What is Raspbian?

As mentioned before, Raspbian is an official operating system for Raspberry Pi devices, supported by Raspberry Pi Foundation. There are three most popular versions of Raspbian, widely spread among users now: Wheezy, Jessei and Stretch. All of them are based on Debian: Debian 7 Wheezy, Debian 8 Jessie and Debian 9 Stretch respectively. The Stretch is the latest one. It contains a lot of useful stuff: Chromium browser, Sonic Pi, RealVNC, NodeRED, Blue and Greenfoot Java IDE, Geany, Python, Scratch, Wolfram,

Raspbian Jessei

Raspbian Jessie is the version of operating system for Raspberry Pi, previous to the latest Stretch. It had been being used for 4 years before the Stretch release in September 2017. So, there are still a lot of people preferring Jessie as the OS for their RPi devices!

In its time Raspbian Jessie was quite a big step forward for Raspberry Pi operating system to become more user-friendly and looked more like an ordinary desktop interface all of us got really used to. On the screenshot, you can see that Jessie has got GUI. Moreover, LibreOffice suite and Claws Mail applications have been added to meet the needs of a wider variety of users. LibreOffice is the set of applications, including a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation graphics, vector drawing and database programs just like MS Office does. All files made with LibreOffice are compatible with Microsoft Office.

Claws Mail is an email client. It supports all common email protocols and offers all the functionality of an ordinary mail agent (like Windows Mail or Thunderbird).

The programming applications list was enriched with Java apps (BlueJ and Greenfoot, they’ve also traveled to Stretch, read below). Other applications, updated and pre-installed by default in this version are:

• New versions of Scratch, Sonic Pi, and the Epiphany web browser
• Sense HAT is under Scratch and Python (changed from Astro Pi ).
• Pygame Zero game is added
• Screenshots become available via scrot utility (by push PrintScreen button)

Raspbian Stretch

You can get the current latest version of Raspbian Stretch by downloading it from Raspberry Pi official website. You’ll find two archives there: Raspbian and Raspbian Lite, which means the full package of Raspbian and limited one. The difference between the two is that the Lite version doesn’t have GUI and X-server and is made to fulfill very specific tasks.

Comparing with the previous versions or Raspbian, Stretch stands out with its internal technical developments rather than those notable in everyday routine use. It offers:

• Updated applications (like Sonic Pi or Chromium)
• More advanced approach to audio over Bluetooth (better integration with ALSA architecture)
• Usernames handling has been improved. Automatic logging in with the name “pi” has been replaced with the passworded name of the current user
• Scratch 2 (programming language) improvement. Now, it’s possible to use the Sense HAT with Scratch 2
• Broadpwn fix. The vulnerability of BCM43xx wireless chipset for an attacker to take control over it has been addressed

Other Raspbian images

Raspbian is community created and supported software. Initially, it’s been founded not by the Raspberry Pi Foundation, but a team of software enthusiasts which you can meet on http://www.raspbian.org/. They still keep on developing the operating system, so you can find a lot of other images of Raspbian, optimized for different purposes and implementation of the RPI hardware.

On their community website, you can find such unofficial additional images for Raspberry Pi such as

• Adafruit Educational distro
• Pisces by Mike Thompson
• Pisces+MATE Image by Mike Thompson
• Darkbasic
• RaspRazor
• CNXSoft minimal
• Comitup Remote Wifi Management

They include quite a good number of useful tools for their images, mentioned above. For example, the one I personally liked the most was the “Pisces” Image by Mike Thompson. It includes GNU C and C++ compilers, SSH server, Xorg and LXDE desktop environment. Pretty good set for a software developer!

How to install Raspbian

The Raspbian installation process is not complicated at all. Basically, as Raspberry Pi uses SD cards, all you need is to write an image on it. This is the safest and most robust way to bring the operating system to your hardware. Another way is when you already have some Raspbian on your Raspberry Pi and want to upgrade. In this case, you can perform terminal commands, beware that this may cause damage to your files. So, it’s vital to backup your SD card right before! Well, let’s look through both of this cases.

