Setting the host (computer) name

So, my first challenge was setting the  network name of the Pi.  It arrived as raspberrypi, I wanted to change it to something different - in this case, pi01 (just in case I get more - lots more!)

I tried looking around for some kind of pretty graphical shell to let me do this kind of thing, but failed to find it.  Instead, I had to edit the file that contained the name.

You need to have "root" privileges to do that.  By "root privileges" I mean that you have to allow yourself power to change (and possibly break) the system.  Normally you run without these privileges, which makes it harder to break the system.

So, you enable root privileges by starting your command line with the word sudo.

To change the computer name, I have to edit the file /etc/hostname.  I am using an editor called vi to do this, and so I opened a LXTerminal and typed the following command:

sudo vi /etc/hostname

Note that you might want to use another editor - nano is a popular one.  In that case, your command should be

sudo nano /etc/hostname

I could then change the hostname to whatever I wanted (in my case, pi01).

I saved the file, and rebooted - now my pi shows up on the network with the name pi01!