How to install the Raspberry Pi system and log in remotely without a monitor or Ethernet cable? After reading this article, you will know! (There is also a corresponding video installation process at the end of the article)

Preparation before installation:

• Any Raspberry Pi model (I have 3b+) + power supply
• SD card (recommended to use a high-speed card of 16G or more)
• SD card reader
• Wi-Fi from a router
• Laptop connected to Wi-Fi

Introduction to Raspberry Pi

Before installing the Raspberry Pi system, let’s briefly introduce the Raspberry Pi, taking the Raspberry Pi 3b+ as an example:

The onboard resources are as follows:

This is the back view, there is also a chip:

Side view:

The Raspberry Pi also has GPIO pins for input and output control:

Now let’s start installing the Raspberry Pi system.

The installation of the Raspberry Pi system is actually to install the system onto the SD card and then insert it into the SD card slot of the Raspberry Pi.

Download Raspberry Pi Image Installation Software

First, go to the Raspberry Pi official website: https://www.raspberrypi.org/, click on Software

Scroll down, and you can see an introduction to using the Raspberry Pi image to install the Raspberry Pi system.

Further down, you can see an installation package for Windows. Click the Download for Windows button, and it will download an executable file named imager_1.6.2.exe.

Installation and Configuration

Related Configuration

Double-click the downloaded executable file. After installation, the Raspberry Pi system installation window will pop up, as shown below:

There are 3 buttons here:

• CHOOSE OS Choose the Raspberry Pi system image to install (multiple systems are available for installation)
• CHOOSE STORAGE Choose the location for installation (the Raspberry Pi system must be installed onto the SD card)
• WRITE Write the system image

First, select the system, enter, and there are multiple systems available for installation. We will choose the first one, Raspberry Pi OS (32-bits).

After selecting the system, further configuration will be required.

Configure SSH

SSH is used for remote login to the Raspberry Pi via the command line. This will be needed later for installing some software on the Raspberry Pi. Check this option. Then set a login password for the Raspberry Pi, for example, I set a 3-digit password 123. If not set, the default password is raspberry.

Configure Wi-Fi

If the Wi-Fi is connected to a laptop, it will be automatically recognized here. Just check the option.

Configure Time Zone

The time zone will be automatically selected based on your computer’s network. Just check the option.

Configure Some Default Options

The following two options are checked by default and do not need to be changed.

Select SD Card for Installation

Connect the SD card to the computer via the card reader.

Then select the SD card.

After selection, start writing.

Before writing, it will prompt that the SD card will be erased. Confirm that the SD card content is useless, then click YES to start writing to the SD card.

Writing…

Verification…

Almost done…

Writing complete, you can remove the SD card.

Let’s take a look at the contents written to the SD card.

Insert SD Card into Raspberry Pi

Insert the SD card into the Raspberry Pi, then power on the Raspberry Pi.

Remote Login

SSH Login

First, log in via SSH. Since we have already checked the Wi-Fi configuration during the installation of the Raspberry Pi image, it should automatically connect to Wi-Fi after booting. We can check the IP address of the Raspberry Pi through the router. For example, in my router, after logging in to 192.168.5.1, I can see that the Raspberry Pi (raspberrypi) has the IP address 192.168.5.101.

Then log in using this IP address. Here, I am using MobaXterm, but you can also use similar tools like putty, Xshell, or SecureCRT. For SSH, enter the IP address of the Raspberry Pi and the username (default is pi), select port 22, and start logging in.

After entering the login command line interface, you will be prompted to enter the Raspberry Pi login password, which is the password set during the Raspberry Pi image installation.

Below is the successful login interface. Then try the ls command to see the file structure of the Raspberry Pi.

Install xrdp

If you want to use remote desktop login to see the graphical interface of the Raspberry Pi system, you need to install the xrdp tool.

The installation command is:

sudo apt-get install xrdp

Then wait for it to complete the installation:

Remote Desktop Login

After installing xrdp, you can use the built-in remote desktop tool in Windows to log in.

First, enter the IP address of the Raspberry Pi:

Then enter the username and password of the Raspberry Pi:

OK, you have entered the graphical interface of the Raspberry Pi:

The graphical interface is as follows. OK, login completed!

This illustrated tutorial also has a video tutorial!

If this article is helpful to you, feel free to share, like, and revisit to support us~