Using MacBook Pro as Display

[larrythepenguin]

I received a Raspberry Pi B for Christmas this year. I tried to us my MacBook Pro as the display but nothing happened. I believe the SD card came with NOOBS so I have not put anything on it. I use the provided HDMI cable to plug into my 2012 MacBook Pro. The red power light turns on but the green function light does not. How do I get my MBP to function as a display? Also, I plan on using a MacBook Air for Raspberry Pi too and bought a HDMI to USB adapter. Will that work?
Thanks

[DougieLawson]

I'm willing to bet the Macbook doesn't have HDMI input. So you've wired two HDMI output devices together, hence no pictures.

To get the RPi display on a Macbook use tightvncserver on the RPi and a VNC client on your Mac. Or wire your RPi HDMI output to the HDMI input on a TV or monitor.

[larrythepenguin]

Thanks for the help. How do I get TightVNC onto the rip without having a display? Can you please recommend a VNC client for mac that you prefer? Thanks.

[DougieLawson]

I assume you've got networking running and sshd is activated on your RPi (so you can login).

ssh [email protected] # (where that's the IP addr for your RPi)
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install tightvncserver
tightvnc # that will request a password

Then on the Mac use your VNC client to connect to 192.168.xxx.xxx:1 (with the password from above)

[larrythepenguin]

I'm afraid I don't. How do I do that without a display?

[Drake.Components]

I received a Raspberry Pi B for Christmas this year. I tried to us my MacBook Pro as the display but nothing happened. I believe the SD card came with NOOBS so I have not put anything on it. I use the provided HDMI cable to plug into my 2012 MacBook Pro. The red power light turns on but the green function light does not. How do I get my MBP to function as a display? Also, I plan on using a MacBook Air for Raspberry Pi too and bought a HDMI to USB adapter. Will that work?
Thanks

The MacBookPro does not have a video input device. It can only output video!

Do you not have any HD TV's? (HDMI connection on back of tv?)

[cmatthews]

I'm afraid I don't. How do I do that without a display?

You say that you are using an SD card with NOOBS, but since you have not connected to a display, I can only assume that you haven't in fact installed an operating system yet. That being the case, there really isn't much you can do at present. In order to proceed, you will need to connect the Raspberry Pi to a display and complete the installation of an operating system through NOOBS. I would recommend Rasbian.

Once that is done, come back and we can help you to configure the Raspberry Pi to play very nicely indeed with your Macbook.

PS.. If you really can't connect to a display in order to set things up then you could download the raw Rasbian image directly (http://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads) and then follow the instructions here (http://elinux.org/RPi_Easy_SD_Card_Setup) to write the image to an SD card using your Macbook. If you can do that, then again, we can help you to SSH into your RPi and get started.

[sdjf]

I agree, you cannot get NOOBS going without a display. Download and install one of the OS for the Pi directly. Most have ssh enabled by default.

You will need to have an ssh client on your Mac, and then once you get ssh on the Mac and an OS installed without NOOBS, you can ssh in to the Pi from the Mac and install the VNC server on the pi, entering commands using ssh.

Of course, this is a quick overview, not step by step. the first steps are to make sure you have ssh software on Mac and get Raspbian or whatever other system you prefer, on your Pi. Then folks can help with more detailed guidance for the specific setup you end up with.

VNC is, by the way, Virtual Network Computing. It is how one computer can view the virtual display of another computer. In this case, the Pi will create a virtual display with no monitor, and the display will appear on your VNC client (your mac).

[cmatthews]

The good news is that your Macbook already has SSH built into OSX. My primary workflow is SSH to Raspberry Pi on a Mac. The VNC will work OK, but X11 forwarding is a bit faster.