Writing a Raspbian image on an SD card

This way requires some additional desktop to write an image of Raspbian on your SD card. Depending on what operating system your desktop has (Mac, Windows or Linux) each one may have its own specific. So, I would recommend you to use Etcher, as it works on any of the mentioned and the process is always more or less the same. So, the guide includes the following steps:

1. Setup Etcher on your PC (get it here)
2. Insert an SD card
3. Open the Etcher app and choose your downloaded Raspberry Pi .img or .zip file
4. Select the SD card
5. Push the “Flash!” button to start

All set! After that simply insert the SD card with an image into your device and switch it on. The system will boot automatically.

Upgrading to the newer version of Raspbian

I’d like to remind about the danger of losing files while performing such upgrade. So, the previous option is way more preferable. But if you still want to upgrade your Raspbian, follow these steps:

1. DO THE BACKUP FIRST OF ALL!
2. Upgrade the older version with the commands

$ sudo apt-get update $ sudo apt-get upgrade $ sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

3. In /etc/apt/sources.list change Jessie to Stretch
4. Then repeat the step 2.
5. Then double check that everything works correctly and otherwise use the option 1 writing an image on SD card

How to update Raspbian

The Raspbian operating system is constantly being improved and it’s a smart decision to follow the updates, which in most cases are quite useful. Updating the Raspbian looks very similar to upgrading from the older version to the newer one, described in the previous chapter, but still differs with its general purpose. While updating, the operating system installs all the latest updates of the apps and distro kept on repositories and not changing the whole system. And what’s more important – it’s safe.

So, to purely update your current Raspbian do the following (in the terminal):

$ sudo apt-get update

$ sudo apt-get upgrade

$ sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

You can also do the extra stuff to get the latest updates of particular applications:

$ sudo apt-get install -y rpi-chromium-mods

$ sudo apt-get install -y python-sense-emu python3-sense-emu

$ sudo apt-get install -y python-sense-emu-doc realvnc-vnc-viewer

$ sudo apt-get install -y realvnc-vnc-server

This is especially useful if your current Raspbian is Jessie (or Raspberry Pi Desktop) as these updates are included in the newer version of Raspbian called (Stretch – read above). Also, in 2016 the Raspberry Pi Foundation released a special update called PIXEL, which includes all of the updates mentioned in this chapter. (Read more about PIXEL later in this article).

Other official software for Raspberry Pi

What’s NOOBS?

Besides all the types of Raspbian, enumerated above, Raspberry Pi Foundation offers a lot of other third-party operating system providers and other Raspberry Pi software for comfortable work. Further, you will find out about Ubuntu, RiscOS. SUSE and even Windows 10 IOT Core. But, first of all, what is really worth noting is their NOOBS.

NOOBS is a great starter Raspberry Pi software package to be downloaded the first thing first, especially by rookie RPi users (that’s why it’s called “noobs”). It is an archive which contains an out of the box installer for Raspbian, all the most popular applications and alternative operating systems. So, all you need to do is to download the archive, write it up your SD card and first boot your Raspberry Pi device with this SD card. The NOOBS installer will do all the rest of the job and provide you with the user-friendly interface app to set up more applications on your Raspberry Pi within a few clicks.

There are two versions of NOOBS – full and lite. The full one contains the latest Raspbian and forces it to be installed first. Then you’ll be able to choose among other apps and systems to be installed as well. The NOOBS Lite doesn’t contain the Raspbian pre-installed and leaves you an opportunity to choose which system you’d like to first boot on your Pi.

Third-Party Operating Systems

Among operating systems on the official Raspberry Pi website, you can also find the third-party ones, that can be recommended for using with Raspberry Pi devices. They are:

Ubuntu

Generally, Ubuntu is an open source operating system, which is a Linux distribution and based on the Debian architecture. It’s widely used for cloud and server solutions, as well as IoT, Desktop and other devices, including ARM-based ones, like Raspberry Pi.

