RPi Easy SD Card Setup - eLinux.org

The Raspberry Pi is not suited to running Windows due to its hardware, but there are
plenty of Linux Distributions which fit nicely. In addition to this, most Distributions of
Linux are free, however Windows can cost many times the price of the Raspberry Pi
itself.
Chances are you already have Linux running in your home without you even knowing it,
since it is commonly used in modern TVs, Freeview and cable boxes to run things and
ensure your recording of Inbetweeners or Prison Break gets done!
For more information about Linux see Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux)
Also see FAQ And Running XXX on the RPi
Basic Debian RPi Setup
When you first turn on your Raspberry Pi with it's fresh Debian image on the SD card,
you will likely want to tweak the system settings.
Default login and password
See the Username:Password column of distributions table to access your Pi.
Locale settings
By configuring the locale settings, you can change the language and country settings (e.g.
to get correct sorting behaviour) for much of the software available for the RPi. The
default RPi locale is English/Great Britain ("en_GB").
You can alter this with
sudo dpkg-reconfigure locales
You will get a very long list of possible locales. You can enable/disable a locale by
pressing the spacebar (not Enter), and scroll through the list using the arrow keys or
PgUp/PgDn.
Selecting "All locales" will generate all possible locales, taking a very long time and
using a great deal of space. Select only those you wish to use.
It is highly recommended to stick to the UTF-8 locales, and to leave the en_GB.UTF-8
locale enabled, in addition to any other locales you enable.