Raspberry Pi A, User Manual, Page: 112 / 314

P A R T I
C O N N E C T I N G T H E B O A R D
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When the Pi reboots, it will perform the remainder of the filesystem expansion. On larger or
slower cards, this can take a little time. It’s important that the Pi is not disturbed during this
process because if the power is lost, the Pi’s filesystem can be corrupted. If this happens, you
will lose any files you have stored on the Pi’s SD card and will need to reinstall your operating
system from scratch. The card itself, however, will not be damaged.
2 Change User Password
By default, Raspbian includes a single non-root user account named pi . This account is used
for the day-to-day operation of the Pi, and comes with the default password raspberry .
Although this is fine for private use, if you have your Pi on a publicly-accessible network—
including a Wi-Fi hotspot or other Internet connection—it’s a good idea to change at least
the password, if not the username, to improve security.
While it’s possible to change the password manually using the
passwd
command (see
Chapter 3, “Linux System Administration” for details), beginners may find it easier to change
the password using
raspi-config
. Highlight this option by moving the red bar with the
cursor keys and then press Enter. When prompted, enter a new password and then confirm
the change by entering the password again. To exit
raspi-config
, press the Right arrow
key twice followed by Enter.
3 Enable Boot to Desktop
Normally, Raspbian loads into the text-based command line interface known as the console.
It does this to ensure that the Pi is ready to use as quickly as possible, and also to save mem-
ory. Many common uses of the Pi—including using it as a web server or recording video or
still images with the Raspberry Pi Camera Module—work fine at the console without the
need to load the desktop graphical user interface.
If you use your Pi as a general-purpose computer, however, you may find it annoying that
you need to type
startx
to load the desktop environment. Choosing the Enable Boot to
Desktop option with the cursor keys and pressing Enter will prompt you as to whether the Pi
should boot straight into the desktop or not. If you choose Yes with the cursor keys and
press Enter, the graphical interface will load as soon as the Pi has finished booting—the
equivalent of typing
startx
every time it loads. If you choose No, the usual text-based con-
sole will load instead.
When you have made your choice, press the Right arrow key twice followed by Enter to exit
raspi-config
.