Merry Christmas, makers! We’re guessing a lot of you found Raspberry Pis under the tree
this morning and are eager to start hacking around with it. Getting Started with
Raspberry Pi, which I co-authored with Shawn Wallace, will be shipping very soon and is
available for pre-order now. In the meantime, we’ve compiled a list of a few of our
favorite quick tips that may come in handy as you explore the platform.
Some of these
might be old hat to experienced Linux users, but who knows, you might also learn
something new. And if you have any favorite Raspberry Pi tips that you’d like to add,
we want to hear them! Please share them in the comments below.
Command line
completion
You don’t have to laboriously type out long paths, filenames, and commands.
Just type the first few letters and hit tab. If bash (the command interpreter, or
shell) can determine what file you’re referring to, it will fill in the rest for you.
If not, hit tab again it will give you a list of possibilities if there are more than
one.
Command history
Bash also keeps a history of the commands you type. When at the
command prompt, hit the up key to cycle through your most recent commands. Hit enter to
execute the one you want.
Jumping to the beginning or end of a command
If you want to
jump to the beginning of a command you’ve typed (for instance, if you’ve miskeyed
something), type Control-A. To jump to the end of the line, type Control-E
Switch
screens with ALT+[F1 though F6] keys
When you’re not in the graphical desktop
environment, you can still multitask. Switch between terminal screens by pressing the
ALT key along with F1 through F6.
sudo !!
It can be frustrating to type out an entire
command only to be told you need to be the superuser to execute it. Type “sudo !!”
(pronounced “sudo bang bang”) to execute the previous command as root.
Taking
screenshots
Install scrot (by executing “sudo apt-get install scrot”) so that you can
take screenshots within the graphical desktop environment. After it’s installed,
execute the command scrot in a terminal window to save a PNG of the desktop to the
working directory. Scrot is also highly configurable; execute “scrot -h” to see all the
options available to you.
Log in remotely
If you want to access your Raspberry Pi’s
command line from another computer, type sudo raspi-config at the prompt and choose the
option to enable SSH. Then type ifconfig to get your Raspberry Pi’s IP. On a OS X or
Linux computer, type ssh pi@[ip address] to connect to your Pi. On Windows, use
PuTTY.
Use your computer’s internet connection
If you don’t have a convenient ethernet
connection nearby or a USB Wifi adapter handy, you can also use your computer’s Wifi
internet connection and share it via Ethernet to the Raspberry Pi. Here are guides to
do on various operating systems: Mac OS, Windows, or Linux (Ubuntu).
One line Python
web server
If you’d like to create a web server with just one command, simply execute
“python -m SimpleHTTPServer”. The files in the current working directory will be
accessible via your Pi’s IP address. Add an index.html file if you’d like to serve that
page, otherwise, a file directory will be displayed. In Getting Started with Raspberry
Pi, we show you how to set up a more advanced, dynamic web server that can even read
sensors or control things in the real world.
raspberrypi.local
If you have trouble
remembering the IP address of your Raspberry Pi when you want to access it over the
network, install avahi with the command “sudo apt-get install avahi-daemon” and you’ll
be able to use raspberrypi.local instead of the IP address. If you’re accessing the
Raspberry Pi from a Windows machine, you may need to install Bonjour Services on it for
this to work.
There are plenty more tips like these in Getting Started with Raspberry
Pi, which will start shipping any day now. The ebook is available for download now in
the O’Reilly shop (DRM-free), on Amazon, and in the iBook store.
