Valid and checked for Jessie Pixel March 2017.

Goal is headless setup, even with only wireless networking such as the ZeroW or A(+) with a wireless adapter, with the full desktop enabled.

On a host (Windows in this recipe)

0. Downlaod Jessie full

1.Format SD card just to be sure

SDFormatter

Image with WIN32DiskIamge or Etcher

2. Add to the boot partition on your host

a. File ssh (no extension, no content)
b. File wpa_supplicant.conf

ctrl_interface=DIR=/var/run/wpa_supplicant GROUP=netdev
update_config=1

network={
  ssid="<your_ssid>"
  psk="<your_password>"
}

3. Eject form the host and insert in Pi

Boot the image in a Pi.

4. Login remote with SSH (Putty), address is raspberrypi.local, user pi, password raspberry (for now!)

sudo raspi-config

– 1. change user password
2. Hostname (used also for SSH access, so after reboot use .local
3. Boot options : desktop or cli. For headless CLI is fine and leaves much system resources available.
4. Localisation options: Locale, Timezone Keyboard layout
5. Interfacing options:
P1 Camera
P2 SSH (Already set)
p3 VNC
6. Overclock
7. Advanced options
Memory split lower for older Pis with 256 or 512Mb
Screen resolution: set for headless VNC access

5. Reboot and login via SSH to new hostname.local, user pi, new password

6. VNC viewer (realVNC) can now be used to view the desktop if the boot options are for desktop. hostname.local, user pi, new password

7. Clean up unwanted Sd card diskspace. Raspbian comes with quite a lot pre installed software that takes up space and delays the update/upgrade process quite a lot.