As to Ubuntu for Raspberry Pi, there are 2 options available: Ubuntu MATE and Snappy Ubuntu Core developed by Martin Wimpress and Rohith Madhavan.

I’d like to start from more popular Ubuntu MATE. It’s greatly optimized for the Raspberry Pi 2 and Raspberry Pi 3 devices with LibreOffice and Firefox applications provided, built-in Bluetooth and Wifi support, hardware accelerated VLC video playback and decoding and encoding in ffmpeg.

The next feature of this OS is that there’s not a predefined user on the first boot. You’ll need to set it up manually as well as configure the regional settings. Ubuntu MATE for RPi does have got several bugs to pay attention to.

• Ubuntu MATE 16.04.2 is not snap compatible
• WiFi doesn’t work on the first boot. To enable it a reboot is required.

Concerning the Snappy Ubuntu Core, it’s a minimized lightweight version of Ubuntu, specially designed for embedded and IoT devices. The key features of Ubuntu Core are a higher level of security and separation between kernel and device drivers, which can help embedded engineers and software developers work in parallel.

Ubuntu Core is available only for Raspberry Pi 2 and Raspberry Pi 3 models. Also, due to its increased security, the installation process is a little bit different. You’ll need to perform the following steps:

• Create an Ubuntu SSO account
• Download the proper Ubuntu Core image (for RPi 2 or 3)
• Form up and import an SSH Key into your Ubuntu SSO account
• Write the Ubuntu Core image on an SD card
• Attach the monitor and keyboard
• Implement the first boot configuration instructions
• Log in to your user account via SSH

For full instructions look through the Ubuntu Core documentation.

Windows 10 IoT Core

This is NOT the real Windows all of us got used to dealing with on any PC desktop. It’s developed by Microsoft, it has a word “windows” in its name but it has nothing in common with the original operating system.

In general, the Windows 10 IoT Core is used for connecting your Raspberry Pi device to a large set of Microsoft instruments, like Visual Studio or Azure, to code and then download the code to your RPi device. This is how the project is done on your Pi with Windows 10 IoT Core.

In other words, you have to do the whole job on some of your PC, and the Raspberry Pi device is connected to your PC working environment as an additional device. This is only reasonable if you are an active Windows user and Raspberry Pi is an additional project of yours. But if you are authentic ARM devices professional, it will seem tricky to you, because you’ll have to get to know the entire Microsoft environment from scratch.

Anyway, if Windows 10 IoT Core is your choice, you’ ll need to download the image on your PC, write the image on an SD card, install Vusial studio (to operate the coding project within), then insert an SD card with an image into your RPi device (priorly connected to Ethernet or Internet), get connected your Raspberry Pi to Ms Visula studio environment (using the device IP address) and then you are all set!

RiscOS

RISC OS is an open source operating system, initially designed by Acorn (Cambridge, England) and is being currently developed and managed by the RISC OS Open Limited (ROOL). This software is officially supported by the Raspberry Pi foundation.

RisOS developers pronounce their software to be one of the most user-friendly and stable ones. This is achieved by the fact, that RiscOS is able to reside at ROM, so the system corruption is close to impossible. A lot of the software features and drivers are made with the hand optimized ARM assembler, which provides the best possible level of performance for ARM-based devices.

This operating system also goes with a list of pre-installed bundle applications. This includes graphics conversion and enhancement, games, office suite applications (Like MS Office), file compression apps, FTP, PDF viewer, Oregano browser and much more.

The installation process is also based on the writing the system image to the SD card. For RiscOS you’ll need an SD card of 2GB or greater capacity. So, you simply follow these steps:

1. Download the RiscOS RPi image (you can get it here)
2. Write the downloaded image to the SD card via some of your desktop PC using Win32DiskImager (or SystemDisc app, as recommended by the community)
3. Insert the SD card with the image into your Raspberry Pi
4. The IP address is not assigned to your device, so you have to do it manually. Simply got to “!Configure” and click “Internet” option. Then you can setup TCP/IP right there.
5. After you set up your IP, the software is ready for work!

