This is a collection of recipes for using and maintaining a Raspberry Pi - or RPi. The entries in the table below link to some of the "How-To" guides in this repo(sitory), and other pages with potentially useful information. Admittedly, that's a low bar for inclusion, but feel free to peruse anything that strikes you as potentially useful.
Most importantly, feel free to contribute… GitHub explains how to create a fork of this repo, or there's a good (and v. brief) YouTube video that explains the process, and why you'd want to fork a repo. If you find an error in this repo, or feel any of these recipes could be improved, there are (at least) two ways to contribute:
- Fork this repository to your GitHub account. Once it's in your account, make your modifications, then submit a "Pull Request".
- Create an Issue in this repo. GitHub explains how to create an issue, and how to open an issue directly from the "code". Both approaches get to the same place eventually.
New users note: In an effort to head off potential confusion, remember that git and GitHub are not the same thing! Briefly, git is a version control system (a protocol), while GitHub is a commercial entity that uses git, and adds supporting features including the web-based UI (user interface) and documentation in Markdown format.
You can use git directly from the RPi command line to create or update a GitHub repository! Tom Hombergs has created a tutorial on how to do this, and GitHub offers these training resources. Finally (and importantly), you should know that GitHub is not the only commercial entity offering git support services: GitLab is another resource to consider. Some GitHub users have worried that Microsoft's $7.5 Billion purchase of GitHub would bring unwelcome changes. Having alternatives is always a good thing.
| Repo Files | Description |
|---|---|
| The latest addition to the "Useful Shell Tricks" recipe. | A rant titled, "Want to remove the useless rpi-eeprom package and save 25MB?" "Tough shit", say The Raspberries
|
| Access & control PWM on RPi 5 easily. | Having problems getting PWM working on RPi 5? Here's a simple way to set that up using sysfs & 3 lines of bash code.
|
A recent addition to the "Useful Shell Tricks" recipe - on the findmnt utility
|
The findmnt utility is the Swiss Army knife for searching, finding and listing mounted filesystems.
|
| There are three (3) new recipes for Bluetooth audio on bookworm Lite: 1, 2, 3 | Thanks to pipewire, backports and a hardware "upgrade" users now have at least three choices for reliable Bluetooth audio for the 'Lite'/"headless" version of the Raspberry Pi OS. See the Recipes (1 - 3) for Details.
Note: The "hitch" in Recipe 3 has been resolved. |
| The Raspberry Pi UART mess | A rant, followed by a recipe for setting up a UART console client and server pair |
Is udev brain-damaged, or does it hate hwmon?
|
A udev solution to an issue with the SHT3X Temperature/Humidity Sensor... with a detour!
|
| Using the SHT3X Temperature/Humidity Sensor on RPi | No Programming Required! We use the sysfs interface to simplify access to these ubiquitous sensors. |
| Stop sluggish SSH performance over WiFi | Disable a poorly-implemented WiFi power_save feature in brcmfmac that has been enabled by default!
|
| Use RPi's `pinctrl` to control GPIO pins | Controlling GPIO pins has always been a key capability for Raspberry Pi users. But GPIO control has been jeopardized lately; this due to a convergence of two factors: 1. the Linux kernel has "outlawed" `sysfs` access to GPIO, and 2. the dreadful failure of the Linux kernel's chosen replacement for `sysfs`: `libgpiod`. The `pinctrl` package, developed within the RPi organization, offers respite from the Linux kernel's machinations. `pinctrl` offers fast, lightweight access to the GPIO. |
| Mount an external drive | This recipe will walk through the steps needed to mount an external drive on a RPi, and explain in some detail what the commands do, and why they are necessary. |
| Share Files on RPi over the network using Samba | This recipe continues the External Drives recipe to share files and folders over your network. |
| RPi file server for a music library | This recipe builds on the two recipes above to create a rational, portable file server for a music library |
| Setting up email on the RPi | Earlier versions of RPi OS included email as a standard feature in the Lite distribution. This recipe will allow you to easily restore that. |
| How to do Python development on your RPi from your Mac | For Python coders: I use XQuartz as the X11 app on my Mac to run IDLE on my Raspberry Pi in headless mode. This is an easy-to-follow guide to setting that up. |
| Use `git` to sync your RPi projects with GitHub | Here's how to use `git` from your RPI's CLI to keep your projects synced with your GitHub repo |
| What's my RPi hardware, and what version of Raspbian am I running? | If you've got more than one of these things, your recollection may fail occasionally. But your system always knows the correct answer! |
| `cron` is straightforward to use if you know its limitations | Most failures with `cron` are caused by not understanding these limitations. |
What is cron's environment?' |
A fair question! It's easy to say, "cron's environment is different than your user environment.", but what is its environment? This is a simple script that will tell you. |
| My recipe for installing and updating software | It seems there are many different ideas about how to install and update apps on the RPi. This is an area I am still researching, but this recipe shows how I do it now. |
| Software Defined Radio applications for the Raspberry Pi | This isn't even a skeleton yet, and there's very little if anything of any use here now (except a nice picture of the gorgeous Hedy Lamarr). I've got some interest in this area, and will update going forward. |
| Get Operating Temperatures of Raspberry Pi: GPU, CPU, PMIC | Various methods of reading the operating temperature explained |
| Using `fsck` to check & repair your filesystem | The recommended way to invoke `fsck` on each boot, and where to find the log entries created |
| I've Broken Something, and I Can't Login to my RPi | Oooops! It happens to everyone - you've screwed up, and can't login. This may help. |
OTHER REFERENCES: