Device Deployment (Flashing an SD Card)
Step 1 — Which device is yours?
| Device | Description | Go to |
|---|---|---|
| ★ Plant Growth ★ | Plant growth monitoring (environment data, scheduled photos, growth analysis) | Plant Growth deployment → |
| ★ Insect Monitoring ★ | Insect pest monitoring (lamp photos, recognition, reporting) | Insect Monitoring deployment → |
★ Picking the wrong one is harmless ★ — step 3 of the burner asks you to confirm the target drive and warns that "this ERASES the drive"; press Ctrl+C any time before confirming (★ nothing is destroyed until the actual write begins ★).
What you need
| Item | Notes |
|---|---|
| A computer | macOS / Linux / Windows |
| An SD card | 32 GB recommended ★ (all data on the card will be erased) ★ |
| A card reader | Plugged in and recognised as a removable drive |
Common to both devices
What you will see (8 steps)
Step 1 Detect removable drives ★ system / virtual / optical drives are excluded ★
Step 2 Choose the target drive one → auto-selected; several → pick by number
Step 3 ★ Second confirmation ★ ★ type YES (uppercase) to proceed ★
Step 4 Obtain the image index → cache → download → verify sha256 → extract
Step 5 Write ★ live progress bar ★
Step 6 Read-back verification byte-by-byte (★ guards against a false PASS ★)
Step 7 Safe eject and record version
Step 8 ★ MUST DO after installing ★ run df -h / to verify the partition resize1
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★ The one thing you MUST do after flashing ★
Insert the card into the Raspberry Pi → power on → wait ~2 minutes → run on the device:
bash
df -h /1
★ The root partition should be ≈ the card size ★ (32 GB card ⇒ about 29 GB). If it shows only ~3.4 GB ⇒ ★ the first-boot resize did not run ⇒ report it and do not keep using that card ★.
FAQ (common)
| Issue | What to do |
|---|---|
| "No removable drive detected" | Check the reader and card. Some built-in readers report the card as an internal disk; the script then ★ refuses to continue (deliberate safety design) ★ |
| Several drives — afraid of picking the wrong one | Press Ctrl+C any time before typing YES — ★ nothing is destroyed until the actual write begins ★ |
| Slow download / want to reuse a previous image | Images are cached in the ★ current working directory ★; re-run from the same directory. Use --refresh to force a re-download |
| "Read-back MISMATCH" after writing | The script reports the ★ offset of the first difference ★. Inside the first 512 MiB (boot partition) it is usually index files written by the OS and the payload is fine; otherwise re-flash |