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====== MINIBIAN ====== The //standard// OS for the Raspberry Pi certainly is [[https://www.raspbian.org/|Raspbian]], since it is the Foundation’s official supported operating system. Although it allows anyone to get their RasPi up and running in no time and without a hassle, one must not forget that it's also a tool that was developed in a defined philosophy. As stated by [[https://minibianpi.wordpress.com/2013/07/04/minibian-minimal-raspbian-image-for-raspberry-pi/|MINIBIAN's creator Luca Soltoggio]], //**the [Raspberry Pi] project was born primarily to provide a low cost computer in education and in the countries in the developing world**//. This is perfectly fine, and following this logic it's perfectly understandable that since the Jessie version of Raspbian, it boots straight into the desktop GUI (version 3 of GTK+ / LXDE), see [[https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/raspbian-jessie-is-here/|this raspberry.org article]] which clearly states the //philosophy// that lies behind the Raspbian releases. What the Pi's project founders probably didn't imagine is the fact that their creation would also become **a perfect tool for many makers across the world**, who would be able to use it as a powerful, flexible and low cost **embedded system**. And there lies an enormous difference in expectations! An //educational// system environment requirements have little to do with an //embedded// system requirements. As this is an entirely different //philosophy//, one could of course start from scratch and install, let's say an [[https://archlinuxarm.org/|ArchLinux]] system on their RasPi.\\ But bear in mind that the ARM architecture isn't as //standard// (yet) as the Intel x86 (for example). Thus you might find yourself loosing some (much) time getting the right library/package to do the job. And the [[https://www.raspberrypi.org/|Raspberry foundation]] has made a tremendous job at bringing a viable environment for their platform. As many others now exist but don't come close to the level of usability the RasPi is offering nowadays. This is why the [[https://minibianpi.wordpress.com/about/|philosophy lying behind MINIBIAN]] is attractive. The point being to keep the basics from the //official Raspbian releases//, using a customized Raspbian installation, minimizing it's footprint, booting in some seconds and using as little //precious// RAM as possible. Thus guarantying a smooth experience, compatible with most of the existing software and references available for Raspbian. ===== Installation ===== First we'll need to download the MINIBIAN image, which is available from [[https://sourceforge.net/projects/minibian/|sourceforge.net]] or using this [[http://188.226.145.236/2016-03-12-jessie-minibian.tar.gz.torrent|torrent file]]. ==== Checksum ==== I won't start a discussion about the need of being careful about security, all I will say is that it is **highly recommended** to verify the authenticity of your downloaded file. This can easily be done by verifying it's checksum available on the official [[https://minibianpi.wordpress.com/download/|MINIBIAN download page]] <Code:bash |Verify the sha1 checksum of your download:> > sha1sum /path/to/your/minibian/yyyy-mm-dd-jessie-minibian.tar.gz </Code> Compare this with the value given [[https://minibianpi.wordpress.com/download/|on the Minibian download page]] ==== Setup ==== We'll now follow the setup procedure that's recommended on [[http://elinux.org/RPi_Easy_SD_Card_Setup#Using_the_Linux_command_line|elinux.org]]: <Code:bash> > cd /path/to/your/minibian/ </Code>