For some of my projects I write a simple service in Python and need it to start running in the background when the Raspberry Pi boots. Different Linux distributions use different ways of starting and stopping services (some now use Upstart, some systemd). I am using the “Wheezy” Debian distribution on my Raspberry Pi, and in this case the proper way to do this is using an “init script”. These are stored in the /etc/init.d folder. In there you can find scripts that for instance, start the networking system or a print server. Debian Wheezy uses the old Sys V init system which means that these scripts are run according to symbolic links in the /etc/rc.x directories. The Debian documentationexplains this. Continue reading Getting a Python script to run in the background (as a service) on boot →