Putting the OS on your Raspberry Pi SD card

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The aim of this chapter is to learn how to write the OS to your Raspberry Pi SD card.

Terms:

OS – operating system
Image – copy of the OS in a file
Raspbian – OS for the Raspberry Pi based on Debian
Raspberry Pi OS – previously called Raspbian
NOOBS – New Out Of the Box Software, method of putting OS on SD card

Depending on how you buy your Raspberry Pi you may or may not get the SD card with it. Kits typically come with an SD card that has the NOOBS preinstalled. It is a good idea to have a backup SD card that you can install the OS on.

If your SD card comes with the OS preinstalled it may be the NOOBS. NOOBS provides a menus at boot time where you can chose the OS you want to install.

NOOBS

https://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads/noobs/

Alternatively you can download and install the OS that you want on your SD card.

https://www.raspberrypi.org/software/operating-systems/#raspberry-pi-os-32-bit

For the IoT class the recommended OS image is Raspberry Pi OS (32-bit) with desktop shown here;

Instructions on how to copy the image to your SD card using your preferred OS.

https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/installation/installing-images/README.md