Raspberry Pi: 10 operating systems for the mini­com­put­er

The single-board computer Raspberry Pi, published in 2012, became one of the most popular tools in the developer scene within just a few years. Hobby users and new pro­gram­mers from all over the world use the mini­com­put­er to implement the craziest projects, from voice-con­trolled coffee machines to video game machines. What’s more, the UK’s best-selling computer of all time is now also in demand as a server solution – for web, mail, and DNS servers, as well as for cloud servers. The un­der­ly­ing basis is always a func­tion­al operating system, for which there are various open source dis­tri­b­u­tions and other free ap­pli­ca­tions available. This guide presents a brief portrait of the most in­ter­est­ing operating systems for Raspberry Pi.

Raspbian is a free operating system based on the Linux dis­tri­b­u­tion Debian and optimized for Raspberry Pi’s hardware. An initial version of the Debian port, mainly initiated by the de­vel­op­ers Mike Thompson and Peter Green, was released shortly after the release of Raspberry Pi in June 2012. Since then, Raspbian has served as the official Raspberry Pi operating system. At that time, the dis­tri­b­u­tion already included more than 35,000 software packages that were available to the user after in­stal­la­tion. Thanks to con­tin­u­ous further de­vel­op­ment, though, the scope of the repos­i­to­ry grew steadily and now even includes office programs like Word and an e-mail client.

To use Raspbian, you can install the system yourself on an SD card with the help of the down­load­able Rasp­bian­In­staller, or download a finished image and copy it to the desired SD card. For this, you have a choice between the official images of the Raspberry Pi Foun­da­tion and images provided by members of the very active Raspbian community. In the first case, both a version with a desktop interface (requires at least one 8GB SD card) and a slim version without GUI (Lite) are available – each as a ZIP or torrent file. Download and in­stal­la­tion can also be sim­pli­fied with the use of the software manager NOOBS. In the Raspberry Pi shop, you can also purchase cards with installed images.

Another Debian de­scen­dant that can be set up in its ARM edition as a Raspberry Pi dis­tri­b­u­tion is Kali Linux. The open source program, developed by Mati Ahoni and Devon Kearns of the American company Offensive Security was published in its first version on March 13, 2013. The dis­tri­b­u­tion can be used as normal operating system software, but is primarily used for extensive security and pen­e­tra­tion testing of computer systems and networks. For this purpose, the ap­pli­ca­tion contains more than 600 tools, including the network scanner Nmap, the Metas­ploit framework (exploit test platform), or the password cracker John the Ripper. Kali Linux is the official successor of BackTrack, which is based on the Linux dis­tri­b­u­tion Ubuntu.

Since Kali Linux focuses on the theme of security, the Raspberry Pi operating system receives regular security and software updates from the Debian repos­i­to­ry. This ensures that the system is always up to date. By default, the software package is kept rather min­i­mal­is­tic to offer the smallest possible area of attack. Ad­di­tion­al ap­pli­ca­tions can be added at any time as desired. The large community is heavily involved with the de­vel­op­ment and main­te­nance of the Linux dis­tri­b­u­tion through various forums, IRC channels, and the open bug tracker system. To use the operating system for your Raspberry Pi, simply download the ap­pro­pri­ate Kali image file and copy it onto your SD card (minimum 8GB). Then run the image on the mini­com­put­er using the dd command.

A main feature of Pidora is the so-called headless mode. This allows you to access your mini­com­put­er without a monitor or display. For problems with the Raspberry Pi dis­tri­b­u­tion, there are several possible points of contact: In the community forums and wikis of Raspberry Pi and Fedora you’ll not only find various sources of help, but can also easily exchange in­for­ma­tion with other users. Seneca College also has its own wiki, as well as an IRC channel. If you want to report software errors or security gaps, you can either use the Bugzilla system (for problems with Fedora packages) or the Pidora bug tracker. To install Pidora, you have to download an image of the operating system and copy it to an SD card (minimum 2GB). Download links and other guides can be found on the pre­vi­ous­ly mentioned Pidora homepage.

