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I have just got a Raspberry PI B+ and I don't really know how to set it up. I have read some guides and they say that you need a monitor and a mouse, I only have a laptop.

Can someone please help me with setting up a raspberry pi b+ with just a laptop, I do have a micro SD card and mainly all of the required things, I just don't know how to do it with a laptop.

Chetan Bhargava
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Random guy
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  • when you say "set it up" what do you want to use it for? – rob Dec 11 '14 at 08:34
  • As in I just got it and want to at least start it up, just the basic UI and other basic stuff. Probably raspbian aswell, but I don't know that much about that. – Random guy Dec 11 '14 at 09:49
  • I used the term 'headless' in my web searches. Seems most tutorials assume you want to connect with a monitor, keyboard and mouse. Just search for something like 'raspberry pi headless setup' – Matt Long Dec 12 '14 at 05:43
  • Check this link http://www.circuitbasics.com/raspberry-pi-basics-setup-without-monitor-keyboard-headless-mode/ This helped me a lot –  Jun 07 '15 at 18:44
  • Follow these instructions http://mattsweb.ddns.net/gettingstarted.php to get started with a raspberry pi. – Matthew Haywood Mar 11 '15 at 22:35

4 Answers4

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I'd comment (reputation)

Connect your pi to your router via ethernet cable.

If you're using OS X, you can open the Airport Utility to view the settings and wireless clients connected which will also show the IP address os the pi

If not you can use a multitude of commands to view the same details above on other OS's/network setups.

Then simply run this in your terminal/cmd:

ssh pi@The_IP_Address

Then enter the password:

raspberry

raspberry is the default password

1''
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It's far easier with a keyboard and screen.

I don't know how a NOOBs install will work. If you have the Raspbian image written to the SD card you could try the following.

  1. Connect the Pi to a router with an Ethernet cable. This assumes that your laptop is also connected to the router via wireless or cable.
  2. Power the Pi. You should see a minute or so of green LED activity.
  3. Login to the router and check to see if the Pi has been assigned an IP address, say 192.168.0.23.
  4. Use putty (Windows) or ssh (Linux) to log in to the Pi from the laptop, e.g. ssh pi@192.168.0.23 (password raspberry).

Good luck.

joan
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  • Thank you for answering, but I'd rather use NOOBs because it is the first time setting up. – Random guy Dec 11 '14 at 10:50
  • AFAIK You cannot setup NOOBS without a keyboard and some form of display. You MUST have a TV with hdmi or CRT input. – Milliways Dec 11 '14 at 11:07
  • Ok, I'm doing this and when I get up to puTTY what do I do? I've put the IP address in it and when it comes up to login I put ssh pi@10.0.0.12 (10.0.0.12 is its IP), but when it comes up with password, it won't let me type anything!? Please help me with this. – Random guy Dec 12 '14 at 11:03
  • No, ssh is when you login from a *nix system. Do the putty. If it asks for a user name enter pi (then return). If it ask for a password enter raspberry (then return). The password will NOT be echoed to the screen. – joan Dec 12 '14 at 11:10
  • Thanks, but what do I do after that? Do I need to set things up through it, I'm pretty clueless – Random guy Dec 12 '14 at 11:11
  • It depends on whether you have managed to log in or not. Was the login successful? – joan Dec 12 '14 at 11:15
  • The login was successful – Random guy Dec 12 '14 at 11:23
  • sudo raspi-config will let you do some configuration (in particular you might like to expand the root file system to the whole SD card.). passwd will let you change the password (important if you connect to the internet via the Pi). Remember the new one. After expanding the file system it might be worth bringing the software up to date. sudo apt-get update then sudo apt-get upgrade. Then have a look at VNC or similar so you can display the Pi's screen on your PC. By the way sudo gives you temporary administrator (root) privileges. Then Google Linux commands for beginners. – joan Dec 12 '14 at 11:45
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See my answer on another question : https://raspberrypi.stackexchange.com/a/4065/3290

Some linux distro, such as Occidentalis, have a avahi daemon configured, so you don't need to know the IP address to connect to the raspberry.

Community
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Mickaël Le Baillif
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As you have indicated in your comments you are inclined to use Raspbian. If you want to use raspbian, Follow this:

  1. Download and image latest raspbian on SD card - Guide
  2. Mount the SD card in Linux (assuming your laptop has Linux or a VM with Linux) and edit the /etc/network/interfaces file assuming 192.168.10.110 is the IP you want to assign and 192.168.10.1 is your gateway.
#iface eth0 inet dhcp
iface eth0 inet static 
address 192.168.10.110
netmask 255.255.255.0
gateway 192.168.10.1
  1. Safely unmount the SD card and insert into the Pi
  2. Connect ethernet cable to your pi and power it up
  3. ssh into the Pi using your laptop

ssh pi@192.168.10.110

  1. If you would like to use graphical applications in raspbian, you can install Xserver on your laptop and use X11 forwarding with ssh.

This way you can avoid using a monitor, keyboard and mouse to setup your Pi.

Chetan Bhargava
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