Since there is now a supported Raspbian version without GUI and other unneeded add-ons available as Raspbian Lite the need to use other installers (with sometimes some downsides) is now not a necessity anymore. Below is a list of steps I like to perform before using them for any purpose as my Standard Operating Environment.

Download Raspbian Lite

Download link: https://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads/raspbian/

Write to SD Card

dd bs=4M if=2016-05-27-raspbian-jessie-lite.img of=/dev/sdb

Boot RPi

Default login details are
UID: pi
PWD: rasbperry

Regional settings

locale-gen en_AU.UTF-8

dpkg-reconfigure locales ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/Australia/Adelaide /etc/localtime`

System update

sudo apt update && sudo apt -y upgrade

apt install vim`

Setup SSH keys

As a security precausion it’s a good idea to disable password authentications

ssh-keygen -t rsa

vim /root/.ssh/authorized_keys

–> add RSA public key`

Setup Wireless LAN

iwlist wlan0 scan

wpa_passphrase SSID WPA_KEY vim /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf`
Copy the resulting hash from the previous command

Example config

country=AU

ctrl_interface=DIR=/var/run/wpa_supplicant GROUP=netdev update_config=1 network={ ssid=“YOURSSID” psk=123456789012345678901234567890 }`

Rename default user account

The default Raspbian images use the default user ‘pi’ – I prefer to change this user to another account for security purposes and to be in line with other Linux system I use.

Reboot and log in to the RPi as root – you need to run the following commands as root.

usermod -l NEW_USER_ID pi

usermod -m -d /home/NEW_USER_ID NEW_USER_ID groupmod –new-name NEW_USER_ID pi mkdir /home/NEW_USER_ID/.ssh/ vim /home/NEW_USER_ID/.ssh/authorized_keys

–> add RSA public key

change owner and permissions on key files

chown -R NEW_USER_ID:NEW_USER_ID /home/NEW_USER_ID/.ssh/ chmod 700 /home/NEW_USER_ID/.ssh/ chmod 600 /home/NEW_USER_ID/.ssh/authorized_keys rm /etc/sudoers.d/010_pi-nopasswd echo ‘NEW_USER_ID ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL’ > /etc/sudoers.d/010_NEW_USER_ID-nopasswd`

If you are using the desktop version not a headless version you want to make sure you don’t boot into the desktop and if you want to change the autologin ensure you update the username there as well.

/etc/systemd/system/autologin@.service
/etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf

Configure Raspberry Pi settings

raspi-config

I generally need to enable SPI, change the hostname and others depending on the purpose of the unit.

EDIT [2017-08-21]: With the update of Raspbian to Stretch you now have the firmware updater as part of the Raspbian repos:

sudo rpi-update

This will update the Pi Firmware to the latest version as well – which is worth it if you use it for later cameras and peripheral usage.

EDIT [2017-12-27]: change annoying vim defaults in Debian Stretch onwards. Visual mode.

sudo vim /usr/share/vim/vim81/defaults.vim

Comment out the following lines:
“if has(‘mouse’)
” set mouse=a
“endif

• Development
• Raspberry Pi