Part 02

-
Gathering Information
Sofware

Version: 2020-11-30
Operating Systems, Programming Languages & SD Cards

You will need an operating system to start using your Pi. An operating system is vital software
that acts as a computer manager.

To download an operating system you will need an SD card between 4 and 32 GB.
NOOBS helps you to set up your Pi and has several operating systems that you can download:

NOOBS Raspbian
Raspbian Windows 10 IoT Pidora

OpenElec RaspBMC RISC OS Arch Linux

Of course, you don’t have to use NOOBS. The Raspberry Pi Foundation regularly updates other
available distributions in the downloads section of their website
https://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads/

The Raspbian Jessie and later comes also in a Lite version. The lite version of Raspbian Jessie
is just like the normal Raspbian Jessie operating system but without any of the graphical
desktop environment packages. This means it’s much, much smaller than the normal image–
it’s only about 1.3 gigabytes in size vs. over 4 gigabytes for the normal image!. What we’ve
seen it has almost everything you need for a simple headless Raspberry Pi Project. Programs
like Python 2.7 and wpa_supplicant (for WiFi networking) are included, and any other Raspbian
package is just an apt-get install away. Remember you won’t be able to boot to the desktop
and run graphical programs, but for a lot of little Pi applications this is no problem. This new
Raspbian Jessie Lite image is perfect for the Pi Zero too!

Python is the recommended programming language — particularly if you are new to

programming or want to refresh your programming knowledge.

Scratch is a great interactive programming language for children who want to learn to code
through creating games, stories and animations.

Other programming languages you can get on your Pi include C, C++, Java and Ruby
The Guide to Raspbian and other Raspberry Pi Software

Raspbian is the main and basic software for RPi devices, officially supported by the Raspberry
Pi Foundation. In fact, it is an operating system, based on Debian and optimized for Raspberry
Pi hardware. It comes with lots of pre-installed pieces of software appropriate for most of ARM
users and developers.

The main operating system, ready-to-use and optimized to the needs of the most developers
and makers is Raspbian.

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, Jessie 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 Jessie.

Raspbian Jessie
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
Raspbian Buster
The first thing to mention about Buster is that we are actually releasing it slightly in advance of
the official Debian release date. The reason for this is that one of the important new features
of Raspberry Pi 4 is that the open-source OpenGL video driver is now being used by default,
and this was developed using the most recent version of Debian. It would have been a lot of
work to port everything required for it back on to Raspbian Stretch, so we decided that we
would launch on Raspbian Buster – the only question was whether Buster would be ready
before the hardware was!

As it turns out, it wasn’t – not quite. The official launch date for Buster is July 7, so we are a
couple of weeks ahead. That said, Buster has been in a “frozen” state for a couple of months
now, with only minor changes being made to it, so the version we are releasing is pretty much
identical to that which will be officially released by Debian on July 7.
We started using Buster internally in January this year, so it has had a lot of testing on Pi –
while we may be releasing it a bit early, you need have no concerns about using it; it’s stable
and robust, and you can use apt to update with any changes that do happen between now and
July 7 without needing to reinstall everything.

What’s new?
There are no huge differences between Debian Stretch and Debian Buster. In a sad reflection
of the way the world is nowadays, most of the differences are security changes designed to
make Buster harder to hack. Any other differences are mostly small incremental changes that
most people won’t notice, and this got us thinking…
When we moved from Jessie to Stretch, many people commented that they couldn’t actually
see any difference between the two – as most of the changes were “under the hood”, the
desktop and applications all looked the same. So we told people “you’ve now got Stretch!” and
they said “so what?”
The overall appearance of the desktop hasn’t changed significantly for a few years, and was
starting to look a bit dated, so we thought it would be nice to give the appearance a mild
refresh for Buster. Then people would at least be able to see that their shiny new operating
system looked different from the old one!

The new appearance

There has been a definite trend in the design of most computer graphical user interfaces over
recent years to simplify and declutter; to reduce the amount of decoration, so that a button
becomes a plain box rather than something that resembles a physical button. You can see this
in both desktop OSes like Windows, and in mobile OSes like iOS – so we decided it was time to
do something similar.

The overall appearance of most of the interface elements has been simplified; we’ve reduced
things like the curvature of corners and the shading gradients which were used to give a
pseudo-3D effect to things like buttons. This “flatter” design looks cleaner and more modern,
but it’s a bit of a juggling act; it’s very easy to go too far and to make things look totally flat
and boring, so we’ve tried to avoid that. Eben and I have had a mild tussle over this – he
wanted as much flatness as possible, and I wanted to retain at least a bit of curvature, so
we’ve met somewhere in the middle and produced something we both like!
We’ve also changed the default desktop for a new one of Greg Annandale’s gorgeous
photographs, and we’ve moved to a grey highlight colour.
(If you really don’t like the new appearance, it is easy enough to restore the former
appearance – the old desktop picture is still installed, as is the old UI theme.)

Other changes
We’ve been including the excellent Thonny Python development environment in Raspbian for
some time now. In this release, it’s now our default Python editor, and to that end, we are no
longer including IDLE by default. IDLE has always felt dated and not very pleasant to use, and
Thonny is so much nicer that we’d strongly recommend moving to it, if you haven’t already!

