Now that the operating system is set up, it’s time to start installing some of the programs you’ll need!
Update and Upgrade Existing Packages
Let’s jump right in and start by upgrading the packages that came pre-installed. First, we need to update our list of available apt-get packages.
[nbox type=”notice”]sudo apt-get update[/nbox]
When this completes, we’ll upgrade any packages that are out of date:
[nbox type=”notice”]sudo apt-get upgrade[/nbox]
This updates the list of all registered packages, then upgrades any with newer versions. If prompted to use additional disk space, answer “y” for yes. This may take a few minutes to install.
Install the LAMP Stack
Now we’ll install Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP. These four packages are commonly condensed into a stack called “LAMP”.
[nbox type=”notice”]sudo apt-get -y install apache2 php5 mysql-client mysql-server php5-mysql phpmyadmin[/nbox]
Phew, talk about a long command! We can daisy-chain installs, which is what we did here with 6 packages. These will let us host complex webpages, databases, and an FTP server.
During the install there is a prompt request for a password. This password is for the MySQL root user, and you’ll need it later. WRITE IT DOWN — DON’T FORGET THIS PASSWORD!
Additionally during the install, just after you set the database password, you will be prompted while configuring phpmyadmin, which web serve to reconfigure automatically. The choices are apache2 and lighttpd. Chose apache2 since we were installing it anyway
Install Chromium
While Midori is a decent lite browser, we need something fully fledged.
[nbox type=”notice”]sudo apt-get -y install chromium-browser[/nbox]
That’s all there is to it!
Install Screen Management Packages
In order to display the tap list correctly, we use a couple of different fonts that are not included in the Raspberry Pi operating system. We also need the mouse to hide when not being used, and the screensaver disabled.
[nbox type=”notice”]sudo apt-get -y install ttf-mscorefonts-installer x11-xserver-utils unclutter[/nbox]