The Orange Pi One is a byte sized (ha) $10 single board computer, packed with many features including 10/100 ethernet, HDMI, a quad core 1.2ghz ARM CPU, all wrapped up in a – 69mm × 48mm package. Depending on your project, the Orange Pi One is a great alternative to the Raspberry Pi 2, Raspberry Pi 3 or the ever elusive Raspberry Pi Zero. If you want to wait a while, you can pick one up from Aliexpress, or if you want to throw down a few extra bucks you can pick one up from Amazon (with prime shipping), here.
So you bought an Orange Pi One, now what? With some googling, and preliminary research, you'll the the Orange Pi community is minuscule compared to the Raspberry Pi, and most of what you find is fairly advanced if you're new to single board computing and/or Linux. That's where i'll come in, i'll save you the time I took getting mine up and running and share my experience with you. Grab your Orange Pi One, and let's get started.
Planning: Software
What are you going to do with your Orange Pi? Is it going to be embedded in a project? Are you going to make a portable retro gaming computer? Maybe a HTPC? This is where you search for an OS and an image for your Orange Pi that suits your needs. Here are some sources to find various operating systems for your new Orange Pi.
This is the official website of the Orange Pi SBC, and you'll find plenty of operating systems here. Android, Debian, Rasbian, Lubuntu, Fedora, OpenSuse, Ubuntu, Kali, and Arch Linux are among what you'll find here. Not all of these OS'es are fully supported by the hardware though, i've found.
This is the distribution that i'm currently running. I found that out of the box, all the hardware on the Orange Pi One is supported by Armbian, and if you're starting a project that is geared towards Debian running ARM CPUs (Raspberry Pi projects seem to port well) this is my recommendation for getting started.
Planning: Hardware
Before starting, you're going to need some parts to get your new micro-computer up and running. Here's what I started with and everything works with no issues.
Orange Pi Computer:
Orange Pi One - Amazon - $17.99
Power Source:
If you're not new to single board computers, you probably already know that all power supplies are not created equal. Some will work, but don't provide enough amperage and you may end up with a corrupted SD card, or they may not be able to even boot the computer up. The adapter I chose is a bit overkill with it's 3A rating, but i've found it works incredibly well, and it's build quality is rock solid.
5V 3A AC DC Adapter - Amazon - $10.96
Storage:
To boot the Orange Pi you're going to need a Micro SD card, I use Samsung SD cards in all my projects, and i'm currently running 3 of these with no issues whatsoever. Feel free to use whatever you already have, or choose another brand, just make sure it's at least 8GB.
Samsung 16GB EVO Class 10 Micro SD - Amazon - $7.99
Note: This tutorial is geared for Mac OSX users. If you're running Windows, you can use the Official Raspberry Pi Foundation instructions substituting your own image file.
Step 1:
Download your disk image from one of the sources above (or elsewhere if you can find it), and save it somewhere you can find it again.
Step 2:
Connect your SD card to your computer, it should mount on your desktop as 'NONAME' or something to that effect.
Fire up a terminal window and run:
diskutil list
This will show a list of storage devices currently connected to your computer. In my case the SD card was '/dev/disk2'. Remember this for later.
Step 3:
We'll be using the DD command to copy the image to the SD card. First we have to unmount the drive we're going to write to.
diskutil unmountDisk /dev/disk2
Note: Replace '/dev/disk2' with the path to your specific disk.
Then
sudo dd bs=4m if=/path/to/OSimage.img of=/dev/disk2
Here's an example of the command I used:
sudo dd bs=4m if=~/Armbian_5.05_Orangepih3_Debian_jessie_3.4.110_desktop.raw of=/dev/disk2
Note: Replace the 'if' path with the path to the image you're using.
Extra Note: BE CAREFUL WITH THIS COMMAND. Incorrect usage will destroy all data on the target drive.
This process will take a while, if you want to make sure it's still working you can press 'CTRL+T' to check how much has been written, and how long it's been running. Be patient.
Step 4:
Plug in your SD card, and ethernet cable (optional) and then connect the barrel power connector. Wait a couple minutes and you're done!
When you get to the login screen, or if you login with SSH and run it headless (like I did), refer to this snippet from the OrangePi FAQ.
Q1: WHAT IS THE USER ACCOUNT/PASSWORD FOR ORANGE PI OS IMAGES?
A1: For most os images the default login username is orangepi/root and the default password is orangepi.
That's it! Enjoy your new Orange Pi, and leave me a comment if you have any comments, questions or suggestions!