Raspberry Pi Imager: Why I Now Use It by Default

For a long time, whenever I needed to flash an OS onto a Raspberry Pi SD card, I used Balena Etcher. Since it was doing the job well, I never really had a reason to switch. Honestly, I did not even know there were alternatives.

Now, when we have ChatGPT, I was setting up the pi and GPT suggested to use Raspberry Pi Imager instead. I used it and it is so much better for setting up a Raspberry Pi. I am not going back to Balena Etcher for Raspberry Pi work.

It allowed me to configure the device even before the first boot. That's awesome. I was able to setup ssh, wifi, hostname and many other things.

With Balena Etcher, the usual flow was to flash the image, boot the pi and then do all the setup manually. There is nothing wrong with the flow however it is not fun if you try things and need to do it multiple times.

If you have done it a few times, you already know the annoying part is not flashing the image. It is all the setup you still have to do after that.

In fact, looking at the progress bar is a mind-satisfying experience :D :D

Well, let's move on.

Raspberry Pi Imager allowed me to do most of that setup before the first boot.

That means I can set things like:

• Hostname
• Username
• Password
• WiFi SSID
• WiFi password
• Country
• Locale
• Timezone
• SSH

When I booted the pi for the first time, it was already connected to the WiFi and I could ssh into it immediately.

I still think Balena Etcher is a solid tool.

But for Raspberry Pi setup, Raspberry Pi Imager removes enough manual work that it has become my default choice.

Additionally, I also setup Raspberry Pi Connect. More on that when I actually try it.