SUSE

SUSE actually is the name of the company, developing the Linux products and solutions, mainly for enterprises. For ARM-based users, they offer their open source operating system called openSUSE, which is another Linux distribution and is supported by Raspberry Pi foundation as the official third-party software for Raspberry Pi devices.

In fact, openSUSE is kind of a project, which offers a set of instruments, tools and features collected in one operating system, supported by a community. So, looking at their openSUSE source www.opensuse.org you’ll find the two distributions: Tumbleweed and Leap. And it’s not a case of a few words to describe the difference between them. But I’ll try.

Originally, openSUSE (as the overall SUSE company) targets the enterprises, so both distros are dedicated and optimized for industrial purposes. Thus, the key difference between the Tumbleweed and the Leap is in their stability level. I mean, the Leap is a stable full operating system, which is appropriate for usage in the situation when the absence of changes, experiments and downtime are critical. On the opposite side is the Tumbleweed, which is a so-called “rolling distribution”, updating so fast, that it would require quite a lot of attention. It’s tied with the general SUSE development and allows the user to be in a close touch with, even smallest updates and changes. While openSUSE Leap is only a subject of regular general big updates, strongly timetabled.

Both Leap and Tumbleweed contain the same applications set, the only difference is their versions. Tumbleweed has got more up-to-date ones then conservative Leap. The apps and features include: KDE Plasma, Qt, gcc, X.org, Firefox browser, LibreOffice, GIMP, digiKam, Amarok music app and Dragon Video Player. Both systems use btrfs root filesystem by default and are compatible with MBR and UEFI systems, including UEFI Secure Boot support.

The installation of openSUSE images to Raspberry Pi is not a very easy thing. The systems are quite heavy. They use full installer ISO images of 4.7GB each! They can be both burned to a CD/DVD disks and copied directly to a USB stick and booted. As you can imagine, for Raspberry Pi it’s better to use the second option. Then goes a multi-step algorithm, containing the next major parts:

• Creating a bootable SD card (at least 16GB) with a special formatting
• Copying the Raspberry Pi firmware and bootloader
• Downloading and writing the needed distribution on the SD card with a special app (e.g. Win32DiskImager)
• Booting and installing the distros. For that you will need some other PC and an additional monitor to connect your Raspberry Pi to
• Insert your SD card with an openSUSE image on it and start boting the system

In case of troubles with booting you will probably need a small trick – creating a Hybrid MBR/GPT on the SD card for the Raspberry Pi

Another way of installing openSUSE on Raspberry Pi is the Network/PXE installation method. The further steps have their own peculiarities, depending on what distribution you are installing on your RPi.

So, for Tumbleweed:

1. Download the image (a minimum 16GB SD card is required)
2. Extract the image onto the SD card under the root rights
3. Insert the SD card with the image into your RPi device
4. Connect the Pi to some Desktop PC and to a monitor as well and then switch on the RPi
5. If you used a DHCP server, check it for your Raspberry Pi IP to provide on the first boot
6. Wait until the automatic installation is finished

For Leap:

1. Download the image (an SD card of 16GB is required)
2. Extract the image onto the SD card under the root rights
3. Insert the SD card with the image into your RPi device
4. Connect the Pi to some Desktop PC and to a monitor as well and then switch on the RPi
5. Walk through the first boot steps (this is the only difference from the previous tutorial)
6. If you used a DHCP server, check it for your Raspberry Pi IP to provide on the first boot
7. Wait until the automatic installation is finished

Non-official Linux-based operating systems for Raspberry Pi

As I have already mentioned, there are a lot of different pieces of software for Raspberry Pi, including official and non-official ones. Everything above was the official list, which is supported by the Raspberry Pi Foundation and is rather displayed on their website. The non-official software is represented by other operating systems designed and supported by enthusiasts and individual developers. This list is way larger and diverse. And due to its diversity but much less popularity I’d like to introduce it in a brief table below to your convenience.