We’ve made some small tweaks to the taskbar. The ‘eject’ icon for removing USB devices is
now only shown if you have devices to eject; it’s hidden the rest of the time. Similarly, if you
are using one of the earlier Pis without Bluetooth support, the Bluetooth icon is now hidden
rather than being greyed out. Also, the CPU activity gauge is no longer shown on the taskbar
by default, because this has become less necessary on the more powerful recent Raspberry Pi
models. If you’d still like to use it, you can add it back – right-click the taskbar and choose
‘Add / Remove Panel Items’. Press the ‘Add’ button and you’ll find it listed as ‘CPU Usage
Monitor’. While you are in there, you’ll also find the new ‘CPU Temperature Monitor’, which you
can add if you’re interested in knowing more about what the CPU is up to.
One program which is currently missing from Buster is Mathematica. Don’t worry – this is only
a temporary removal! Wolfram are working on getting Mathematica to work properly with
Buster, and as soon as it is ready, it’ll be available for installation from Recommended
Software.

A few features of the old non-OpenGL video driver (such as pixel doubling and underscan) are
not currently supported by the new OpenGL driver, so the settings for these are hidden in
Raspberry Pi Configuration if the GL driver is in use. (The GL driver is the default on Raspberry
Pi 4 – older Pis will still use the non-GL driver by default. Also, if using a Raspberry Pi 4
headless, we recommend switching back to the non-GL driver – choose ‘Legacy’ under the ‘GL
Driver’ setting in ‘Advanced Options’ in raspi-config.)
If the GL driver is in use, there’s a new ‘Screen Configuration’ tool – this enables you to set up
the arrangement of multiple monitors on a Raspberry Pi 4. It can also be used to set custom
monitor resolutions, which can be used to simulate the effect of pixel doubling.

Finally, there are a couple of new buttons in ‘Raspberry Pi Configuration’ which control video
output options for Raspberry Pi 4. (These are not shown when running on earlier models of
Raspberry Pi.) It is not possible on the Raspberry Pi 4 to have both analogue composite video
(over the 3.5mm jack) and HDMI output simultaneously, so the analogue video output is
disabled by default. 4Kp60 resolution over HDMI is also disabled by default, as this requires
faster clock speeds resulting in a higher operating temperature and greater power
consumption. The new buttons enable either of these options to be enabled as desired.

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 Rufus or Etcher on your PC

2. Insert an SD card
3. Open the Rufus or Etcher app and choose your downloaded Raspberry Pi .img 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

from Buster on

$ sudo apt update

$ sudo apt full-upgrade
$ sudo apt autoremove

3. In /etc/apt/sources.list change Jessie to Stretch or Buster

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 update

$ sudo apt -y upgrade
$ sudo apt -y full-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
Windows 10 IOT Core

RiscOS

SUSE
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
38 geweldige besturingssystemen voor de Raspberry Pi

Er zijn meer dan genoeg besturingssystemen te vinden voor de Raspberry Pi en de meeste

huidige systemen zullen ook zonder problemen kunnen werken op versie 3 van het kleine
computertje. Er zijn echter drie grote verschillen tussen de Raspberry Pi 3 en z'n voorgangers
en dat zijn de processor en de onboard WiFi- + Bluetooth modules. Vanaf vandaag komt daar
ook de gloednieuwe Raspberry Pi Zero W bij. Deze kleinere, goedkopere versie van de
Raspberry Pi bevat de zelfde draadloze verbindingsmogelijkheden. Tijd om de leuke
besturingssystemen voor je op een rijtje te zetten.

Raspbian/Pixel
Dit is waarschijnlijk het allerbekendste systeem voor de Raspberry Pi. Deze versie van Debian
is speciaal ontwikkeld voor de Pi en wordt ook onderhouden door de Raspberry Pi Foundation.
De kans is groot dat als je een Raspberry Pi-pakket aanschaft je er ook standaard Raspbian (of
Noobs) bij krijgt. Het besturingssysteem is zo populair dat er inmiddels ook tientallen variaties
beschikbaar zijn. De desktopomgeving van het besturingssysteem heeft vorig jaar een flinke
opknapbeurt gekregen en draagt nu de naam Pixel.
Raspbian/Pixel kan hier worden gedownload.
NOOBS
Nee, dit is geen scheldwoord maar een gelukkig gekozen acroniem (New Out Of the Box
Software) voor een besturingssysteem speciaal voor nieuwelingen. Tenminste, het is niet echt
een besturingssysteem, maar meer een installatiepakket voor Raspbian en andere distributies.
Net als bij Raspbian is de kans groot dat je dit systeem gratis bij je Pi krijgt als je een
compleet pakket koopt. Een aanrader voor de beginneling en mensen die niet al te veel moeite
willen doen om verschillende besturingssystemen snel te kunnen testen. Het pakket kan hier
worden gedownload.
BerryBoot
Gebruik je liever een harde schijf dan een micro sd-kaart? Dan kan je los gaan met BerryBoot.
Dit systeem werkt ongeveer op dezelfde manier als NOOBS en geeft je de mogelijkheid
meerdere besturingssystemen tegelijk te installeren en te gebruiken op een extern usb-
apparaat. Berryboot geeft je de mogelijkheid snel te kunnen wisselen tussen deze systemen.
Hoewel de tool eigenlijk geschreven is voor Western Digital's speciale Raspberry Pi-schijf werkt
de software ook gewoon met andere usb-apparaten en sticks.
AEROS
Maak van je Raspberry Pi een Amiga met AEROS. De Commodora Amiga is een home-
computer die, decennia na het sterven van het systeem en het failliet gaan van het
moederbedrijf, nog steeds ondersteund wordt door een gigantische community. Er zijn niet
alleen talloze emulatoren, ports, (hardware en software) mods, er zijn ook organisaties die tot
op de dag van vandaag Amiga-systemen maken met bijbehorende besturingssystemen.
Nu kan je dankzij AEROS je eigen Amiga "bouwen" door de image te downloaden en te
installeren op een SD-kaart. Het systeem is compatible met verschillende Amiga-
softwarepakketten dus je kan los met je oude applicaties alsook enkele nieuwe.

