This tutorial will walk you through how to set up Ubuntu Server on your Raspberry Pi 5.
Download and install Raspberry Pi Imager for your desired operating system. To be clear, this means the OS you are running on your PC, from which you will write the Pi’s microSD card. Download from: https://www.raspberrypi.com/software/ .
Ideally, remove any other external storage device than the microSD card (or card adapter, depending on what you are using). This is just to avoid any confusion and format the wrong drive.
Open the Imager and click ‘Choose Device’.
Choose ‘Raspberry Pi 5’ (or whatever Pi you are using).
Now click ‘Choose OS’.
Choose ‘Other general-purpose OS’ – ‘Ubuntu’ – ‘Ubuntu Server 24.04.1 LTS (64-bit)’ (or whatever LTS version you find when you read this).
Click ‘Choose Storage’.
Choose your card.
Click next. You will be prompted with the following dialog. Click ‘Edit settings’.
In the ‘General’ tab, give your Pi a hostname, a username and password that you will use to connect to it. If you want it to use WiFi, check ‘Configure wireless LAN’ and enter the SSID (the name of your network), Password and your country. If you plan to use an ethernet cable on your Pi, you can leave it unchecked. Check the ‘Set locale settings checkbox’ and choose your time zone and the desired keyboard layout.
In the ‘Services’ tab, make sure ‘Enable SSH’ is checked and ‘Use password authentication’. If you want to use an ssh key to authenticate, you can use the second option, but make sure you know what you’re doing. You probably don’t need this tutorial if you do.
That’s it, now click ‘Save’. It will bring you back to the OS customization dialog, where you should now click ‘Yes’.
At the next prompt click ‘Yes’ to confirm formatting the card.
It’s going to take a while for the card to be written. Once it’s done you will see this screen.
That’s it, your Ubuntu Server is now installed. Now insert your microSD card into the Pi and start it up. If you wish, you can connect a screen to the HDMI port and a keyboard to the USB port, but if you give it a few minutes after it starts, you should be able to ssh into it. However, do make sure you give the Pi enough time on the first boot (5-10 min), since it needs to do a bunch of things and Ubuntu Server is not very visual about the state. When it’s ready you can use the username and password you provided to ssh into it:
$ ssh [email protected]
The authenticity of host 'pi5server2.local (fe80::2ecf:67ff:fe7d:b06%13)' can't be established.
ECDSA key fingerprint is SHA256:BNBbHxdN+Bvj7EmXhXsAFTESFHHVjfLccWXOsDguEPk.
Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no/[fingerprint])? yes
Warning: Permanently added 'pi5server2.local,fe80::2ecf:67ff:fe7d:b06%13' (ECDSA) to the list of known hosts.
[email protected]'s password:
Welcome to Ubuntu 24.04.1 LTS (GNU/Linux 6.8.0-1010-raspi aarch64)Hope this helps, have fun clickity-clacking.
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