A Step-by-Step Guide to Creating Your Own Custom Raspberry Pi OS Image

In this guide, we will walk you through the process of creating your own custom Raspberry Pi installation package. This can be useful if you want to set up multiple Raspberry Pis with the same configu …


Updated August 6, 2023

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In this guide, we will walk you through the process of creating your own custom Raspberry Pi installation package. This can be useful if you want to set up multiple Raspberry Pis with the same configuration or if you need to customize the software on your device before deployment.

Introduction

Raspberry Pi is a popular single-board computer that is widely used for various projects and applications, including home automation, robotics, and educational purposes. To get started with Raspberry Pi, you need to install an operating system on the device. The default installation package provided by the Raspberry Pi Foundation is called Raspberry Pi OS (previously known as Raspbian). While it works great for many use cases, there may be times when you want to create a custom Raspberry Pi image with specific software and configuration settings. This guide will show you how to build your own Raspberry Pi installation package using the command line interface.

Prerequisites

Before we begin, make sure you have the following:

  • A Raspberry Pi device (any model)
  • An SD card (8GB or larger)
  • A computer running Linux, macOS, or Windows with the necessary software installed (see below)

You will need the following software on your computer:

  • Raspberry Pi Imager - This tool helps you create bootable SD cards for your Raspberry Pi device. You can download it from the official website: https://www.raspberrypi.org/software/
  • Git - This is a version control system that allows you to clone and manage code repositories. It is available on all major operating systems and can be downloaded from https://git-scm.com/downloads

Step 1: Clone the Raspberry Pi OS repository

Open a terminal or command prompt on your computer and navigate to the directory where you want to store the Raspberry Pi OS source code. Then, run the following command to clone the official Raspberry Pi OS repository:

git clone --depth=1 https://github.com/raspberrypi/raspberrypi-os.git

This will create a new directory named raspberrypi-os and download the latest version of the Raspberry Pi OS source code into it.

Step 2: Customize the Configuration

Now that you have cloned the repository, you can start customizing the Raspberry Pi OS image by editing configuration files or adding your own software packages. The config directory contains various configuration files for different Raspberry Pi models and software options. You can modify these files according to your needs. For example, if you want to enable SSH on startup, edit the config/raspi-config.txt file and change:

# Enable SSH
#dtparam=ssh=on

to:

# Enable SSH
dtparam=ssh=on

Save the changes and close the file.

Step 3: Add Custom Software Packages

To add custom software packages to your Raspberry Pi installation package, you can modify the package-groups directory. This folder contains various .txt files that define the packages included in each group. You can create a new group or edit an existing one to include your desired software. For example, if you want to install the vim text editor, add it to the pkg_group_default.txt file:

nano package-groups/pkg_group_default.txt

Add vim to the end of the file and save it.

Step 4: Build the Image

After customizing your configuration files and software packages, you can build the Raspberry Pi installation image using the following command:

sudo ./build.sh --device DEVICE --hostname HOSTNAME

Replace DEVICE with the model of your Raspberry Pi (e.g., rpi3, rpi4) and HOSTNAME with a name for your device (e.g., my-raspberry-pi). This command will build the image and create a zip file in the deploy directory.

Step 5: Write the Image to an SD Card

To install the custom Raspberry Pi OS image on your SD card, you can use the Raspberry Pi Imager tool. Follow these steps:

  1. Insert your SD card into your computer.
  2. Launch Raspberry Pi Imager and select “Use custom” under “Operating System.”
  3. Navigate to the deploy directory of the cloned repository and select the zip file you created in Step 4.
  4. Choose your SD card and click “Write.” This will take a few minutes, after which your SD card will be ready with your custom Raspberry Pi installation package.

Conclusion

Congratulations! You have now successfully built a Raspberry Pi installation package with your own configuration and software packages. You can deploy this image to multiple devices or distribute it as needed. Remember that if you want to make further changes, you will need to repeat Steps 2-4. Happy hacking!