Talk:Raspberry Pi OS

The Raspbian article cannot be found on the Raspberry Pi page — Preceding unsigned comment added by 157.181.99.248 (talk) 13:49, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

Raspbian is the Foundation’s official supported operating system. https://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads/raspbian/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 176.61.68.46 (talk) 09:43, 18 May 2016 (UTC)

Current Raspian contains proprietary software: Java SE and Wolfram. I would say it's no longer FLOSS. Kbk (talk) 19:12, 8 June 2017 (UTC)

Renamed to Raspberry Pi OS
Today Raspbian has been renamed to Raspberry Pi OS according to https://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads/. On May 24th 2020, it was still called Raspbian according to web.archive.org (https://web.archive.org/web/20200524235642/https://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads/). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ew (talk • contribs) 09:12, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

Seems to be called Raspberry Pi OS on the newest archived version dated 2020-05-28 --m-p&#123;3&#125; (talk) 13:08, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

The article states that

Since the more recent 64-bit versions no longer use Debian, the name was changed to Raspberry Pi OS

which is not correct. As the reference (https://www.tomshardware.com/news/raspberry-pi-os-no-longer-raspbian) explains, 64-bit Raspberry Pi OS is based on arm64 Debian. The name change is due to it no longer being based on Raspbian. 193.1.243.84 (talk) 16:54, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

Search engine summary not showing change in wiki's page
The text shown in search engine results is:

Raspbian is a Debian-based computer operating system for Raspberry Pi.

How or Where can one change that to reflect the new wording of the article?:

Raspberry Pi OS (formerly Raspbian) is a Debian-based operating system for Raspberry Pi. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 186.1.199.198 (talk) 02:28, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

Suggestion - remove quote from 2015 as it dos not refer to current OS or hardware
The OS has has a number of revisions since 2015, and while the section is titled 'reception', the RaspberyPi OS was released in 2012: "Owano, Nancy (18 July 2012). "Raspberry Pi gets customized OS called Raspbian". PhysOrg. Retrieved 5 September 2012."

Might be worth retaining as part of a history section, but reception seems incorrect as the OS was released in 2012. > Reception > Jesse Smith from DistroWatch reviewed Raspberry Pi OS (then Raspbian) in 2015:[8] > > Though I did not intend to run the Raspberry Pi as a desktop computer, the Raspbian operating system does provide users with the LXDE desktop environment. The Pi does not have a great deal of processor speed or memory, but it does have enough resources to run LXDE and a handful of applications. So long as the user does not wish to do a lot at once, the Pi offers a fairly responsive desktop interface. I probably would not run heavier programs such as LibreOffice or Firefox on the Pi, but Raspbian does provide the Epiphany web browser and a few other desktop programs.

Seems to misrepresent both the current version of the OS, and doesn't represent an assessment of Raspbian at release. Unless some evidence that the 2015 release is some sort of milestone there is little value in this quote. It should be deleted. (signed spdegabrielle from a rpi 4 rasppbery pi os 3.4, 32bit google chrome w/ 8 tabs & running DrRacket - July 2020)

2A00:23C7:890E:6000:B736:55F0:4DE7:6F84 (talk) 11:19, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

Removed biased blurb about microsoft repo in Reception section
Maybe the fact that a microsoft package repository is included in the apt sources of Raspberry Pi OS could be mentioned in the article, but that's not the way to do it. Adding biased wording and citing a sensationalized and biased article as the source isn't a great look for a wikipedia article...  R ocks 25  19:41, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

I added the Reason why the repository is included and removed the section wich mentioned root access. I hope now its acceptable. Proeo (talk) 17:35, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

Yuhong, please stop removing the core problem to the controversy. Mistakenly adding the ability of Microsoft to do absolutely anything to every single updated Raspberry Pi without any restrictions at all. It's good that you've kept the lack of consent, that is a good point. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 73.36.192.237 (talk) 21:15, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

