Dive into the Pi’s boot sequence
Booting up a Raspberry Pi typically requires you to write a disk image to an SD card, insert the card into the Pi and power on. But there is so much more you can do. To start, there’s the boot partition, using this the Pi can be pre-configured. This can be taken a step further with the PiBakery app, that enables you to set an entire startup procedure. Meanwhile, larger storage devices can be used instead of the SD card, enabling you to boot the Pi 3 and 4 from a USB device. Then there are the opportunities delivered thanks to dual-booting, enabling you to run multiple Raspberry Pi operating systems from the same device. Let’s have a look at all these options…
The boot partition
Always accessible and from many devices, the boot partition on the Pi’s microSD card features a collection of files and folders that control the boot process. These range from custom files to things like config.txt, and enable you to tweak how the Pi boots, change its display resolution and even deal with hardware bugs.
A smart option is to enable SSH early on. This will save time later, letting you directory and create a new text file, without a file extension, simply called . This will enable SSH – ideal if your Raspberry Pi is connected to your router or switch using Ethernet.
