How to boot up ubuntu Server on Raspberry PI 5 (Headless)



This content originally appeared on DEV Community and was authored by Devarsh

Hello Everyone, from the past few days I have been struggling to ssh into Raspberry PI 5 consists of Ubuntu Server 24.04.2 LTS (64-bit).

But, the raspberry pi was not able to connect to my Wifi router. Thus, I was not able to ssh into it.

Reason: I flashed the image with the wifi network which was 5G. Instead, I had to choose the 2G network my router emits.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

  • Thank you very much Mifos Initiative for providing me the beautiful piece of Tech. I am very grateful to test mifos’ project on it and excited to use it. Thank you my mentor and Mifos Initiative

Let’s Get Started with the step by step guide

  1. Buy a Raspberry PI 5, SD Card Reader, SD Card(minimum 16 GB), Charging Adaptor, Air cooler(optional), and Case(for protection, optional)
  2. On your laptop(daily use), install raspberry PI imager. Here, Download for your machine
  3. Once installed open it.

You’ll see something like this.

  • Raspberry Pi Device -> Raspberry Pi 5
  • Operating System -> Other general-purpose OS -> Ubuntu Server 24.04.2 LTS (64-bit) => The specification of the PI is written on the back of the PI box
  • Storage -> Your SD Card

Raspberry PI Image UI

  1. Now, Click on Next
  2. This pop-up will come.
  • I have already configured my sd-card that’s why I am seeing all the options.
    Already configured once. Cached

  • For first time you’ll see something like this.

  • OR if you click on No, Clear Settings and then again click on next you’ll see something like this.

Flashing SD-card for time

  1. Click on Edit Settings. NOTE: REMEMBER HOSTNAME, USERNAME AND PASSWORD, this will be useful when we’ll ssh.

By Default you’ll see this,

General Default Settings

Services Default Settings

Here, you’ve to

  • Enable Set hostname
  • Enable set username and password
  • Enable Configure wireless LAN. It will fill the details of the wifi network you’re connected to. Also, keep in mind you connect with the 2GHz wifi network and avoid connecting with 5GHz one. It will save your days..
  • Select “IN” for Wireless LAN country. If you’re in India
  • and select the *locale settings * accordingly
  • Keyboard Layout: “us”

Here’s my config

General customised settings

  1. Services
  2. Enable SSH and “Use password authentication”

Like this,
Enable SSH

  1. Now, Click on “Yes”

Clicking Yes

Let is erase your data. Consider taking a backup if your sd-card contains some important info

  1. Let it write, verify and finally flash your sd card.

  2. It will automatically eject your card from your laptop/system.

  3. Insert the sd card in Raspberry PI 5.

  4. Start the Raspberry PI 5. It will automatically connect with your Wifi, do the login and few other stuff.

  5. If you’re not using HDMI cable and not seeing the logs.

  6. and if you’re seeing the green light is blinking. It’s a good signal

  7. You’ll be able to ssh to it.

When you power Raspberry PI 5 on

  1. To verify you can, use command ‘ping raspberry.local’ you’ll get output something like this,
$ ping raspberrypi.local

Pinging raspberrypi.local [fe80::8aa2:9eff:fe04:381c%15] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from fe80::8aa2:9eff:fe04:381c%15: time=4ms 
Reply from fe80::8aa2:9eff:fe04:381c%15: time=4ms 
Reply from fe80::8aa2:9eff:fe04:381c%15: time=4ms 
Reply from fe80::8aa2:9eff:fe04:381c%15: time=4ms 

Ping statistics for fe80::8aa2:9eff:fe04:381c%15:
    Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
    Minimum = 4ms, Maximum = 4ms, Average = 4ms

OR you can login to your router portal and see the ip addr to login

Fetching IP addr from router portal

  1. Moment of Truth. SSH.

ssh <username>@<ip-addr>

Done.

$ ssh devarshrpi@192.168.1.94
devarshrpi@192.168.1.94's password: 
Welcome to Ubuntu 24.04.2 LTS (GNU/Linux 6.8.0-1018-raspi aarch64)
.
.
.
.
.
.
Last login: Sat Jul 19 14:14:19 2025 from 192.168.1.65
  1. That’s it. Thank you

PS: This setup saves you lot of money. You don’t need to buy other keyboard, new mouse, new monitor not even the microHDMI to HDMI cable(optional). Just boot up the server and ssh.
Also, I haven’t used grammarly for writing this. I hope my feelings and message are reached and everybody get their work done.

Again Thank you very much Mifos Initiative. I am very grateful for having this.


This content originally appeared on DEV Community and was authored by Devarsh