Het besturingssysteem kan hier worden gedownload.

IchigoJam BASIC Rpi

Programmeren in BASIC wordt extra makkelijk dankzij IchigoJam BASIC voor de Raspberry Pi.
Dit besturingssysteem is ontworpen voor de Japanse IchigoJam-computer van Japan, maar is
gepoort naar de Raspberry Pi. Dit systeem moet programmeren in BASIC extra makkelijk en
heeft ondersteuning voor Digital I/O, PWM, I2C en UART.
IchigoJam kan je hier halen.
Arch Linux ARM
Ook Arch Linux heeft een ARM-fork gekregen. Deze distributie heeft een flinke groep fans en
het systeem wordt op ontzettend veel verschillende apparaten gebruikt, waaronder de
Pogoplug.
Het systeem is niet alleen snel en stabiel, er zijn nog veel meer geweldige redenen om dit
systeem eens te proberen. Arch Linux ARM heeft geen standaard desktop aan boord, maar
omdat we een mooie screenshot wilden hebben, kozen wij voor Openbox.
Als je een Raspberry Pi Zero, Zero W of 1 hebt kan je het beste gaan voor deze versie
En klik hier voor de Raspberry Pi 2 en 3-versie.
BerryTerminal
Dit systeem is al een tijdje niet meer onderhouden maar werkt nog steeds goed. BerryTerminal
is een minmale Linux-distributie die ontworpen is om de Raspberry Pi te veranderen in een
goedkope thin client. Gebruikers kunnen inloggen op een centrale Edubuntu server of een
ander Linux Terminal server project.
De bouwers van dit systeem raden aan het systeem te installeren via Berryboot.
OpenELEC en varianten
Wil je je Raspberry Pi inzetten als mediacenter? Geen probleem. Ook op dat gebied is er meer
dan genoeg keuze. De meeste mediacenter-softwarepakketten zijn gebaseerd op Kodi.
OpenELEC en Raspbmc zijn de bekendste besturingssystemen die je kan vinden op dat gebied,
maar mocht je net iets andere eisen hebben, kan je uitwijken naar een van de vele variaties op
OpenELEC zoals DarkELEC (een fork die net wat meer optimalisaties aan boord heeft dan het
origineel), GeeXboX ARM, OSMC en SlaXBMCRPI (dat je de mogelijkheid geeft te switchen naar
een desktop-omgeving)
DietPi
Liever geen toeters en bellen? Geen punt. Ook op dat gebied is er genoeg te vinden voor de
Raspberry Pi. DietPi bijvoorbeeld. Deze distributie is een gestripte versie van Raspbian en is
maar 120 MB groot. Dit systeem is geoptimaliseerd voor alle Pi-modellen en gebruikt maar
16MB RAM (en 11 processen). In tegenstelling tot veel andere minimale Raspberry Pi-
installaties ondersteunt deze distributie wel Wifi. Als je toch liever een grafische desktop wil
kan je LXDE installeren.
Tiny Core Linux
Klein, kleiner, kleinst, deze Linux distributie is maar liefst 10 megabyte groot. Het systeem is
desondanks erg flexibel en stabiel. De grafische user interface is zeer compact en internetten
kan ondanks de maat out of the box. Dit systeem is zo klein dat het helemaal in het
werkgeheugen kan worden geladen.
Vind je 10 MB nog te veel? Installeer dan de versie zonder desktopomgeving en bespaar nog
eens 3 megabyte!
Fedora Remix (Pidora)
Voor de RPMmers onder ons. Pidora is een aangepaste versie van Fedora. Deze versie is
geoptimaliseerd voor de Raspberry Pi en is bloedsnel en superstabiel. De repository bevat
duizenden applicaties waardoor je dit systeem kan inzetten voor allerhande projecten.
IPFire
Als je je Raspberry Pi wilt inzetten als firewall is IPFire een mooi systeem om mee te beginnen.
Dit besturingssysteem is zeer veilig en ook nog eens lekker snel. De boel kan worden
geconfigureerd en onderhouden via je webbrowser.
Kali Linux
Ben je klaar met het opzetten van je firewall en wil je testen of de boel echt veilig is? Schuif
dan een SD-kaartje met Kali Linux in je Raspberry Pi. Deze distributie heeft een bonte
verzameling aan penetration testing en diagnostische tools aan boord. Hiermee kan je je
netwerk en andere systemen flink op de proef stellen.
Minepeon
Leuk al die besturingssystemen, maar wat als je nou echt geld kon verdienen met de
Raspberry Pi? Ga aan de slag met Minepeon. Een besturingssysteem waarmee je makkelijk
Bitcoins kan minen. Toegegeven de Pi is nou ook weer niet zo krachtig dat je snel rijk zal
worden van deze opstelling, maar aangezien die computertjes niet zo heel erg prijzig zijn kan
je de boel wel een beetje versnellen door een clustertje te bouwen, maar dan nog zal het
waarschijnlijk heel erg lang duren voordat dat winstgevend zal worden. Zie het als een
educatief project.
OpenWrt for Raspberry Pi
Heb je geen zin in de lange zoektocht naar een veilige router? Bouw er zelf een! OpenWrt, het
besturingssysteem voor routers is inmiddels ook beschikbaar voor de Raspberry Pi en er zijn
op dit moment meer dan 3500 verschillende add-ons beschikbaar. Wil je een superkleine