Other non-Linux operating systems for RPi

Plan 9

Generally, Plan 9 is a kernel system but still has its own applications set. Most of them are developed exclusively for Plan 9 but there are several ones taken from Unix, like dc, ed and troff applications. Currently, Plan 9 is officially supported. You can get the updated information via their website www.9p.io

FreeBSD

They include:

• “bhyve”, which is a BSD licensed free hypervisor
• KMS And New drm2 Video Drivers
• Capsicum application enabled by default
• A Binary Packaging System
• Modified firewalls allowing network administration specialists to imitate different bad network conditions
• Jails – a system which is a substitute for virtualization
• Linux environment emulation
• DTrace is a comprehensive framework for tracing and troubleshooting kernel and application performance issues.
• Over 23,000 apps gathered into a huge Collection and ready for installation
• Network Virtualization: allowing to work within multiple instances

Haiku OS

Initially, Haiku was designed for x86 architecture devices but it also offers ports to ARM (devices like Raspberry Pi), as well as PowerPC and MIPS platforms are claimed to be underway.

The main goal of this operating system is to be user-friendly and suitable both for inexperienced users and for professionals. That’s why Haiku include the features to be liked by the ordinary users, such as cohesive design on the one hand. And things like custom kernel, object-oriented API and database-like file system, on the other hand, respected by developers.

Haiku has also got a pre-installed set of native tools:

• Java support – applications such as Netbeans or JDownloader can be set up and run via OpenJDK virtual machine that is also available
• Caya messenger
• Office alternatives: Sum-It (spreadsheet) and WonderBrush (a drawing tool)
• Programming languages: PERL, Python and Ruby
• Freeware games (reachable via HaikuDepot)

NetBSD

NetBSD is a Unix-like free open-source operating system maintained by a large community. This software is a great choice for makers, hobbyists, engineering professionals, researchers and others who need the stable system. This high freedom of implementations is reached by the main feature of this OS – its great portability and compatibility. NetBSD has got versions for 54 hardware architectures! For example, the supported platforms include x86_64, ARM, MIPS, PowerPC, i386, SPARC, M68K, VAX, etc.

NetBSD is distributed in three ways:

• Formal release form. Released on a regular basis and each release contains stable and tested libraries and applications.
• Maintenance branches form. It consists of really short-term minor updates including a particular bug with a solution for it.
• NetBSD-current form.The updates are released almost daily and offer the latest features and applications, very often untested and with a high probability of bugs to be occurring.

In addition, the NetBSD’s community is so large, that when you face some bug or a problem, this is likely to have been already fixed by someone else within the community. So it’s always reasonable to communicate with other users via forums and make contributions sharing your own experience as well.

HelenOS

Helen OS is a portable operating system, based on a so-called micro-kernel principle. This is a very easy to use and coherent system, which decomposes such functions as GUI, networking, file system and hardware drivers into components that interact with each other through the message passing. Thus, no errors or more serious system crashes for a single component can affect another one. The micro-kernel principle, in its turn, means that only a minimal functionality is provided for simple user processes and communication. And the major goal achieved by this micro-kernel principle is the possibility of parallel running several system personalities and avoiding a bug crashing the entire OS (a bug in a user space results in affecting only the user’s process while the entire system driver keeps on functioning).

Another great feature of this operating system is that it supports a lot of types of hardware architecture: md64, arm32, ia64 EFI, Mips32 MSIM, MIPS Malta etc.

The system developers community defines the product’s aim mainly for learning operating systems in general rather than the practical implementation of the software. Although there is an example of HelenOS professional use within the ​Operating Systems course at Charles University, Prague.

What is Raspberry Pi Images?

This question is quite popular if you are just starting. Anyway, while reading this article, you seem to have