Alright, so, Feb 8, 2020. I remember that Saturday. I had this grand idea, you know? I was gonna finally do something with that old Raspberry Pi Model B that was just collecting dust in a drawer. Thought I’d set up a little something, maybe a tiny web server for tinkering or, I don’t know, just get it running again for kicks.
Getting Started… or Trying To
First thing, I had to dig out all the bits. The Pi itself, then finding a micro USB cable that actually carried power reliably – you know how some are just for charging and won’t work? Spent a good 20 minutes just testing cables. Then, the SD card. Found an old 8GB one. Hoped it was still good.
Next up, I decided to put the latest Raspbian (or whatever they called it back then, Raspberry Pi OS, maybe?) on it. So I went to their website. The download, oh boy. It wasn’t super slow, but it wasn’t fast either. Just sat there, watching the progress bar. Made a cup of tea. Came back. Still going.
The “Fun” Part
Once that was finally done, I used Etcher to flash the image to the SD card. That part usually goes smooth. Popped the card into the Pi, hooked up a keyboard, mouse, and an old HDMI monitor. Plugged in the power. Held my breath.
And… nothing. Well, not nothing. The power LED came on. The activity LED blinked a few times, then just stopped. Blank screen. Fantastic.
So, the troubleshooting began.
- Checked the HDMI cable. Swapped it. Nope.
- Tried a different power supply. Maybe not enough juice? Still no.
- Re-flashed the SD card. Maybe the first write was bad. That took another chunk of time.
Plugged it all back in. Same thing. Power on, a flicker of activity, then… darkness. I was starting to get properly annoyed by this point. This was supposed to be simple, right? It’s a Pi! They’re meant to be easy!
A Glimmer, and then Reality
I was about ready to toss the whole thing in the bin. Then I remembered reading somewhere ages ago about some really old Pis being fussy with newer, larger OS images or certain SD cards. I didn’t have another smaller, older image handy to test that theory quickly. I did, however, have another SD card, a slightly newer one, also 8GB.
So, I went through the whole flashing process again with this other card. Tedious. But what else was I gonna do? Plugged it all in, not expecting much.
And whaddya know? The rainbow screen! Then the boot sequence started scrolling text! It was alive! Finally! Took me, what, like three hours to get to this point? For a simple boot-up.
I let it load to the desktop. It was slow. Like, really slow. Clicking on the menu felt like wading through treacle. Opening the web browser? Forget about it. I think I just opened the terminal, typed ls, and felt a tiny, tiny sense of accomplishment mixed with a huge wave of “why did I bother?”.
That old Pi Model B, bless its heart, just couldn’t really keep up anymore, not even for very basic desktop stuff with a modern OS. My grand plans for a little server felt a bit silly at that moment, given how sluggish it was just to navigate the OS.
So, Feb 8, 2020. Spent a good chunk of the day just wrestling with old hardware and an SD card. Didn’t achieve much beyond a boot screen, really. Made me think, though. Sometimes these “simple” tech projects are more about patience and just figuring out the one stupid thing that’s wrong. And sometimes, you just gotta accept that old tech is, well, old. Still, I got it to boot. That’s something, I guess.