draadloze router die je overal kan laten draaien? Zet OpenWrt op je Pi, sluit 'm aan op een
paar batterijen en sluit een Wifi-dongle aan op je pi (mocht je een 2, 1 of zero hebben).
RISC OS Pi
Helemaal klaar met al die verschillende Linux-distributies? Doe lekker oldschool en installeer
RISC OS Pi. Dit besturingssysteem is eigenlijk ontwikkeld voor de computers van het Engelse
Acorn en uitgebracht in 1987. Maar het systeem werkt (na een paar aanpassingen en
toevoegingen) ook op de Raspberry Pi. Het is wel even wennen aangezien het systeem een
eigen look en feel heeft, maar dat maakt het systeem niet minder goed.
Windows 10 IoT Core Edition
Je kan natuurlijk ook nog Windows op je Pi zetten. Deze Core editie geeft je echter geen
desktop of command prompt. Het is de bedoeling dat de Raspberry Pi op afstand wordt
bestuurd via Powershell remoting.
Ubuntu MATE
Ook voor de Raspberry Pi zijn er aardig wat Ubuntu-varianten beschikbaar. Wij lichten de
MATE-versie er nog even tussenuit omdat deze versie zo geweldig werkt. Deze distributie is
zeer compleet en heeft out of the box zelfs ondersteuning voor de Wifi- en bluetooth module
van de Raspberry Pi 3. Om nog maar even onze grote vriend Martin Wimpress te
quoten:"Ubuntu MATE maakt moderne computers snel en oudere computers bruikbaar."
Volumio
We hadden het systeem al eventjes genoemd in ons "7 leuke Raspberry pi voor de fan"-artikel
maar aangezien er bij dat hardwareproject ook een volledig besturingssysteem hoort noemen
we 'm hier ook nog een keer. Dit systeem is gemaakt om al je muziek af te kunnen spelen. Of
het nou een zwaar bestand zonder compressie is of een webradio-stream, Volumio helpt je uit
de brand. Bestuur het met je favoriete apparaat (pc, tablet of smartphone) en geniet van je
muziek zoals je nog nooit genoten hebt. Het pakket kan je hier downloaden.
Firefox OS
Firefox OS is het eerste echt open mobiele platform dat volledig gebouwd is op web
technologieën. Het systeem zal misschien niet meer worden gebruikt op smartphones maar op
IoT-gebied maakt het systeem nog een hele kleine kans. Het besturingssysteem is nog niet
officieel uit maar je kan alvast een demoversie downloaden en installeren op je Raspberry Pi 2
of hoger.
Commodore Pi
Voor de retrogamers onder ons. De Raspberry Pi wordt ook vaak genoeg gebruikt voor het
spelen van (oude) games. Er zijn meer dan genoeg emulatoren en besturingssystemen die zijn
geconfigureerd voor het draaien van emulatoren, RetroPie of PiPlay bijvoorbeeld.
Sommige distro-bouwers gaan een stapje verder en bouwen een systeem dat helemaal is
geoptimaliseerd op het systeem dat geëmuleerd wordt. Commodore Pi is zo'n systeem. Het
start net zo snel (zo niet sneller) dan een Commodore 64 (praktisch instant-on) en heeft
output via HDMI en composiet, GPIO-ondersteuning voor verschillende externe apparaten en
toegang tot het volledige geheugenbereik van de Raspberry Pi via bank switching.
Het systeem kan hier worden gedownload.
FreeBSD/ARM
Wil je een ander Unix-achtig systeem op je Raspberry Pi zetten? Kijk eens naar FreeBSD/ARM.
Deze versie van FreeBSD is niet alleen geoptimaliseerd voor de Raspberry Pi maar ook voor
kloons als de BeagleBone, Banana Pi, Cubieboard en Pandaboard. Alle versies kan je binnen
halen vanaf deze ftp-site.
Ha-Pi
Een afkorting van "Hack with Raspberry Pi". Dit systeem is een command-line versie van
Debian Squeeze dat speciaal gemaakt is voor het uitvoeren van "pwn-plug"-aanvallen. Pwn-
plug-aanvallen worden uitgevoerd met kleine plug-computers als de Sheevaplug (zie foto). Op
deze computertjes draaien systemen als Ha-Pi en worden meestal gebruikt om "onopgemerkt"
penetration tests uit te voeren op netwerken (van binnenuit). De meegeleverde hacktools kan
open poorten scannen, inkomend en uitgaand verkeer sniffen, SSL-sessies kapen en draadloze
Wifi-sleutels kraken. Download Ha-Pi hier
I2Pberry
Deze distributie wordt geleverd met i2p darknet software voorgeïnstalleerd en zorgt ervoor dat
je direct verbinding maakt met het i2p-netwerk. Hierdoor kan je lekker anoniem surfen op het
web, daarnaast sta je ook wat bandbreedte af om je mede-internetter een handje op weg te
helpen, denk aan internetters die in landen wonen waar veel censuur wordt toegepast of zelfs
sites en diensten volledig worden geblokkeerd.
Het systeem bevat een voorgeconfigureerde SSH server en is gebaseerd op Debian Squeeze.
Haal I2Pberry hier.
Kano OS
Bouw je eigen computer! Ok, dat doe je praktisch al als je met een Raspberry Pi aan de slag
gaat maar de Kano Kit richt zich op de jongere computerfreaks onder ons. Kinderen kunnen
