Raspberry Pi Raspbian setup

Here are all (most?) of the steps to get a raspbian OS going on the Pi (very similar to unbuntu-on-PC).

Get a Raspbian image from here
Create a boot MicroSD following this
Use gnome-disks to expand the root partition to 16GB, and create a nice ExFat share on the rest if there is more space
Boot it up and fix the locale with

sudo locale-gen en_US en_US.UTF-8
sudo dpkg-reconfigure locales # USE THE SPACE TO SELECT US and unselect GB (fucked up keyboard)
sudo dpkg-reconfigure keyboard-configuration # pick US or your keyboard is fubar
# now you have to reboot - this is a disaster pi, fix it

Default user is pi/raspberry, better change that...

sudo adduser m
sudo passwd pi
sudo su - # and use [passwd] to set a known root password

One-shot install of everything, then see more detailed notes, below...

sudo apt-get install kdm i3 i3lock i3status suckless-tools dunst openssh-server cifs-utils smbclient synergy arandr exfat-fuse exfat-utils hfsprogs gparted p7zip-full k4dirstat screen rxvt-unicode grdesktop openvpn bridge-utils kdiff3 nautilus-compare smartmontools automake libtool git network-manager-gnome iceweasel synergy software-properties-common

You may need to reconfig to use KDM so you can pick i3 (although if you log out that might work too - To logout, press Mod+shift+e (like exit) ):

sudo dpkg-reconfigure kdm

One-shot dev install goes pretty well too:

sudo apt-get install scite sciteproj emacs build-essential automake libtool libssl-dev libbz2-dev python-dev curl libcurl4-openssl-dev php5-common php5-curl php5-cli php5-json php5-readline sqlite3 sqlitebrowser oracle-java8-jdk

Install node with Node Version Manager (nvm) exactly the same way as in ubuntu (see above).
Pull down and set up config, scripts like in Ubuntu.
Pull down thedigitalage/rad-scripts, run [npm install -g]
cd scripts/node/mah-hause, run [npm install -g], run [sy create] to create all dev repos.

There is no chromium-browser - use iceweasel (firefox on ARM) or epiphany-browser (which was enhanced specifically for pi).

My editors (Eclipse, sublime) are not really available, use scite instead.

Java [apt-get install oracle-java8-jdk] is available in the default raspbian apt repo.

Resolution

To improve resolution:

Find the best video mode

su -
tvservice -d edid
edidparser edid
edidparser edid | grep 1920
  HDMI:EDID CEA mode (16) 1920x1080p @ 60 Hz with pixel clock 148 MHz has a score of 211624

set it in /boot/config.txt

# Uncomment the HDMI section and set the mode to match
# If your mode description contains “DMT”, the group should be 2, and if it contains “CEA”, it should be 1
# eg:
hdmi_group=1
hdmi_mode=16

see these sites for more: some dude stack exchange
See development/config/carambola/boot/config.txt for what worked for a pi3 with SEIKI, which is always dicey