Create a custom Raspberry Pi OS image
To get a Raspberry Pi up and running, you need to download the latest operating system (OS) release image, burn it to an SD card, slide the card into the Pi, and power it up. After the Pi boots, you log in with the default credentials and run sudo raspi-config to configure WiFi, locale, keyboard, and time zone and to enable SSH, I2C, a camera, and whatever else you need for I/O. Next, you update the OS with sudo apt update, sudo apt upgrade, and reboot before finally logging back in and installing all your favorite software that is not installed on the base image.
For casual Pi users, this procedure is a one-time or rare task. However, for experienced makers who have gone through this drill dozens – if not hundreds – of times, it is a real pain.
In this article, I present a method to create your own custom Raspberry Pi OS image that is just under 2GB in size, making it very fast to burn to any size SD card. No more waiting for an 8 or 16GB image to burn. This custom image not only burns fast, but when it boots, it expands the root filesystem to the full size of the target SD card. When the boot completes, you have a clean Pi OS system with your preferred customizations. No more raspi-config and wasting time installing your preferred software.
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