CircuitPython libraries and adafruit-blinka will work on any Raspberry Pi board! That means the original 1, the Pi 2, Pi 3, Pi 4, Pi Zero, Pi Zero 2 W, or even the compute module.

At this time, Blinka requires Python version 3.7 or later, which means you will need to at least be running Raspberry Pi OS Bullseye.

Prerequisite Pi Setup!

In this page we'll assume you've already gotten your Raspberry Pi up and running and can log into the command line

Here's the quick-start for people with some experience:

Download the latest Raspberry Pi OS or Raspberry Pi OS Lite to your computer
Burn the OS image to your MicroSD card using your computer
Re-plug the SD card into your computer (don't use your Pi yet!) and set up your wifi connection by editing supplicant.conf
Activate SSH support
Plug the SD card into the Pi
If you have an HDMI monitor we recommend connecting it so you can see that the Pi is booting OK
Plug in power to the Pi - you will see the green LED flicker a little. The Pi will reboot while it sets up so wait a good 10 minutes
If you are running Windows on your computer, install Bonjour support so you can use .local names, you'll need to reboot Windows after installation
You can then ssh into raspberrypi.local

The Pi Foundation has tons of guides as well

We really really recommend the latest Raspberry Pi OS only. If you have an older Raspberry Pi OS install, run "sudo apt-get update" and "sudo apt-get upgrade" to get the latest OS!

Update Your Pi and Python

Run the standard updates:

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sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
sudo apt-get install python3-pip

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
sudo apt-get install python3-pip

and

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sudo pip3 install --upgrade setuptools

sudo pip3 install --upgrade setuptools

Python2 support has been dropped, so you will need to either use pip3 and python3 as commands or set Python 3 as the default python install.

You may need to reboot prior to installing Blinka. The raspi-blinka.py script will inform you if it is necessary.

If you are installing in a virtual environment, the installer may not work correctly since it requires sudo. We recommend using pip to manually install it in that case.

We put together a script to easily make sure your Pi is correctly configured and install Blinka. It requires just a few commands to run. Most of it is installing the dependencies.

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cd ~
sudo pip3 install --upgrade adafruit-python-shell
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/adafruit/Raspberry-Pi-Installer-Scripts/master/raspi-blinka.py
sudo python3 raspi-blinka.py

cd ~
sudo pip3 install --upgrade adafruit-python-shell
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/adafruit/Raspberry-Pi-Installer-Scripts/master/raspi-blinka.py
sudo python3 raspi-blinka.py

If you are installing an older version of Raspberry Pi OS, your system default Python is likely Python 2. If so, it will ask to confirm that you want to proceed. Choose yes.

It may take a few minutes to run. When it finishes, it will ask you if you would like to reboot. Choose yes.

Once it reboots, the connection will close. After a couple of minutes, you can reconnect.

Check I2C and SPI

The script will automatically enable I2C and SPI. You can run the following command to verify:

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ls /dev/i2c* /dev/spi*

ls /dev/i2c* /dev/spi*

You should see the response

/dev/i2c-1 /dev/spidev0.0 /dev/spidev0.1

Enabling Second SPI

If you are using the main SPI port for a display or something and need another hardware SPI port, you can enable it by adding the line

dtoverlay=spi1-3cs

to the bottom of /boot/config.txt and rebooting. You'll then see the addition of some /dev/spidev1.x devices:

Blinka Test

Create a new file called blinkatest.py with nano or your favorite text editor and put the following in:

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import board
import digitalio
import busio

print("Hello blinka!")

# Try to great a Digital input
pin = digitalio.DigitalInOut(board.D4)
print("Digital IO ok!")

# Try to create an I2C device
i2c = busio.I2C(board.SCL, board.SDA)
print("I2C ok!")

# Try to create an SPI device
spi = busio.SPI(board.SCLK, board.MOSI, board.MISO)
print("SPI ok!")

print("done!")

import board
import digitalio
import busio

print("Hello blinka!")

# Try to great a Digital input
pin = digitalio.DigitalInOut(board.D4)
print("Digital IO ok!")

# Try to create an I2C device
i2c = busio.I2C(board.SCL, board.SDA)
print("I2C ok!")

# Try to create an SPI device
spi = busio.SPI(board.SCLK, board.MOSI, board.MISO)
print("SPI ok!")

print("done!")

Save it and run at the command line with:

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