This is the second post regarding basic configuration of Raspberry Pi 2.

  • Raspberry Pi 2 Model B Basic Configuration 1
  • Raspberry Pi 2 Model B Basic Configuration 2

1. Timezone change

By default, Raspberry Pi 2 will use UTC time. Command tzselect will give you continent and country selection to pick.

[email protected] ~ $ date
Tue Oct  6 13:48:38 UTC 2015
[email protected] ~ $ tzselect
Please identify a location so that time zone rules can be set correctly.
Please select a continent or ocean.
 1) Africa
 2) Americas
 3) Antarctica
 4) Arctic Ocean
 5) Asia
 6) Atlantic Ocean
 7) Australia
 8) Europe
 9) Indian Ocean
10) Pacific Ocean
11) none – I want to specify the time zone using the Posix TZ format

[email protected] ~ $ tzconfig
WARNING: the tzconfig command is deprecated, please use:
 dpkg-reconfigure tzdata
[email protected] ~ $ dpkg-reconfigure tzdata
/usr/sbin/dpkg-reconfigure must be run as root
[email protected] ~ $ sudo dpkg-reconfigure tzdata

                                                                                     
Current default time zone: ‘America/Toronto’
Local time is now:      Tue Oct  6 10:55:18 EDT 2015.
Universal Time is now:  Tue Oct  6 14:55:18 UTC 2015.

[email protected] ~ $ date
Tue Oct  6 10:55:28 EDT 2015

2. Access the Raspberry Pi Desktop

XRDP service will allow you to use remote desktop to access Raspberry Pi GUI through VNC service.

[email protected] ~ $ sudo apt-get install xrdp
Reading package lists… Done
Building dependency tree    
Reading state information… Done
The following extra packages will be installed:
  tightvncserver xfonts-base
Suggested packages:
  tightvnc-java
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  tightvncserver xfonts-base xrdp
0 upgraded, 3 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 7,219 kB of archives.
After this operation, 11.5 MB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]? y
Get:1 http://mirrordirector.raspbian.org/raspbian/ wheezy/main tightvncserver armhf 1.3.9-6.4 [786 kB]
Get:2 http://mirrordirector.raspbian.org/raspbian/ wheezy/main xfonts-base all 1:1.0.3 [6,181 kB]
Get:3 http://mirrordirector.raspbian.org/raspbian/ wheezy/main xrdp armhf 0.5.0-2 [252 kB]
Fetched 7,219 kB in 14s (493 kB/s)                                                    
Selecting previously unselected package tightvncserver.
(Reading database … 76938 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking tightvncserver (from …/tightvncserver_1.3.9-6.4_armhf.deb) …
Selecting previously unselected package xfonts-base.
Unpacking xfonts-base (from …/xfonts-base_1%3a1.0.3_all.deb) …
Selecting previously unselected package xrdp.
Unpacking xrdp (from …/xrdp_0.5.0-2_armhf.deb) …
Processing triggers for man-db …
Processing triggers for fontconfig …
Setting up tightvncserver (1.3.9-6.4) …
update-alternatives: using /usr/bin/tightvncserver to provide /usr/bin/vncserver (vncserver) in auto mode
update-alternatives: using /usr/bin/Xtightvnc to provide /usr/bin/Xvnc (Xvnc) in auto mode
update-alternatives: using /usr/bin/tightvncpasswd to provide /usr/bin/vncpasswd (vncpasswd) in auto mode
Setting up xfonts-base (1:1.0.3) …
Setting up xrdp (0.5.0-2) …
[….] Generating xrdp RSA keys……
Generating 512 bit rsa key…

ssl_gen_key_xrdp1 ok

saving to /etc/xrdp/rsakeys.ini

done (done).
[….] Starting Remote Desktop Protocol server : xrdp sesman.
[email protected] ~ $

3. List System Information

[email protected] ~ $ uname -a
Linux raspberrypi 3.18.7-v7+ #755 SMP PREEMPT Thu Feb 12 17:20:48 GMT 2015 armv7l GNU/Linux

4. Add Cron Job

Add a cron job to halt Raspberry Pi at 23:00 everyday.

[email protected] ~ $  crontab -e

  GNU nano 2.2.6           File: /tmp/crontab.obWc51/crontab                          

# Edit this file to introduce tasks to be run by cron.
#
# Each task to run has to be defined through a single line
# indicating with different fields when the task will be run
# and what command to run for the task
#
# To define the time you can provide concrete values for
# minute (m), hour (h), day of month (dom), month (mon),
# and day of week (dow) or use ‘*’ in these fields (for ‘any’).#
# Notice that tasks will be started based on the cron’s system
# daemon’s notion of time and timezones.
#
# Output of the crontab jobs (including errors) is sent through
# email to the user the crontab file belongs to (unless redirected).
#
# For example, you can run a backup of all your user accounts
# at 5 a.m every week with:
# 0 5 * * 1 tar -zcf /var/backups/home.tgz /home/
#
# For more information see the manual pages of crontab(5) and cron(8)
#
# m h  dom mon dow   command
0 23 * * * sudo halt

                                   [ Wrote 24 lines ]

crontab: installing new crontab