I recently received a Rasberry Pi5 (via. Canakit through an Auvik trial), so I had to go through the process of getting it setup.
- Install the hardware. Assemble all the components correctly.
- Use my Windows 11 laptop to download/run the latest version of Raspberry Pi’s official imager.
- Select the PiOS x64 headless, as I’m going to use this as a server, not a day-to-day workstation (with a monitor).
- use ssh-keygen on my Windows 11 laptop to create private/public key for Pi5. I kept the default key location, which was
c:\users\greg\.ssh\. - add name, wifi & ssh settings to image
- flash the image to the microSD card. My laptop has a microSD port, which made it easy to flash without any adapters.
- Create a DHCP reservation for the Pi on my home network. This way, I know the IP that it’ll get, plus I can use the hostname to refer to it, not just the IP.
- Insert the microSD card in the Pi, connect all external Pi cables, and power on
- Ping ‘pi5’ until it starts replying, showing that it’s booted properly. Open an SSH session from Terminal. The SSH keys that were imported into the setup program should allow you to seamlessly connect.
- Patch the OS:
greg@pi5:~ $ sudo apt update && sudo apt full-upgrade
Hit:1 http://deb.debian.org/debian bookworm InRelease
Hit:2 http://deb.debian.org/debian-security bookworm-security InRelease
Hit:3 http://deb.debian.org/debian bookworm-updates InRelease
Hit:4 http://archive.raspberrypi.com/debian bookworm InRelease
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
All packages are up to date.
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
Calculating upgrade... Done
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
- Check that the firmware is fully up-to-date, and patch it:
greg@pi5:~ $ sudo rpi-eeprom-update
*** UPDATE AVAILABLE ***
Run "sudo rpi-eeprom-update -a" to install this update now.
To configure the bootloader update policy run "sudo raspi-config"
BOOTLOADER: update available
CURRENT: Mon 23 Sep 13:02:56 UTC 2024 (1727096576)
LATEST: Mon 10 Mar 17:10:37 UTC 2025 (1741626637)
RELEASE: default (/usr/lib/firmware/raspberrypi/bootloader-2712/default)
Use raspi-config to change the release.
greg@pi5:~ $ sudo raspi-config
*** CREATED UPDATE /usr/lib/firmware/raspberrypi/bootloader-2712//latest/pieeprom-2025-03-19.bin ***
CURRENT: Mon 23 Sep 13:02:56 UTC 2024 (1727096576)
UPDATE: Wed 19 Mar 13:41:26 UTC 2025 (1742391686)
BOOTFS: /boot/firmware
'/tmp/tmp.CjIIzhsHuR' -> '/boot/firmware/pieeprom.upd'
UPDATING bootloader. This could take up to a minute. Please wait
*** Do not disconnect the power until the update is complete ***
If a problem occurs then the Raspberry Pi Imager may be used to create
a bootloader rescue SD card image which restores the default bootloader image.
flashrom -p linux_spi:dev=/dev/spidev10.0,spispeed=16000 -w /boot/firmware/pieeprom.upd
Verifying update
VERIFY: SUCCESS
UPDATE SUCCESSFUL
greg@pi5:~ $
References
Some articles I referenced when figuring this out were:
https://www.picocluster.com/blogs/picocluster-dev/how-to-install-docker-on-a-raspberry-pi-5-a-step-by-step-guide
https://pimylifeup.com/raspberry-pi-pi-hole/