My new toy: Raspberry PI

I just bought a Raspberry PI (short as "PI" in the future) and plan to play with it for various projects. 

The hardware I bought from Amazon includes the following items: 
1) a PI Model B, a transparent plastic case and a wireless adapter;
2) a HDMI cable to connect the video output to my TV;
3) a micro USB charger of 5V/2A. 

The input devices are a wireless keyboard/mouse combo. The visual display is my TV. My first project is XBMC, which turns the PI into home multimedia center. 

The following is the log of what I have done to my PI until it works as Lubuntu machine. 

• Install Raspberry PI NOOBS (New Out Of Box Software)

• http://elinux.org/RPi_Easy_SD_Card_Setup#Using_NOOBS
• but the SD Association's Formatting tool does not recognize my Kingston SD card(16G Class 4, SD4/16GB)

• Install Raspbery PI by Flashing the SD Card using Windows

• http://elinux.org/RPi_Easy_SD_Card_Setup#Flashing_the_SD_Card_using_Windows
• Win32DiskImager can recognize my Kingston SD card
• following the steps specified in the above link, and restart PI
• before PI starts install, there are a list of configure to do. These configuration can also be changed after installation by command
• sudo raspi-config
• refer to http://bbs.shumeipai.org/thread-46-1-1.html
• refer to http://elinux.org/RPi_raspi-config for more info about PI config
• refer to http://wwssllabcd.github.io/blog/2013/01/31/how-to-setup-raspberry-pi/
• http://www.cnbeta.com/articles/204970.htm

After restart PI, a GUI shows up (similar to Lubuntu)

• default user and password

• default user: pi
• default password: raspberry
• Now you can login PI remotely using SSH and tools such as putty. If you want a GUI from PI, you need a VNC server.
• install VNC server
• type this command to install VNC server:       
• sudo apt-get install tightvncserver
• type this command to change VNC password:
• tightvncserver
• type this command to start VNC server:
• vncserver :1 -geometry 1250x950 -depth 24
• screen resolution 1250x950 is good for my Gateway monitor at Norfolk home
• From now on, we can access to PI from my laptop!
• to know the IP address of the PI, type command:
• ifconfig

• update system and reboot

• sudo apt-get update
• sudo apt-get upgrade
• sudo rpi-update
• sudo reboot

• web browser

• NetSurf has problem that some adjacent characters overlap each other and I can not select a whole line using mouse
• Midori has no such problem

In next post I will report my experiments on XBMC.