Linux A bit of help with raspbian

I have just installed raspbian on my Pi as XBMC was givng me issues (stuck in a reboot cycle so wont fire into the desktop but my pc's can still see the pi and the hdd connected to it).

Now I have another issue, everything seemingly installed okay and my user name and passowrd work okay but then I just get some sort of command prompt and I'm completely flummoxed as to what I do next.

I was expecting a desktop of some sort or was I wrong think there was one.

Thanks

 

Boot up, log in, then type "startx" at the command prompt to start the GUI in Raspbian.

 

Thanks just tried that and I just get a bad command error.

 

Are you using the image of Raspbian from the easy SD card setup on the Raspberry Pi site?

 

I used the installer but now you mention it I've just found the images doh.

I've just bought a new 4gb card for it too

Are there images I can just copy across without buying one of their pre installed cards?

 

Yes you can create your own card, but you don't copy files across to it in Windows, you have to image the SD card using the Raspbian image and a program like W32 Disk Imager. The step by step guide on how to do that is here.

 

Think that's what I'm going to do, just downloading the image now and then the imager.

I'll post back in a while.

 

Did it used to work, or has this always been the issue? Could be a sign of the Pi not getting enough power (you get issues like this quite a lot of it's not quite enough).

 

Yeh it used to work and then stopped, it will still show up on our pc's, it's just the tv that cant see it. I'm going to re-install XMBC onto my other SD as well.

 

I have gotten raspbian succesfully installed and I have VNC setup properly and even have raspbian set so it will login in and got to the desktop automatically.

The next step is to get file sharing setup, is this easy, I have googled it and read through some options but I am a little confused.

Do I need to install something called samba?

 

Samba seems to be the way to go when it comes to linux/windows shares (I assume that's what you are doing)

It might be a bit tricky if you are not used to configuring linux stuff. But there's only one way to find out (and learn)

You can probably use guides from debian / ubuntu as well as dedicated guides for the pi. So if one doesn't work you could try another.

The beauty with the pi if you do mess anything up you can just wipe the flash card and start over reasonably quickly.

 

Yeh I've a learnt a little so far as I have gone.

Yes it would be to share with windows and my tv.

Can I make an image of my SD card as it is now as I've spent quite some time getting to this point?

 

I'm sure you can, but I don't know how off the top of my head. Others here would be more helpful on that subject.

 

May I suggest having a look through here. http://www.themagpi.com/en/issue/9 - there's an article on backing up your SD card.

 

I saw this and thought of you

http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-clonezilla/index.html

 

If you wish to have raspbian always boot to X when you start up from the command line type:

Code:

sudo raspi-config

Then enter your password. You see the menu, so using your arrow keys go down to boot_behaviour option and press enter, now select the option to start X on boot. Now save the changes and exit and when you next reboot/start you'll go directly to X windows session.


For more info on setting up static IPs, VNC etc try this guide.

EDIT: Also in the raspi-config you want to select the option "expand_rootfs" as this will ensure your raspbian install is resized to fill your SD card.