Playing with your Pi

So hopefully one way or another you've got a running Pi, so now its time to get it set up a little. Maybe you need your wifi setting up, maybe you just need to tone down the desktop background from white to something less bright. Nows the time to play with your new computer.

Note: 

The Pi is not a supercomputer, or even that high powered, sometimes a degree of patience is essential when using your Pi. If you click to open a programme, and it does nothing, just leave it alone, it will open. Trying to click to open again and again will open more and more duplicates of the same programme, and slow things down even more. Remember the pi was a cheap computer? theres a reason it gets made so cheaply, well thats because good as it is, the components on the Pi aren't high end cutting edge technology, they are tried and tested components that work well.

If you're still doubting me about patience with a computer, then go on eBay, and buy yourself a working mid 80's home computer that loads its software from an audio tape (BBC B, Comodore 64 or Sinclair ZX etc) and use that for a week. You will come to understand patience with a computer each time you try to load a game from a tape, like Elite. And your Pi will suddenly seem speedy.

A quick outline of the desktop

If you're moving over from a pre windows 8 computer, it should be semi familiar already. There are icons down the left hand side, theres a task bar at the bottom, and theres a big raspberry in front of you. Of note in those icons to the right is Midori, its one of the web browsers available to you.

The task bar

Running left to right for your use and amusement there is:

• The equivalent of the start button in windows, this gets all the bits you'll commonly want, access to programs, settings and shutting down your Pi safely.
• Next is the little file cabinet icon, this is your file manager, strangely enough this allows you to manage your files.
• Then theres your web browser, in this case Dillo, it allows you to browse the internet, and look at stuff, like this blog.
• Theres a double window icon thing that to be honest I havent fully figured out yet it just seems to minimise all open windows. Should I ever get as far as figuring out what it's useful for then I may well come back here and add all pertinent info to this posting.
• Finally to fill up the left side is one of the genuinely more useful features in a stock OS i have come across  Its the desktop select box, as standard you get Two desktops (it is possible to add more, but this may compromise performance), so you can have One desktop for your web browsing, while the other desktop could have maybe a wordprocessor open allowing you to write out some form of document based on the highly accurate Wikipedia. You'll also notice that as you open programs, they show up as little areas of used space on the relevant desktop.
• The middle area is dedicated to open programs on the desktop you are currently viewing. Switching desktops will switch to the programs open on the other desktop.
• The right hand corner contains the "Panel", this is an area for system information such as time and CPU usage. Its quite customisable for what info you want to see. Lower down this page is the section on monitoring your system, and reading that should give you the idea.

Wifi setup

So the first thing you'll probably want (if you've got hold of a dongle) is your wifi up and running, so you can put your Pi somewhere less conspicuous. On the desktop you'll see WiFi Config, open it. Strangely you're in the bit you set up your WiFi. heres how to connect:

• Click the "manage networks" tab, then click "Scan" a new window will pop up with the available networks, look for your network. Slide this window to one side, but dont close it yet. 
• On the original window click "Add" up will pop a new window, with some text fields to fill in.
• In the SSID field  type in the name of your network. This is case sensitive, so type it letter for letter using the appropriate upper and lower case notation.
• In the Authentication field, select they type of encryption your network uses (WPA/WEP etc) if you're not sure, google is your friend here.
• In the PSK field, you enter your network password.
• Click Save and the window will disappear.
• Now on your original window, the "Network:" box ta the top should have changed to the name of your network.
• Click the "current status" tab.
• Click connect, and it should run through the connection procedure.
• When the "Status" part says completed, its all connected.
• You can close everything its all done and settings are stored on your SD card.
• I'd recommend shutting down, and a reboot sans network cable to confirm everythings running ok. Look lower down this page for the safe way to shut down and reboot your pi.
• Done!

