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I won a Raspberry Pi at a contest about 2 years ago. Finally I got the proper wire to connect it to my laptop, but it's not doing anything!

The light goes on, but nothing appears in my operating system in reference to the machine I just connected. This is a Raspberry Pi 1A connected to Ubuntu 14.04

This is an absolute beginner mistake. I am not a Linux beginner, but I am Raspberry Pi beginner. It seems many try to connect directly the Pi to keyboard and monitor. And that I might need to download and operating system first.

Any clarification?

enter image description here

john mangual
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3 Answers3

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John,

RaspberryPi is essentially a computer all by itself. To boot up and make it all work nicely you will need a few things.

  • A standard size SD card
  • MicroUSB power cable (like the one used to change your phone)

If you want to see the output, you will need a display, either connected over HDMI or the RCA Video Outputs.

Once you have the SD Card, you will need to copy an OS on it (such as Raspberian) and then you can boot it up and see all of it's glory.

AutomationNation
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The raspberry pi won't show up as an USB-device on your laptop. You need to create an SD-card with an operating system like raspbian. Then it will boot and you can 'inspect' it like a 'real' computer. I'd recommend starting with the quick start guide.

Be also aware of connecting the pi to powered USB hubs like in your picture, that may damage the pi.

Community
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user236012
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If you want to conect your raspberry pi to computer you need a usb to TLL cable(like this https://www.adafruit.com/products/954) , but you need a sd card with raspbian, or some other OS.

Ignas Kiela
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