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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/ > tar xvf yyyy-mm-dd-jessie-minibian.tar.gz </Code> Now identify the SD Card you want to use. Run the ''lsblk'' command once //**before**// you insert your SD Card into a card reader port, on once //**after**//, the difference in output should clearly show you the identification of the SD Card: <Code:bash | Before the SD Card is inserted:> > lsblk NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT sda 8:0 0 931.5G 0 disk ├─sda1 8:1 0 2G 0 part [SWAP] ├─sda2 8:2 0 20G 0 part / └─sda3 8:3 0 909.5G 0 part ├─vg01-opt 254:0 0 20G 0 lvm /opt └─vg01-home 254:1 0 889.5G 0 lvm /home sr0 11:0 1 1024M 0 rom </Code> <Code:bash | After the SD Card is inserted:> > lsblk NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT sda 8:0 0 931.5G 0 disk ├─sda1 8:1 0 2G 0 part [SWAP] ├─sda2 8:2 0 20G 0 part / └─sda3 8:3 0 909.5G 0 part ├─vg01-opt 254:0 0 20G 0 lvm /opt └─vg01-home 254:1 0 889.5G 0 lvm /home sr0 11:0 1 1024M 0 rom mmcblk0 179:0 0 14.7G 0 disk ├─mmcblk0p1 179:1 0 1.1G 0 part ├─mmcblk0p2 179:2 0 1K 0 part ├─mmcblk0p5 179:5 0 32M 0 part ├─mmcblk0p6 179:6 0 63M 0 part └─mmcblk0p7 179:7 0 13.4G 0 part </Code> In this case our target will be ''/dev/mmcblk0''. Now we make sure all its partitions are unmounted and copy our image file to the SD Card (in this case, monitoring the dd progress through ''pv''): <Code:bash> > sudo umount /dev/mmcblk0p1 /dev/mmcblk0p2 /dev/mmcblk0p5 /dev/mmcblk0p6 /dev/mmcblk0p7 > sudo dd bs=4M if=yyyy-mm-dd-jessie-minibian.img | pv | dd of=/dev/mmcblk0 </Code> Note: remove the ''| pv |'' pipe part of the code if you don't wish to monitor the dd progress.