Burning the Debian Buster Image Lite to Raspberry Pi using the Imager Utility

Release 2020–08–20 | MicroSD Card

If you are ready to update your Raspberry Pi because you are now an expert; well this is the place for you. We will be updating the image to utilize the Buster Lite image. However, you can apply this method to more than that. So let’s get started.

Download the Operating System

Download the Debian Buster Image Light (435Mb at the time of this article) at https://downloads.raspberrypi.org/raspios_lite_armhf_latest

The other images can be found at https://wIww.raspberrypi.org/downloads/raspberry-pi-os/

Download the Imager Utility

I will be utilizing the windows based installer; however, there is the MacOs and Ubuntu installer as well at https://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads/

Windows Installer: https://downloads.raspberrypi.org/imager/imager_1.4.exe

Install the Windows Imager Installer for Raspberry Pi and open the imager.

Setup the MicroSD Card

1. Add your MicroSD Card to your computer.
2. Click on “Choose OS”
3. Then select “Use Custom”
4. Select the Image file (.img) within the zip folder you download earlier.
5. Choose your MicroSD Card
6. Click “Write”

Setting up Wifi

Create a file called wpa_supplicant.conf

Add the following to the file and save. Recommend utilize an IDE such a Visual Studio Code.

ctrl_interface=DIR=/var/run/wpa_supplicant GROUP=netdev
update_config=1
country=US
 
network={
    ssid="YOURSSID"
    psk="YOURPASSWORD"
    scan_ssid=1
}

Add the file into the main drive.

Enable USB Debugging

Now we are going to configure the “config.txt” file to allow for debugging via USB. Add the following to the “bottom” of an already existing config.txt file and save.

# Enable UART
enable_uart=1