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How to set up your Raspberry Pi 4

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  • 4 min read

The Raspberry Pi 4 made its way to the market on Monday with the company announcing a slew of new features for the widely popular micro-controller all with the affordable price tag of $35 just like its previous iterations.

The Pi 4 may just be the device which is set to offer a proper desktop-like experience with its upgraded components in the form of a powerful SoC, a greater quantity of RAM and dual display support.

The new features are bound to bring in a lot of new users and if you are one of them, this article is going to help you figure out how to set up your brand new Pi and get down to some shenanigans.

Related read: Raspberry Pi 4 vs Raspberry Pi 3

Things that you will need

  • The Pi 4 has a standard requirement of 15W which is provided by a USB-C connector this time around. The official power supply is recommended by the company. The supply needs to provide at least 3A for proper functioning.
  • A microSD card with the NOOBS software present which will install the operating system required (Raspbian OS) and then act as a storage device for all the files. The microSD will need to have a minimum of 8GB storage space. Retailers provide these with pre-installed software to make the setup process easier.
  • A wired keyboard and mouse are required for the initial set up. The user can use the existing Bluetooth configuration for a wireless set up.
  • Cables to connect the Pi to a display using its micro HDMI ports.

Setting up the SD card

For this, you need to either have a microSD with Raspbian OS on it already or a formatted SD card on which you can install Raspbian using the NOOBS software, as mentioned previously.

You can find the NOOBS software in the downloads section of the Raspberry Pi website.

  • Download the zip archive of NOOBS.
  • Extract the files from this archive onto the SD card.

You are now ready to insert this into your Pi 4 and continue onto the next step.

Also read: Microcontrollers: A layman’s guide to the microcontroller world

Required connections

Raspberry Pi 4 released starting at $35: Specs and features

  • Insert the microSD card on the underside in its designated port.
  • Connect the USB mouse and keyboard to your Pi module.
  • Connect the display to the Pi module by plugging the cable into the HDMI port labelled HDMI0 (make sure the display is already plugged in and turned on).
  • Connect your power supply (this will automatically turn your Pi on for you as a power on/off switch is not present on the module.

Starting your Pi for the first time

This process begins with the ‘Welcome to Raspberry Pi’ application popping up on your screen. This will guide you through the initial set up to get your Pi working. The setup software asks to you do the following things.

  • Enter your Country, Timezone and preferred Language.
  • Setup a new password for your Pi.
  • If you have an ethernet cable plugged in you can skip the step which requires you to connect to your WiFi network. If your Pi module doesn’t have wireless capability then you will not see this screen.
  • Check for updates for the installed OS.

After this process, you can reboot your Raspberry Pi if required and you are ready to use it to do what you desire.

Also read: What are RFID blocking wallets? Why are they used?

Aryan Surendranath

Aryan Surendranath

Has an interest in technology and video games. When not doing anything related to either of these you will find him with his books, educational or not.

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