You can use full or lite version depending on your needs, both will work. Prepare a Raspbian SD cardįirst, prepare a SD card of raspbian as your normally would, I will not go into the details here as there are plenty of sources for that. You can also modify the SD card image directly in case you need to make the modification for multiple SD cards. This tutorial will show how to do that on plain SD card under Linux. Unfortunately it won't work as system console as the gadget driver is loaded as a module, but we can use it for serial console. Thankfully it is possible to configure them to use USB gadget mode to provide a serial console over the USB connector (or even a USB ethernet connection if needed).

And as the Zero & Zero W comes without any pin headers you have the additional hasle of needing to solder one. You can always use a TTL RS-232 adapter but using just one simple USB cable is much more easier and convenient. The Raspberry Pi Zero, Zero W, A and Raspberry Pi A+ are great cheap little devices, but connecting to them without any screen and keyboard can be a bit of a pain. For serial console on other models you need to use a USB TTL or RS-232 adapter unfortunately. Note that these are the only models where it is possible to do so as they don't have a USB hub and therefore OTG mode can be used. This tutorial will describe how to configure a serial console over USB on Raspberry Pi Zero, Zero W, A and A+ models (Also Compute Module 3).

Setup raspberry pi zero w headless