GOAL: A master PiBot image that is pre-configured for ease of setup. The image should be as small as possible for storage and distribution. The image should be easily installed onto an 8GB or larger uSD card.

EQUIPMENT USED:

• Windows 10 PC with SD card reader
• Sandisk microSDHC UHS-I Card 8GB (any class 10 8GB or 16GB card should do)
• Software to write disk images to SD card: ​Win32 Disk Imager or ​Etcher or ​cygwin dd
• Software to wipe/remove all partitions from a used SD card such as
  • ​SD Formatter or windows partition manager (Win-R diskmgmt.msc))
• Useful if you like linux: ​Cygwin with dd and openssh packages installed (I use the 64-bit version)
• Raspbian OS (​https://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads/raspbian/) - use the Lite version
• ​Apple Bonjour print services for windows

PROCEDURE:

• Install PC software (sd formatter, disk imager, cygwin, bonjour)
• Prepare SD card:
  • Install Raspbian on SD card (see: ​https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/installation/installing-images/README.md). This creates two partitions: /boot that is accessible from Windows and /root that is ext4 and cannot (easily) be accessed from Windows.
  • Edit /boot/config.txt
    • uncomment framebuffer_width=1280
    • uncomment framebuffer_height=720
    • uncomment dtparam=i2c_arm=on
    • For Pi Zero only: add at end:

      # Enable USB Gadget (networking over USB)
      dtoverlay=dwc2
      
      # Limit GPU memory usage
      gpu_mem=32
      

  • Edit /boot/cmdline.txt
    • Insert after rootwait: modules-load=dwc2,g_ether g_ether.dev_addr=5a:77:1e:af:8e:9e g_ether.host_addr=72:8d:1f:c4:e8:ca (for PiZero only)
    • Remove init=resizefs... (to prevent automatic expansion to full SD card size) (Note: cmdline.txt must be a single line...no linebreaks)
  • Create an empty file: /boot/ssh (enables ssh server when started)
  • Create an empty file: /boot/avahi (enables zeroconfig/bonjour when started)
  • For Pis with WiFi built-in: create /boot/wpa_supplicant.conf with your wifi network configuration information (allows Pi to connect to your WiFi network on boot)

    country=US
    ctrl_interface=DIR=/var/run/wpa_supplicant GROUP=netdev
    update_config=1
    
    network={
        ssid="My WiFi 2.4"
        psk="mypassword123"
        key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
    }
    

• Boot and configure SD card in Pi
  • Place uSD card in Pi Zero
  • Connect USB cable to Pi Zero OTG port (the middle one, not the one on the end)
  • When it finishes booting (LED stops blinking) ssh to pibot.local using putty or cygwin ssh or ...
  • login as user 'pi' with password 'raspberry'
  • Get a network connection for the Pi using one of the following methods:
    • For Pi Zero with USB networking: Share your main network connection (Ethernet or WiFi with the USB NDIS/Ethernet connection). See ​here
      • Alternatively (but not recommended) Bridge your main connection on the windows 10 machine (Ethernet or WiFi) to the NDIS Ethernet connection for the PiBot USB OTG network (select both connections in the Network Connections then right-click and choose Bridge Connections); configure the DNS server as 8.8.8.8
    • Connect a USB Ethernet dongle to the Pi OTG connector
    • Configure /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf on the Pi to include your local WiFi network
  • sudo raspi-config
    • Setup localisation settings for US, English, EST (select: en_US.UTF-8 un-select: en_GB.UTF-8)
    • Setup interfacing options: enable ssh, vnc, i2c
    • Setup Advanced options: hostname->pibot
    • Resize /root partition to 5GB. See: ​http://elinux.org/RPi_Resize_Flash_Partitions
  • For Pi Zero USB networking:
  • Update the OS on the Pi:
  • sudo apt-get update
  • sudo apt-get upgrade
  • Install any needed packages
    • sudo apt-get install subversion ant mercurial
    • curl -s get.pi4j.com | sudo bash
  • Install Oracle DIO (see ​https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=81&t=99212)
    • hg clone ​http://hg.openjdk.java.net/dio/dev
    • export PI_TOOLS=/usr
    • export JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm/jdk-8-oracle-arm32-vfp-hflt/
    • cd dev
    • make
    • cd ..
    • sudo mv ~/dev /opt/dio
    • sudo chown -R root.root /opt/dio
    • create /etc/ld.so.conf.d/libdio.conf containing /opt/dio/build/so
    • sudo ldconfig (to refresh the library path cache)
  • Install joystick support using ​JInput:
    • sudo apt-get install libjinput-java libjinput-jni libjinput-java-doc jstest-gtk
    • append uinput to end of /etc/modules
    • See ​here for usage example
    • Use Pi->System Tools->jstest-gtk to test joystick. Also see /dev/input
  • Do WiFi Configuration using hostapd and dnsmasq (see documentation or the files mentioned below for examples).
    • Configure /etc/network/interfaces to invoke /etc/network/wlan0.conf after the wlan0 interface is up
    • Configure /etc/network/wlan0.conf
    • Install hostapd and configure /etc/hostapd/hostapd.conf to configure the Pi as an access point if none is available
    • Install dnsmasq and configure /etc/dnsmasq.conf so the Pi will serve as a DHCP server
  • Once card is configured, shutdown Pi
• Make master image:
  • Place uSD card in PC
  • launch cygwin as adminstrator
  • dd bs=512 ibs=1M count=10491904 if=/dev/sdb of=pibot_x.img
    • (NOTE: 10491904 is one block past the last block of the /root partition on my setup - could be different in your setup depending on the amount of space you allocated when resizing the /root partition above.
  • check the partitions in fdisk first.
    • On the Pi:
      • sudo fdisk /dev/mmcblk0
      • p (print partition table)
      • note End block of /dev/mmcblk0p2
      • Use that block number + 1 as the count
    • Under cygwin (run cygwin as Administrator):
      • fdisk /dev/sdb
      • ...rest is as above