Setting up a headless Raspberry Pi

Table of Contents

• Initial Setup
• Remove Bloatware on the Raspberry Pi
• Update packages to the latest version
• Install git
• Replace bash with zsh
• Install Python 3
• Install Node.js and NPM using NVM
• Install Speedtest-CLI
• Install Scripts
  • YouTube Downloader
  • Install RClone
  • RClone Backup & Purge Google Drive to Local
  • Install Open Media Vault
  • Backup Pi to Google Drive
• Create Passwordless login

Initial Setup

1. Use Raspberry Pi Imager to burn the image to an SD card. You probably want the “Raspberry Pi OS Lite” image.
2. On the image (which will be in /Volumes/boot on macOS):
   1. touch ssh to allow SSH access.
   2. create wpa_supplicant.conf:

country=IN
ctrl_interface=DIR=/var/run/wpa_supplicant GROUP=netdev
update_config=1

network={
    ssid="Wifi-SSID"
    psk="Password"
}

3. Boot rPi.
4. ssh pi@raspberrypi.local -- default password is raspberry
5. sudo raspi-config in system settings,
   1. Update hostname and password
   2. Select “Localisation Options”
   3. Change Locale as appropriate
   4. Select “Change Timezone” and set your timezone
   5. Advanced options
   6. Select first option - A1 Expand File System
   7. Update config
   8. then reboot.

Remove Bloatware on the Raspberry Pi

# https://github.com/JoaquimLey/raspberrypi-headless-setup

sudo curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/wadhwakamal/headless-raspberrypi/refs/heads/main/pi_bloat_remove.sh | sudo bash

Update packages to the latest version

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt full-upgrade

Install git

sudo apt-get install git

Replace bash with zsh

Install Python 3

sudo apt update

sudo apt install python3 idle3

Remove default Python2 so we can make Python3 default

sudo rm /usr/bin/python

Link Python3 dir to original python dir

sudo ln -s /usr/bin/python3 /usr/bin/python

Check if it worked!

python --version

Install Node.js and NPM using NVM

NVM (Node Version Manager) is a bash script that allows you to install and manage multiple Node.js versions. Use this method if you need to install a specific Node.js version or if you need to have more than one Node.js versions installed on your Raspberry Pi. # Use the latest from here --> https://github.com/nvm-sh/nvm

curl -o- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nvm-sh/nvm/v0.38/install.sh | bash

The installation script will clone the nvm repository from Github to the ~/.nvm directory and also attempts to add the nvm path to your Bash profile.

# No need to add this just verify if it was already added to your bash or not, otherwise add it
export NVM_DIR="$([ -z "${XDG_CONFIG_HOME-}" ] && printf %s "${HOME}/.nvm" || printf %s "${XDG_CONFIG_HOME}/nvm")"
[ -s "$NVM_DIR/nvm.sh" ] && \. "$NVM_DIR/nvm.sh" # This loads nvm

source shell or Terminate your shell for shell to refresh

nvm --version

nvm install node

node --version

Install node development tools 

sudo apt install build-essential

Install Speedtest-CLI

sudo apt install speedtest-cli

Run below command to perform speedtest

speedtest

Attribution

Abstract vector created by macrovector - www.freepik.com