zelf een systeem bouwen en programmeren. Het lijkt wat dat betreft een beetje op LEGO.
Het is een speelse manier om kinderen kennis te laten maken met technologie. Je hoeft
natuurlijk niet direct de hele kit aan te schaffen, alleen stoeien met het besturingssysteem kan
ook. Kano OS (en Kanux) kan hier gedownload worden. Wil je spelen met de grafische schil
van dit systeem kan je hier de Kano Desktop Manager halen.
MotionEyeOS
MotionEyeOS (vroeger motionPie) is een Linux-distributie die je Pi verandert in een video
surveillance systeem en bewegingsdetectie ondersteunt. Het systeem is gebaseerd op
BuildRoot en gebruikt Motion als backend en motionEye als front end. Ook dit systeem kan met
meer dan alleen de Pi overweg. Ook de Banana Pi, Odroid Ci en Cubietruck kunnen overweg
met dit systeem.
Nard
Het feit dat wij al meerdere artikelen hebben gewijd aan alle verschillende besturingssystemen
(voornamelijk Linux-distributies) die je kan krijgen voor je Raspberry Pi zal je wellicht na de
zoveelste pagina hebben doen denken: "Weer een Raspberry Pi-distributie". Dat moeten de
bouwers van dit systeem ook hebben gedacht toen ze hun creatie een naam gaven.
Nard staat voor Not Another Raspberry Distribution. De naam klopt, het is niet de zoveelste
distributie. Het is een software development kit (SDK) die vanaf de grond is geschreven
speciaal voor de Raspberry Pi-familie. In tegenstelling tot al die andere Linux-distributies is dit
systeem ontworpen voor het ontwikkelen van MOTS (Modified Off-The-Shelf) embedded
systemen die onafgebroken moeten draaien.
PiBox Media Server/Player
Bij een naam als PiBox Media Server/Player denk je al gauw aan het zoveelste mediacenter-
systeem, maar nee, dit systeem is vooral bedoeld voor het streamen en webcam video en
videobestanden over SMB. Dat betekent natuurlijk niet dat het niet kan. De Media Server kan
als een node in een netwerk worden gebruikt of dienst doen als wireless accesspoint.
De Pibox Media player is gebouwd rond omxplayer. Het pakket dat is geoptimaliseerd op de
videochip en dus gebruik kan maken van de hardware acceleratie.
Gentoo
Gentoo is een gratis besturingssysteem dat gebaseerd is op Linux of FreeBSD. Het systeem
kan automatisch worden geoptimaliseerd en geconfigureerd voor zo'n beetje elke eis of smaak.
Gentoo draait erg soepel op de Pi en de super enthousiaste community staat altijd voor je
klaar om je te helpen mocht je er niet uitkomen.
Let op: Dit is een behoorlijk technisch systeem. Binaries zal je niet zo snel vinden. Je zal alles
zelf moeten bouwen.
NetBSD
NetBSD is een gratis, snel en veilig Unix-achtig open source besturingssysteem. Het is
beschikbaar voor een hele reeks aan platforms; van grote servers en krachtige desktop-
systemen tot handheld en embedded-apparaten. Het design is erg strak en de geavanceerde
features maken het uitermate geschikt om te gebruiken in productie- en onderzoek-
omgevingen. De broncode van deze software is gratis beschikbaar voor iedereen (via een
licentie). NetBSD 7.0 heeft volledige ondersteuning voor de Raspberry Pi.
Dit systeem is een tijd gebruikt op de ISS voor een zwaartekracht-experiment.
Plan 9
Dit besturingssysteem is ontwikkeld in het Bell laboratorium in de jaren '80. De originele
ontwerpers waren Ken Thompson, Rob Pike, Dave Presotto en Phil Winterbottom. Daar zijn
later nog veel meer mensen bij gekomen en van de jaren '90 tot aan nu is er door deze groep
aan gewerkt. Het besturingssysteem doet een beetje denken aan de oude Unix-systemen van
weleer maar voelt toch anders genoeg aan.
Plan 9 kan hier worden gedownload.
PWN Pi
Penetration testers opgelet. Is Kali Linux te zwaar voor je? Kijk eens naar PWN Pi. Deze Linux-
distributie heeft 200 penetration en network security auditing tools aan boord. De nieuwste
versie kan ook overweg met de 512 MB-versie van de Raspberry Pi (waaronder de Raspberry Pi
Zero en Zero W).
Let op: Deze tools zijn alleen bedoeld voor mensen die zich serieus bezig houden met
penetratietests, niet om de irritante hacker mee uit te hangen.
Het systeem kan hier worden gedownload.
RasPlex
Rasplex is een volledige poort van Plex Home Theater (voorheen Plex Media Center) voor de
Raspberry Pi. Rasplex is in eerste instantie ontwikkeld als een onderdeel van OpenELEC, maar
het uiteindelijke doel is om het systeem zo te bouwen dat het een op zichzelf staand systeem
is.
Het team komt op dit moment mankracht te kort om dit te realiseren maar al het af is, is het
een waardig alternatief voor mensen die zich puur en alleen op Plex willen richten.
Slackware ARM