Monitoring your system

Personally I like to see a few stats to get an idea of how my computer is performing, this again is quite easy to do. The default setup includes a CPU usage monitor a green graph of CPU usage, in the 'panel' located in the bottom right corner, telling you when that tiny chip's maxed out. But it would be nice to know a little more. Fortunately you can easily add system memory usage and CPU temperature quite easily. The CPU temp is really useful if you're planning to overclock your Pi.

• Right click on the task bar at the bottom, choosing a bit thats not got anything displayed on it.
• Select the "Add/Remove Panel Items" and up will pop the "Panel Preferences" window.
• Select the "Panel Applets" tab.
• Click "Add" another window will pop up.
• Scroll down the list you are presented with and select the "Temperature Monitor"
• Click add, and now you'll have a readout of the temperature the CPU is running at.
• Repeat the last 3 steps, this time selecting the "Resource monitors"
• You can now move them where you want by highlighting them individually, and using the up and down buttons to put them into the position you wanted. Personally I have mine in the following order: Resource monitors, CPU temp, CPU usage.
• Now by default the Resource monitors will show the CPU usage, so highlight the CPU usage monitor, and click the "Edit" button to open the properties window.
• Swap the radio button from "Display CPU usage" to "Display RAM usage"
• Click "Close" and "Close" again

Hopefully you'll have seen that theres a fair few things you can keep an eye on with the general running of your system like network status, volume control etc etc. So by using this process, you can get a better feel for what your Pi is doing.

Changing the look of your desktop

The white background as default is a bit bright for my tastes, I'd prefer something a bit easier on the eye. Fortunately this again is easy to change, right click on a clear bit of desktop, select the Desktop preferences. The "Appearance" tab will alter the basics such as background colour, desktop fonts, wallpaper etc. Its not an especially difficult process, so shouldn't need an explanation.

Whilst not that exciting heres how my desktop now looks, after a few seconds tinkering.

Shutting down / Rebooting your Pi

Once you've finished playing its important to shut down correctly, to make sure your SD card doesn't get corrupted (this isn't as bad as it sounds, and has an easy fix) that I'll tell you about soon. A corrupted SD card will either nor run right, or simply not boot at all. So go to the task bar, bottom far right and click the green button. Up will pop the shut down/restart window, select the appropriate option, and wait a few seconds. 

If you have made a change to the software and want to start again, then simply select reboot. If however you want to make a physical change like disconnecting your network cable after getting the WiFi running, use the Shutdown option, until just the red LED is on the Pi board, and all other LED's are off. Disconnect the power lead and make your changes. Plugging in that power lead will restart the Pi. 

All gone horribly wrong?

DONT PANIC! Its unlikely to be a terminal problem.

If you've got a Pi thats stuck/frozen/unresponsive, walk away for 5 mins and leave it alone. The chances are your Pi's just busy. When you come back, you'll probably get a message telling you something is unresponsive, kill the thing thats slowing you down, and move on. If however you get back, and its still doing nothing, just pop out the power lead, and restart. Pulling the power should be seen as a last resort, not a first course of action.

If youre getting nothing at all on power up, check the obvious stuff, is everything connected properly? is the power supply connected properly? Is your power supply working properly? is your SD card properly inserted etc etc etc, its probably something simple.

If you've tweaked a setting and it wont reboot, chances are its a software issue. If you're getting at least the text flow on startup and it fails, then its no biggie your Pi is fine. The fix is quite easy, just skip back a couple of posts, and re-flash your SD card with a fresh image of Raspbian (take it back to the default known working settings you have made), and start again. 

It may be usefull to make notes as to what you do on initial setup of your Pi, so you can get back to your basic configuration. Once I figure it out, I'll be posting about how to make copies of your SD's, so you can have an instant restore with your own basic settings.

So thats a basic run down of your Pi's Raspbian desktop and the Pi. Go experiment, dont worry about breaking your Pi, if it all goes horribly wrong, then just turn off, re-flash your SD and start again.

I have a first simple project I'm going to tackle soon, once I figure it out, I'll pop up some details, and a how i did it guide.