Raspberry Pi Image

This is the recommended variant for getting the setup up and running.

Prerequesites

The preconfigured 64-bit image is available in 2 versions.

  • Lite: Does not have a graphical user interface installed. Only use this if you are planning to use your Raspberry Pi without a monitor and instead use a second device to access jupyterlab over the browser. This is the only version supported on 1GB Raspberry Pi models
  • Desktop: This image has a graphical user interface installed and can be used like a normal computer when connected to a monitor, mouse and keyboard. This should not be used on 1GB Raspberry Pi models

If you have a Raspberry Pi4 with 2GB or more RAM, you can go with the Desktop version. Otherwise you should go with the Lite version, as 1GB is not enough to run all the desktop software in addition to the actual machine learning examples.

You can download the latest images here. For the lite image use the Raspbian-BPSE lite download. For the full desktop image use Raspbian-BPSE instead.

For flashing the image to the micro-SD card we will use Raspberry Pi Imager which is the official tool provided by the Raspberry Pi Foundation. You can download it here.

Flashing the Image

After installing Raspberry Pi Imager open the program and click on "Choose OS".

Raspberry Pi Imager

Then scroll down to the very last entry in the list named "Use custom" and select it. In the opened window navigate to the previously downloaded image and select it.

Image selection

The exact name of the file may differ slightly.

Next click on "Choose SD Card" and select the micro-SD card you wish to flash the image to. Double check to make sure the device you selected is actually the micro-SD you want to flash the image to.

Warning: Flashing an image will delete all files on the selected drive. Make sure you have no files on the micro-SD card that you wish to keep!

Before you click on write you now have the opportunity to configure your Pi's hostname and WiFi settings. You can still do this later but it is recommended to do it now, especially if you are using the lite image. To open the configuration window press CTRL + Shift + X . You can also configure your keyboard layout in this window.

Notice: The configuration window is available in Raspberry Pi Imager versions above 1.6 and will not be available in older versions. In future versions accessing this menu might function differently. For instructions on how to configure WiFi and ssh access see the section below.

When you are finished configuring you can click on "Write" and wait for the program to finish.

Now the only thing left to do is to insert the micro-SD into your Pi and start it up.

The next step is learning how you can access JupyterLab. To find out go here

Manual WiFi and ssh configuration

This section is only relevant for a headless configuration when using an older version of Raspberry Pi Imager than 1.6 or if you need to change settings after you have already flashed the image to an SD-card.

SSH

To enable SSH for a headless configuration place a file named ssh without any file extensions in the root directory of the boot partition of your P'is SD-card. The contents of the file do not matter.

WiFi

WiFi can also be configured using a similar method. Create a textfile named wpa_supplicant.conf in the same folder as the ssh file above. Paste the following into this file and adjust the country code and WiFi settings to match your own.

country=US
ctrl_interface=DIR=/var/run/wpa_supplicant GROUP=netdev
update_config=1

network={
    ssid="NETWORK-NAME"
    psk="NETWORK-PASSWORD"
}

Written by Tobias Stein