Slackware is een geavanceerd besturingssysteem dat ontworpen is met twee doelen:
gebruikersgemak en stabiliteit.
Tegenwoordig wordt deze distributie geleverd met de nieuwste software terwijl er toch wordt
vastgehouden aan oude Linux-tradities. Slackware is wat dat betreft een distributie die het
beste van alle werelden samenbrengt in één systeem. De ontwikkeling van Slackware ARM is
begonnen in 2002 met het doel dezelfde Slackware-ervaring te geven aan gebruikers met ARM
desktop machines.
OpenSUSE
Ook het OpenSUSE-project zet groots in op gebruikersgemak. Het is de bedoeling dat niet
alleen hardcore computergebruikers overweg kunnen met systeem maar ook de beginners.
Daarnaast wil men met dit systeem ook de ontwikkelaars aanspreken. Kortom, ook deze
distributie is van alle markten thuis.
Download OpenSUSE voor de Raspberry Pi hier.
Puppy
Het Puppy Linux-besturingssysteem staat vooral bekend als een systeem dat zelfs op de
traagste en oudste computers nog lekker draait. Deze distributie ondersteunt out of the box al
een heleboel (oudere) hardware en heeft een zeer kleine footprint. Het besturingssysteem kan
op de meeste computers volledig in het werkgeheugen geladen worden waardoor het systeem
geen last heeft van trage, optische media of harde schijven.
Ook de Raspberry Pi versie heeft deze eigenschappen aan boord. Het hele systeem is 210 MB
groot en kan daarom volledig in het werkgeheugen van de Raspberry Pi geladen worden. Dit
heeft als groot voordeel dat de (micro)SD-kaart kan worden verwijderd nadat het systeem is
geladen. Erg handig als je het een en ander wil opslaan op een andere SD-kaart.
Het systeem wordt geleverd met lichtgewicht applicaties als AbiWord (tekstverwerking)
Gnummeric (spreadsheets) en Mplayer (mediaspeler). Daarnaast worden er ook verschillende
lichtgewicht browsers meegeleverd.
FullPageOS
En wat nou als je je Pi wil gebruiken voor één simpele taak en niets anders? Steeds meer
bedrijven en doe-het-zelvers zetten de Raspberry Pi (zero) in als simpel display-apparaat. Het
is een super goedkope manier om plaatjes, video's of (web)pagina's fullscreen weer te geven
op een reclamezuil, informatiezuil, display of kiosk.
Deze distributie is zo gebouwd dat, na het opstarten van de computer, het systeem direct een
fullscreen-versie van de browser Chromium start.
Het enige dat de gebruiker hoeft te doen het is aanpassen van een tekstbestand waarin (Wifi)-
netwerkinformatie moet worden aangepast en de URL die geladen moet worden. In
tegenstelling tot veel andere systemen hoef je je geen zorgen te maken over screensavers,
powersaving-modi of andere instellingen. Dit is de snelste manier om een kiosk te maken.
FullPageOS kan je hier binnen hengelen.
Android
De laatste keer dat we Android testten voor de Raspberry Pi waren we niet onder de indruk,
sterker nog, we waren zeer teleurgesteld. Dat was jaren geleden en we horen nu geluiden dat
het beter gaat. Wij gaan binnenkort weer een poging wagen en kijken of het inmiddels
werkbaar is. Wij kunnen nu dus nog niet zeggen of het inmiddels de moeite waard is om het
systeem te downloaden en te proberen, maar het systeem is beschikbaar, daarom noemen we
'm. Mocht je nou precies willen weten wat er destijds allemaal mis was met het systeem? Lees
dan onze uitgebreide test in het artikel: Android op de Raspberry Pi? Waardeloos!
Chrome/Chromium OS
Ja, ook Google's cloud-besturingssysteem kan worden gedraaid op de Raspberry Pi, tenminste,
de open source-versie Chromium OS. Er werd een tijdje gewerkt aan een speciale versie die
was geoptimaliseerd voor verschillende Single Board Computers genaamd Chromium OS for
Single Board Computers. Het project is helaas alweer stopgezet en andere hacks van het
systeem zijn ook nergens meer te vinden.
Daarna waren veel van de mensen die aan Chromium OS for Single Board Computers werkten
samen met andere fans uit de community een nieuw project begonnen: een op Chromium OS
gebaseerde Linux distributie die ook nog eens overweg kan met Android-apps. Het beste van
drie werelden dus. Het idee klonk op papier in elk geval geweldig. Een besturingssysteem waar
je Linux- Chrome OS- en Android-applicaties op kan draaien, maar ook dat mocht helaas niet
zijn, ook dit besturingssysteem is vroegtijdig aan het eind gekomen.
Als je echt nog graag wilt stoeien met dit systeem, kan je hier de oude versie vinden die het
bedrijf pasgeleden heeft gepubliceerd.
Ook de oude Chromium for SBC-versie is https://sourceforge.net/projects/chromnium-os-for-
all-sbc/files/Raspberry%20Pi%20Images/Raspberry%20Pi online te vinden.
Other non-Linux operating systems for RPi

