Raspberry pi

This isn't about the subsurface, but it is a handy place to drop some notes about setting up my raspberry pi.

I got my raspberry pi from Newark.com. You might find them elsewhere, but beware of markup. The device should cost $35.

Note that the pi board is just that — a board. No cables, no input devices, no power supply. It has two USB ports. You need at least:
 * A micro-USB cable and a 5V power source (eg another computer, or a plug adapter)
 * A USB keyboard
 * A USB mouse, if you want to use the X11 environment
 * An ethernet cable or USB Wi-Fi adapter (if you have a spare port)
 * A way to plug the HDMI-out into a display (panel display, projector, whatever) — you might need adapters or special cables if you don't have HDMI input
 * An SD card with Linux image on it

Preparing the Linux image
I did this on my Mac (also looked at this): unzip ~/Downloads/2013-02-09-wheezy-raspbian.zip df -h diskutil unmount /dev/disk1s1 sudo dd bs=1m if=~/Downloads/2013-02-09-wheezy-raspbian.img of=/dev/rdisk2 diskutil eject /dev/rdisk1
 * Download the distribution you want from
 * Extract the image in the Finder or terminal:
 * Insert the SD card and from the terminal do
 * Record the device name of the SD card, e.g. /dev/disk1s1
 * Unmount the partition so that you will be allowed to overwrite the disk:
 * Using the device name of the partition work out the raw device name for the entire disk, by omitting the final "s1" and replacing "disk" with "rdisk", e.g. /dev/disk1s1 becomes /dev/rdisk1
 * In the terminal write the image to the card with this command, using the raw disk device name from above:
 * Note that dd will not give any information until it is finished, and it takes a few minutes; disk will re-mount and prompt will return when complete
 * After the dd command finishes, eject the card:
 * Remove the card. Yay.

Booting
Most of this is adapted from the Quick Start Guide. It worked beautifully, first time. pi@raspberry ~ $ startx
 * Put the prepared SD card in the slot on the bottom of the raspberry pi
 * Plug in everything except the power
 * Plug in the micro-USB providing the power
 * On first boot you will come to the Raspi-config window
 * Change settings such as timezone and locale if you want
 * Then select the second choice: expand_rootfs
 * Apply and accept
 * Then select Finish and say ‘yes’ to a reboot
 * The Raspberry Pi will reboot and you will see raspberrypi login: type pi
 * Password: raspberry
 * You will see the prompt:
 * If you want, start the desktop by typing:
 * You will find yourself in a familiar-but-different desktop environment.
 * Experiment, explore and have fun!

Environment
startx sudo shutdown -h now
 * Start the X11 environment with
 * Shutdown from the command line with