Here is some notes of my Raspberry Pi installation(Raspbian Wheezy).

1. Download the lasted disk image from the Raspberry Pi official website. I’m using the Raspbian Wheezy version OS. Up to the present time I’m writing this, the latest Raspbian version is “2013-02-09-wheezy-raspbian.zip“.

2. In Linux, use the following commands to write the extracted image file to your SD card:

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# Assume your SD card is "/dev/sdb", you can get this information by using the following command:
# df -Th

umount /dev/sdb1 # Umount all the partations if there's more.
dd bs=10M  if=~/2013-02-09-wheezy-raspbian.img of=/dev/sdb

3. Use the “raspi-config“ utility to config your Raspberry Pi

   Put your SD card into your Raspberry Pi and boot it for the first time, you will be prompted to use “raspi-config” utility to config(you can do it again for any time if your want by run this command later);

    "expand_rootfs": if your SD card is more than 2GB, this command will make you use all the space in the SD card;
   
    "overscan": I recommend to make this option "Enable" to prevent make screen output out of range;
   
    "memory split": allocate the size of display memory and main memory;
   
    The other options are all very straightforward.
   

4. Config WIFI

   It’s very handy if you can put a mini USB WIFI card in Raspberry Pi like this one:

   

   In the current Raspbian, there is a GUI utility “Wireless“ can config the WIFI of Pi. First use “startx” to start the LXDE environment, find the following icon on the desktop:

   

   You just need to select your SSID and put your WIFI PSK and it should work.

5. Change the APT source

   [Here][sources_url] is the Raspbian mirrors list, you can change your “etc/apt/sources.list” file to use one of the source in the list such as:

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deb http://mirror.nus.edu.sg/raspbian/raspbian wheezy main contrib non-free rpi

6. Chinese language support

   1. Make sure you select “zh-CN.utf8” locale in the “raspi-config” configration;

   2. Install the “文泉驿“ fonts and “scim“ input method, refer here:

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sudo apt-get install ttf-wqy-zenhei ttf-wqy-microhei scim-pinyin

7. Install Chromium web browser

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sudo apt-get install chromium chromium-l10n

8. Control audio volume, refer here:

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amixer cset numid=1 -- 80% # The command make the audio volume as "80%" of the maximum value
amixer cset numid=3 1 # You can force the RPi to use a specific interface using the command amixer cset numid=3 N where the N parameter means the following: 0=auto, 1=analog, 2=hdmi.  Therefore, to force the Raspberry Pi to use the analog output you can use this command.

9. Play video

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omxplayer -o hdmi --pos 600 ~/some_video_file.avi
# -o: indicate the audio output, "local"(3.5mm audio output) or "hdmi".
# --pos: incicate the position to start in seconds.