Plan 9

Plan 9 is an operating system

developed in the 1980s by the Bell Labs
including the developers Ken
Thompson, Rob Pike, Dave Presotto,
and Phil Winterbottom. The OS is
currently kept on being supported by
the community of enthusiasts. This
system as very alike Unix but at the
same time is quite different.
The main feature of Plan 9 OS is that it
assigns multiple processes to their own
personal channels, so-called “mutable
name spaces”. Every process operating
within this name space doesn’t affect
the name spaces of unrelated
processes. For a file server mounting a
simple 9P file protocol is used.

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

FreeBSD is an open source operating

system which history counts up more
than 30 years. And all that time there
has been a strong community
developing and supporting the
software. So, FreeBSD implementation
ranges from servers and desktops to
modern embedded platforms.
Another big field for usage of this
operating system is a platform for
websites hosting and within embedded
networking and storage devices. There
are also other features, which made
FreeBSD very popular among its users.

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
Haiku is an open source operating system which is
based on BeOS but forked to an independent project
long ago (in 2001) and now is currently being developed
and maintained.
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 already understood that Raspberry Pi images are the presets of software,
operating systems, or other software sets and collections, pre-installed on an SD (or provided
as a ready-to-download archive) for users convenience. Very often the software is open
source. The great example of such image can be the NOOBs image we have discussed earlier.
It is a separate Rasbian image, which contains all the operating systems we’ve mentioned
earlier in this article and comes with on downloadable image SDs (or archives).
Another simple example is a retro gaming Retropie project that can be also used as a ready-
for-booting operating system.
So, when we speak about Raspberry Pi images we mean exactly Raspberry Pi Disk images,
which are literally some SDs with some compatible software on them. Though, very often a lot
of pieces of software for RPi comes to say “unready”, meaning you will need to make an effort
to download it, install, set up and run yourself. Luckily, quite detailed tutorials are provided in
these cases!
Below, you can find a short example list of the software for Raspberry Pi that you can find in
the form of disk images.
Thin Clients for RPi
RPITC currently supports Suite3270, Citrix, FreeRDP, NoMachine and Virt-viewer Thin Client
protocols. In addition, it also comes with VNC and SSH Servers, Docky and Conky apps and
Firefox browser.
TrueOS Pico is a thin client used for connection of different ARM devices into one server.

Networking Images
OpenWRT is a framework designed both for developers and general device users. For
developers, it helps to create applications without the firmware. From the user’s side, it helps
to customize their devices to an unbelievable level!
Pi-Point is an application which manages the WiFi access point for Raspberry Pi devices,
turning it into a real wireless access point. Is distributed as 8Gb SD card presets or can be
made up manually by a user (which is not a simple task to fulfill).
RasPBX consists of features of Asterisk with its FreePBX GUI which is all about the free open-
source framework for communications apps such as IP Telephony, IP PBX, VoIP, SIP etc.
RasPBX is adapted specially for building up such projects on Raspberry Pi.

Home Automation Disk Images

HASSbian is a great example of home automation set. It features a lot of integration
possibilities from entertainment apps and devices like media centers to Amazon Echo and
Google assistance.
Motion Eye OS is a complete RPi tool for video surveillance or other projects alike to be made
on Raspberry Pi.
Open Lighting. OLA (or Open Lighting Architecture) is an open source application for lighting
control automation, previously used in entertainment industry. Nowadays the system is widely
adopted for DIY home automation projects on ARM devices.

Education Purposed Images

RACHEL. This abbreviation stands for Remote Area Community Hotspot for Education and
Learning. This is a set of software and projects available for free downloading and usage,
created for cultural and educational exchange. Especially, for places with poor (or even absent)
Internet connection.
Coder is a free open source web-based project built up for learning the basics of Javascript,
HTML and CSS. All the manipulations and tasks are fulfilled via some web browser.

Images for Developers

Kivy is a Python library with a multi-touch user interfaces support.
Nard is an SDK for development of MOTS embedded systems remotely running on a
permanent basis.
Tingbot an educational software development kit (SDK) for learning how to make up apps It
comes with it’s one simplified code editor based on Python, which, in its turn, significantly
simplifies the applications creation technical process.
Special Images for Aviation and Marine Industries
PiAware is a software that helps a user to create an ADS-B and MLAT station on Raspberry Pi
and tracks almost all air flights in real-time. Besides RPi some extra devices are also needed,
but the image itself is available for free.
OpenPlotter is an application to help sailing navigation for small and medium boats. This is an
open source project that uses Raspberry Pi devices as a hardware platform. Moreover, this
system also offers a ready-made home automation.
Stratux is an RTL-SDR ARM-based devices receiver for weather and aviation traffic data. It
features flexible parameters and enables users to set up everything they need for a particular
case.

Audio and Music Images for Raspberry Pi

Gqrx is a receiver for a software defined radio (SDR), which includes a lot of widely-used
drivers such as Rtlsdr, RFSpace, SDRPlay, Airspy, HackRF, etc. Note, that there’s a warning on
their own website that ARM image is experimental and isn’t as good as desktop PC version!
Moode Audio is a Media Player for ARM devices, also known as TCplayer. The app supports
HiFiBerry and Mambo berry cards which are used for significant sound improvement. The
image features modern adaptive interface, supports the Bluetooth connection, Pi Touchscreen
and much more for great music experience on RPi.
PiFM Radio Transmitter is an image to make your RPi a real FM radio transmitter in a few
steps. This image contains a small piece of a python code which is launched on the Pi with an
antenna connected to the pin 4. The system works on 100.0 MHz.
RuneAudio is considered to be one of the best and Hi-Fi audio player, specially designed for
ARM devices such as Raspberry Pi, Odroid, Cubietruck, Beaglebone, Cubox and Udoo. This is a
lightweight OS which connects all your content sources (like NAS or USB-drive), clients
(desktop or mobile) with the Hi-Fi music hardware making the whole assembly a great music
entertainment system.
Other software for Raspberry Pi
The possibilities of Raspberry Pi as a hardware is literally endless. So, it’s really impossible to
enumerate and describe all of them in one article. This topic really worth a separate web-
portal! Nevertheless, I try to represent the most spread and demanded software, grouped in
accordance with the types and purposes of practical implementation.
However, Raspberry Pi boards (as well as other ARM mini PCs) are closely associated with IoT
and DIY making fields. That’s why in the chart below you can find mostly entertainment or IoT
aimed groups od software for Raspberry Pi. The other ways of using such hardware are either
unlike or have a narrow purpose. Anyway, feel free to add your own ideas in the comments or
write me at dmitry@eltechs.com.