With the Windows 10 IoT Core, Microsoft launched its first operating system for IoT devices such as Raspberry Pi (2 or 3) in 2015. The ap­pli­ca­tion is primarily suited for de­vel­op­ers and hobby users who want to network everyday objects with the internet, or create new networked things. For this, the Windows 10 IoT Core relies on the in-house “Universal Windows Platform” API (UWP), which makes it possible to write apps for your own devices. The de­vel­op­ment software is the free community edition of Microsoft Visual Studio. In addition, the pro­pri­etary Raspberry Pi operating system features bitlocker en­cryp­tion and “Secure Boot” functions that are adopted from the desktop version. Thanks to the support of pulse width mod­u­la­tion (PWM), the system software can also be used to control electric motors, among other things.

Microsoft takes care of any further de­vel­op­ment of the software itself, and offers multiple in­struc­tion­al videos as well as in­di­vid­ual support. You can also exchange in­for­ma­tion with other de­vel­op­ers in the community forum – Raspberry Pi has its own section, among others. Both the download and the use of the Raspberry Pi software is free, but you can’t make any changes to the system core. The ap­pro­pri­ate in­stal­la­tion file for your Raspberry version can be found in the developer center. A current version of Windows 10 is required for the download and sub­se­quent in­stal­la­tion on your mini­com­put­er’s SD card (manually or with the help of NOOBS).

Ubuntu has been con­sid­ered the most popular Linux dis­tri­b­u­tion for years: Equally suitable as an operating system for home computers and servers, Ubuntu is also used on the In­ter­na­tion­al Space Station, for example, and is the central operating unit of the BYU Mars Rover. The software, based on Debian and developed by Canonical since 2004, mainly char­ac­ter­izes itself by being highly mod­i­fi­able and user-friendly. Under the name Ubuntu Core, the developer published a variant in 2014 which is a min­i­mal­ist version of the server edition, and can also be used as a Raspberry Pi operating system. A similar package was already available with JeOS (Just Enough Operating System) since Ubuntu 8.04.

Ubuntu Core primarily sets itself apart from other Raspberry Pi operating systems in that each software package is its own unit (“Snap”) – even for the Linux core. Critical security gaps, which are quickly fixed in most cases thanks to automatic updates, usually only endanger in­di­vid­ual com­po­nents and rarely the entire system. Using manuals and tutorials, you can learn how to program your own snaps and share them with the community if you want to par­tic­i­pate in the extension of the Raspberry Pi software. If you have problems, questions, or im­prove­ment sug­ges­tions, you can either turn directly to Canonical or search for help in the community forum. In­for­ma­tion on the in­stal­la­tion process, for which you need an Ubuntu SSO account, an SD card, and the ap­pro­pri­ate image, can be found in the Ubuntu developer section.

RISC OS, orig­i­nal­ly called Arthur, is an operating system developed at the end of the 80s by the British company Acorn for the ARM-based computer Archimedes. Since then, RISC OS Open Limited (ROOL) has been re­spon­si­ble for the de­vel­op­ment of the software, the source code of which has been freely available since 2006. The owner is Castle Tech­nol­o­gy Ltd., and they regulate, among other things, the sale of the paid license for com­mer­cial use of the operating system. Because it was designed for use on ARM ar­chi­tec­tures, RISC OS was already in use on the single-board computers Bea­gle­Board and Pand­aBoard. With the release of Raspberry Pi, it quickly became one of the most important Linux al­ter­na­tives for operation of the mini­com­put­er.

In Great Britain es­pe­cial­ly, RISC OS has a large fan base due to its history, which relies on the pos­si­bil­i­ties of the modular system. For novices who are un­fa­mil­iar with the old Acorn computers, the system program appears rather unusual at first glance: RISC OS relies heavily on drag-and-drop tech­nol­o­gy. For example, files cannot be opened directly in a program, but only by dragging them from the re­spec­tive directory into the program’s window – re­gard­less of whether it’s a drawing program or a text editor. To use the operating system for your Raspberry Pi, you need an image that you can download from the RISC OS homepage and install on any SD card (minimum 2GB). In the ROOL store there are also cards available for purchase with the system already installed.

