparable damage to your computer's filesystem. Use these instructions at your own risk.

Flash the OS

Use only one of the commands below, depending on how your ISO file is stored.

Replace "YOUR_SD_CARD_DEVICE" with your SD card's actual device name (you may use "lsblk" to find it).

# For uncompressed ISO files.
sudo dd bs=4M status=progress if=path/to/systemimage.iso of=/dev/YOUR_SD_CARD_DEVICE && sync

# Use unzip for images compressed in zip format.
unzip -p pipettin_pi_pishrunk.img.zip | sudo dd bs=4M status=progress of=/dev/YOUR_SD_CARD_DEVICE && sync

# Use gunzip for images compressed in gz format.
gunzip --stdout pipettin_pi.img.gz | sudo dd bs=4M status=progress of=/dev/YOUR_SD_CARD_DEVICE && sync

# Use xz for Raspberry Pi images, compressed in xz format.
xz -dc 2023-05-03-raspios-bullseye-arm64-lite.img.xz | sudo dd of=/dev/YOUR_SD_CARD_DEVICE status=progress bs=4M conv=fsync

Next steps

Connect to the Raspberry

If you configured your Pi's networking details correctly in the previous steps, you can try to connect to the Pi through the network (i.e. headlessly) by following these instructions.

Updates and Configuration

If you installed Raspberry Pi OS, run sudo raspi-config and use the menus to:

• Enable I2C, under Interface Options.

Continue with the setup

After connecting to the pi, continue with the software setup guide.

Troubleshooting

Unconfigured user

Warning

This might not be required.

This will set the default user and password to pi / raspberry.

On the bootfs partition add a ssh file and userconf file, using the following commands:

# Run from SD on the "bootfs" partition.
touch ssh
paste <(echo "pi:") <(openssl passwd -6 'raspberry') -d "" > userconf