Until relatively recently, installing an operating system on the Raspberry Pi was complicated: you had to find the image, download it by hand, and use a flashing program to prepare the memory card. With the arrival of NOOBS, the process was simplified a lot, although not enough. And now, thanks to the Raspberry Pi Imager, anyone can create their own micro-SD Linux so they can boot the Raspberry Pi with absolutely no difficulty.
Raspberry Pi Imager is a very simple program. When executing it, a database is downloaded with the latest versions of the main distros that we can find. It will be enough to choose the image that we want to install and the memory card where we want to do it so that the program itself takes care of everything. Of course, a very fast and simple program, essential for anyone who has this micro-computer. And now, thanks to the new version 1.6, configuring and commissioning the system is even easier thanks to the new configuration wizard.
Now you can configure Linux from Raspberry Pi Imager
Until now, after creating a micro-SD for the Raspberry Pi, to configure it, what had to be done was to start the micro-computer with it, with a keyboard, a mouse and a screen, and configure it on site. However, most uses of this device are as a service, remotely. And because of this, we may not even have a screen or keyboard to hand.
Thanks to this new version, now we will be able to configure our distro before starting it for the first time on the Raspberry Pi. After installing the new Raspberry Pi OS , we will be able to use the keyboard shortcut “Ctrl-Shift-X” to open a configuration menu like this.
From this new menu we will be able to configure the most basic parameters of our system. For example, we will be able to choose the host name that we want to give it, the data of the Wi-Fi network or if we want to have SSH enabled from the first time we start the system. We will also be able to configure the time zone of our distro and the keyboard layout.
In this way, for example, we can make the Raspberry Pi connect to Wi-Fi from the first time we start it, and start accepting connections through SSH . So we can connect remotely to it without having to go through the annoying step of using a screen, a keyboard and a mouse to perform this first configuration.
Finally, we will also be able to configure other aspects more typical of Raspberry Pi Imager, such as if we want to play a sound when the image is finished flashing, eject the memory card or if we want to activate or deactivate telemetry .
Download Raspberry Pi Imager 1.6
This new version of the program is now available for Windows, macOS and Linux users. We miss an automatic updater that allows us to download the new versions automatically, therefore, we will have to download and install the new version by hand . To do this, we only have to access this link and download the version that corresponds to our OS.
In the case of Linux, we can also download the latest version from the repositories by executing the following command:
sudo apt install rpi-imager
Remember: the magic keyboard shortcut to open this menu, which we must never forget, is “Ctrl-Shift-X”