Even after 20 years, Slackware and its ARM port (since 2002) are still being developed further. Es­tab­lished com­po­nents provide the dis­tri­b­u­tion, which is regularly extended with new packages, with a high level of stability and security. The package man­age­ment system (pkgtool) grants the ad­min­is­tra­tor even greater freedom: Libraries and other ap­pli­ca­tions necessary for the func­tion­al­i­ty of a program are not au­to­mat­i­cal­ly installed, but instead require manual in­stal­la­tion. There’s a good chance that the packages not contained in the Raspberry Pi dis­tri­b­u­tion can be found in the Slack­Builds.org repos­i­to­ry. For the in­stal­la­tion of an image file, the SARPi team rec­om­mends an SD card with at least 16GB storage capacity. Ad­di­tion­al in­for­ma­tion on the system software as well as support can be found in the Slackware online manuals.

Arch Linux ARM relies on the package program Pacman, which was developed specially for the original dis­tri­b­u­tion. Since Version 4 (2011), the software manager also supports inscribed packages so that the au­then­tic­i­ty of down­loaded packages can be checked. Official new packages from the Arch Linux team receive their digital signature during the creation process, before leaving the secure de­vel­op­ment en­vi­ron­ment, to prevent tampering and ensure maximum security. Using a single command “pacmand-Syu”, make sure that the Raspberry Pi operating system is on the must current update. The Arch Linux user community repos­i­to­ry (AUR), which contains ap­pli­ca­tions created by users, can be used to extend the package range.

To install Arch Linux ARM, simply download the cor­re­spond­ing tar.gz file for your Raspberry version and then extract it to a formatted SD card (minimum 2GB).

Released in 1993 as a de­riv­a­tive of the famous Berkeley Software Dis­tri­b­u­tion (BSD) – which took the approach of a free operating system for the first time due to its own BSD license – FreeBSD is still one of the most important open source projects today. Around 400 of­fi­cial­ly listed de­vel­op­ers as well as thousands of other con­trib­u­tors actively work on the further de­vel­op­ment of the FreeBSD software, which is char­ac­ter­ized by its security and storage functions, as well as its first-class network features. Thanks to the support of ARMv6 and ARMv7 ar­chi­tec­tures, the BSD de­riv­a­tive can also be used as a Raspberry Pi operating system (1 and 2). In the future, the third version of the mini­com­put­er should also be com­pat­i­ble with the current FreeBSD version.

Because of its strengths in network func­tion­al­i­ty and stability, FreeBSD is mainly used in the server en­vi­ron­ment. As a user, you will also benefit from the speed of the operating system, which is primarily due to the storage subsystem that was revised with version 10.0. Thanks to its well-doc­u­ment­ed API, the Raspberry Pi operating system can be optimally modified to suit in­di­vid­ual needs as well as extended with your own software com­po­nents. In case of problems or questions, the various FreeBSD community forums and blogs provide support from other users and de­vel­op­ers. There’s also a provider who offers com­mer­cial support for the system. To use the system software, it’s necessary to create a bootable image and copy it to an SD card. The tool Crochet is available to help with this.

The operating system RetroPie, by default based on Raspbian and various other software com­po­nents, turns your Raspberry Pi into a gaming console on which you can play your favorite console and classic PC games. The Em­u­la­tion­Sta­tion, written in C++, allows you to modify design and layout in the frontend with the help of premade themes. The software RetroArch allows access to the Libretro-API, via which you can configure the control of various emulators (more than 50 systems available) and add useful features as needed. With Kodi, the Raspberry Pi dis­tri­b­u­tion also provides its own media center which allows for the playback of films or music on the mini­com­put­er.

To install RetroPie on your Raspberry, you have two options: Either install the in­di­vid­ual com­po­nents manually on a previous set up Raspbian or another Debian operating system, or access the offered image files, unpack them, and copy them to the SD card. A detailed in­stal­la­tion and con­fig­u­ra­tion guide as well as the most important download links can be found in the official GitHub directory of the Raspberry Pi operating system. If there are problems with the in­stal­la­tion or later running of the system, then the RetroPie forum usually offers the solution: Here, you can find not only overall dis­cus­sions and notices about the system, but also a support section where you can chat with other RetroPie users.