Software Type Applications Description

Raspberry Pi Media • OSMC These pieces of software, in

Centers • OpenELEC general, aims to turn an RPi
• LibreELEC device into a multi-purpose
• KODI (or XBMC) media center. Almost all of
• Rasplex them provide great cross-
• Plex device connectivity, including
TV-set, Audio-system, Video
and Audio-Players of any
types, data-source and
storages like HDDs, USB-drives
or even NAS with any type of
auxiliary hardware and
peripherals. The main features
of such kind of Meda Centers
are economy, silence, stability
and ability to play almost all
formats of digital content.

Raspberry Pi emulators • EmulationStation Almost all of them use the

for gaming • Retropie EmulationStation software
read more > • Lakka front-end as the basis,
• PiPlay accompanied by the RetroArch
• Recallbox emulators. All of them are
• ExaGear Emulator great for retro gaming
hobbyists as they port only
arcade machine or console
video games to Raspberry Pi
(excluding ExaGear Emulator –
it deals with old Widows PC
games!)

Web Browsers for RPi • Midori All of them are lightweight as

• Chromium Raspberry Pi hardware can
• Epiphany hardly cope with multi-
• Firefox threaded apps like Chrome.
• Google Chrome Though, it’s possible to run
Goole Chrome Browser on RPi
via ExaGear (click to learn
more). In general, all browsers
compatible with single PC
boards are simple and basic,
free and open-source to
provide occasional surfing the
Net, downloading and content
display.
RPi Virtual Machines • PIXEL Virtual machines help to install
• LXDE and run the applications non-
• QEMU typical for the hardware or
• Virtualbox even those which aren’t
• ExaGear compatible with the
architecture. It helps to reach
different goals for
programming Raspberry Pi
devices for specific tasks and
widens the variety of this
hardware implementation.

(e.g. ExaGear virtual machine

runs x86 apps on ARM).

Raspberry Pi Printers • Octopi RPi devices are great for making

Software • AstroPrint smart things and one of the best
examples of that is the smart
printing. One of the best
features is that the represented
software helps to create a WiFi
(wireless) printers from old
ones. Also, these applications
have got a big cluster for setting
up and running a 3D printing
and adopt 3D printers for
different purposes and projects.

Raspberry Pi Software for • PiNET It is unique, supported by the

Schools Raspberry Pi Foundation free
and open source software
which helps to set up and
running a so-called Raspberry
Pi classroom. The main aim of
such classrooms is to teach
students the basics of
programming languages as
well as making projects using
embedded technologies, such
as single-board mini PCs like
RPi. The software’s main
features include the private
network, based on a
centralized operating system
(Raspbian) with share folders,
automatic back up and
manageable work collections.

Raspbian Weather • Weather Station The software is dedicated to

Researching Software making your Raspberry Pi a
real DIY weather station. The
Raspberry Pi foundation offers
a special hardware kit including
plug-in connectors and sensors
for gathering the
environmental data (wind
speed and direction,
precipitation, temperature,
 pressure etc.), analyzing and
storing them to some remote
node, or plug-in data storage
hardware. There’s a large
weather watch enthusiasts
community sociating via
different forums, portals and
websites, which you can set up
connect your weather display
system as well using the
represented app.

RPi Music Production • Sonic-Pi It’s a free and open source

Software project (under MIT license),
and is recognized to be a real
great software both for
beginners and music
professionals. Sonic Pi allows
to synth sounds and composes
music live via coding! And that
is a really great feature for
learning the programming
languages as well as for music
composing. The users may
define their particular tones
and rhythms and change these
parameters whilst playing
back. The software was
developed by Sam Aaron,
University of Cambridge and
thus, it goes with a bunch of
lessons tutorials and study
programs to provide an
exciting education for
beginners.

Final notes
Well, in this article we have learned almost all the possible operating systems which are more
or less used on Raspberry Pi (or other ARM-based devices).
Also, reading this article you can make sure that the possibilities for software development in
ARM industry are really unlimited. Generally, there are not so many applications for Raspberry
Pi, though the demand for it is quite big.
ExaGear Desktop for Raspberry Pi (and other ARM devices) is situated on the edge of this
challenge. It is useful both for a hardware project and for some software development project,
being made on an ARM board. The first case is about porting the necessary x86 apps to your
single PC board to substitute the absent software. The second one helps to install and run such
necessary for any developer apps as Wine, Microsoft.NET, TeamViewer and many others.
Moreover, with ExaGear Desktop, you can run almost any x86 app on any ARM-based device
including, but not limited to Raspberry Pi, Odroid, Banana Pi, Beagleboard, Cubox, Jetson,
Cubieboard and many others.