Install "Raspberry Pi OS with desktop" on Pi 400

Posted on December 14, 2020 in DevOps
Updated: December 20, 2020

Intro

I wanted to use a Raspberry Pi 400 as a desktop alternative to a ChromeBook meaning a cheap PC mostly just for browsing the internet.
The price is approx EUR 140,-

including
- shipping
- 128 GB SD Card
excluding
- mouse
- monitor

This blog is about setting up the Pi and prepare a bootable SD Card from Windows.

Info:

A Pi 400 is almost a Pi 4B with keyboard included and fixed 4GB RAM
A Pi 4B typical bare-board active current consumption is just 600mA

HW

The Pi 400 comes with

quad-core 64-bit ARM processor
4GB of RAM
wireless networking
dual-display output, and 4K video playback
a 40-pin GPIO header

Apart from the Pi 400 I also bought

OS

Raspberry supplies two desktop OS's:

Raspberry Pi OS with desktop and recommended software (Size: 2,949MB)
Raspberry Pi OS with desktop (Size: 1,177MB)

Alternatively there is also a 3rd-party Ubuntu Desktop

I want to see if the minimal Pi without extra sw (#2 in the list) will be enough for my needs.

Info: According to Wikipedia Raspberry Pi OS is a Debian distru (as also is Ubuntu). This will do just fine.

The current Pi OS release August 2020 includes

Debian: 10 (Buster)
Browser: Chromium
GUI/Desktop: LXDE
GCC (GNU Compiler Collection): 8.3
Linux kernel: 5.4.51

(Image on ostoday.org)

On the download page there is also an integrety hash

# Powershell:
# Check file integrety hash
Get-Filehash -path C:\Users\<user>\Downloads\2020-12-02-raspios-buster-armhf.zip -algorithm SHA256
# Hash
# 32034189474585C521748A6A4B21388FDE9AE2C6B0C5C2D32F8ABFBF508EE865

Installation

OS

The OS installation steps I follow are mostly part of these articles: * Raspberry Pi NOOBS Setup * NOOBS - Raspberry Pi Documentation

Steps:

Format your SD card:
- Download SD Memory Card Formatter 5.0 for SD/SDHC/SDXC
- Extract the setup from the zip
- Install SD Card Formatter 5.0.1 Setup.exe
- Insert the empty micro SD Card into SD Card adapter and insert it into PC SD Card slot
- Start SD Card Formatter
- Press Format
Burn OS to SD card:
- Download Raspberry Pi Imager
- Install the Imager by running imager_1.4.exe
- Run the Imager
- Select OS Raspberry Pi OS with desktop
- Select SD card
- Press Write
- This burn these files on the card:
- In the config.txt there are settings you can modify:

# For more options and information see
# http://rpf.io/configtxt
# Some settings may impact device functionality. See link above for details

# uncomment if you get no picture on HDMI for a default "safe" mode
#hdmi_safe=1

# uncomment this if your display has a black border of unused pixels visible
# and your display can output without overscan
#disable_overscan=1

# uncomment the following to adjust overscan. Use positive numbers if console
# goes off screen, and negative if there is too much border
#overscan_left=16
#overscan_right=16
#overscan_top=16
#overscan_bottom=16

# uncomment to force a console size. By default it will be display's size minus
# overscan.
#framebuffer_width=1280
#framebuffer_height=720

# uncomment if hdmi display is not detected and composite is being output
#hdmi_force_hotplug=1

# uncomment to force a specific HDMI mode (this will force VGA)
#hdmi_group=1
#hdmi_mode=1

# uncomment to force a HDMI mode rather than DVI. This can make audio work in
# DMT (computer monitor) modes
#hdmi_drive=2

# uncomment to increase signal to HDMI, if you have interference, blanking, or
# no display
#config_hdmi_boost=4

# uncomment for composite PAL
#sdtv_mode=2

#uncomment to overclock the arm. 700 MHz is the default.
#arm_freq=800

# Uncomment some or all of these to enable the optional hardware interfaces
#dtparam=i2c_arm=on
#dtparam=i2s=on
#dtparam=spi=on

# Uncomment this to enable infrared communication.
#dtoverlay=gpio-ir,gpio_pin=17
#dtoverlay=gpio-ir-tx,gpio_pin=18

# Additional overlays and parameters are documented /boot/overlays/README

# Enable audio (loads snd_bcm2835)
dtparam=audio=on

[pi4]
# Enable DRM VC4 V3D driver on top of the dispmanx display stack
dtoverlay=vc4-fkms-v3d
max_framebuffers=2

[all]
#dtoverlay=vc4-fkms-v3d

Boot the Pi:
- The card is auto dismounted by the app, so you can just take it out of the slot and put it into your Pi
- Plug in SD Card, Monitor and Mouse
- Plug in Power
- Written on the screen: Resized root filesystem booting in 5 sec
- After boot it will start up the desktop
- According to Pi NOOBS Setup it uses
  - Username: pi
  - Psw: raspberry
  - and starts the desktop with startx
- When you open the File Manager it will tell you Free space: 109,2 GiB (Total: 116.9 GiB)
- An app Get Started auto runs on first run.
  - Click Next
  - Set Time Zone and Keyboard
  - Set psw - unclick Hide characters, so you are sure the keyboards layout match your typing
  - Select Wifi network and enter Wifi psw
  - On the Update Software you might want to skip download system updates, but if you have time why not do it now

I tested running Youtube from the browser in the box: Chromium on a TV.
Sound and picture and responsivenes are all great.
It has to 4k hdmi ports, so you can have two monitors.

Enjoy.

Links

The End