Raspberry Pi OS is not formerly Raspbian
Raspbian still exists and it is independent. See https://www.raspbian.org/RaspbianImages : "However it should be remembered that this image is created by the raspberry Pi foundation not the Raspbian project and as such we don't control what is in it." --AFAccord (talk) 22:29, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

See https://www.tomshardware.com/news/raspberry-pi-os-no-longer-raspbian --AFAccord (talk) 10:48, 14 February 2021 (UTC) So the article Raspbian should exists without redirection. --AFAccord (talk) 10:48, 14 February 2021 (UTC)


 * However, the Raspberry Pi OS main page (https://www.raspberrypi.org/software/) says "Raspberry Pi OS (previously called Raspbian) is our official supported operating system." Even an article on Tom's Hardware mentions the rename (https://www.tomshardware.com/news/raspberry-pi-os-no-longer-raspbian). Somerandomuser (talk) 20:14, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

I suppose if it was a fork, it *could be considered "formerly Raspbian" but the word fork isn't really mentioned anywhere in the article and that perhaps could be confusing for people who aren't already familiar with the differences between the two 🤔 Dasein (talk) 13:32, 18 September 2021 (UTC)


 * Strongly Agree - in addition to previous comment I would say it is more of a successor than a fork, an independent group behind multiple 'Raspbian-powered OS images' and 64-bit of Pi OS doesn't use software from the Raspbian project at all, Pi OS takes its userland directly from Debian instead. Green himself said he doesn't want names overlapping if it doesn't take from the project and I agree that it wouldn't make sense either to merge the two here. Dare I ask if it could result in misleading results that reference this for those who search the question on Google? Seems time to propose a split if Raspbian OS, its repos, and its actual forks still exist. Dasein (talk) 13:50, 18 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Since the topic is 4 years old and everybody seems to agree: I will follow WP:BOLD and remove this. Yes: Since it is now the officially supported OS of the Raspberry Pi Foundation it is kind of an successor. But in this way it is misleading at best. Maybe someone likes to write some proper section about the raspian project and Raspberry PI OS or separate the two into two into even smaller articles. --Fabiwanne (talk) 16:20, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

Added citation needed for Bullseye based release
A user Paragoumba added a reference to the upcoming Bullseye based release of Raspberry Pi OS, but it doesn't exist as of the date listed (2021-10-03). I'm not sure where this information was retrieved from. FYI Kelvinator20 (talk) 09:45, 4 October 2021 (UTC)


 * The official ISOs don't seem to be online yet but the Raspberry Pi Foundation pushed RaspberryOS Bullseye to the official repositories the 3rd of October. As an official source the release file is available here. Paragoumba (talk) 12:45, 4 October 2021 (UTC)

I've been looking on the Internet but I haven't found ANY information about this version of the OS whatsoever. The closest thing I have found was in the Raspberry Pi forums when I asked about it, and a Raspberry Pi engineer said that it was in beta. So it's definitely on the way, but information seems to be limited as of right now. I wonder if that would be worth adding to the article? Gg01 wiki (talk) 07:03, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

Biased Statistics
Of course you can always say that something is indicating something. But that the Imager of the Raspberry Pi Foundation is most often used to use the official image of the Raspberry Pi Foundation is as surprising as that most people in France speak French. Debian and Kali recommends using dd instead. As 90% of advanced Linux user will uses cat, cp or dd anyways. Ubuntu lists images without any description how to use them. They just assume that you know how to copy a file to an other file without its own app. Most of these applications are made because Windows Explorer can not copy directly to devices. So this is a very specific group that uses these imagers: People migrating form Windows to linux. Arbian recommends USBImager or Etcher LibreELEC has its own imager. Pretty sure LibreELEC is the top used image there. Home Assistant list Etcher first (even so it recommends Raspberry Pi Imager) Retropi lists Etcher, Win32DiskImager, Apple Pi Baker and dd as alternatives... Maybe Raspberry Pi OS is the most used operating system. But I would say the cited numbers indicate nothing and would like to remove the sentence until there is a independent source that is not the Raspberry Pi Foundation itself. Fabiwanne (talk) 17:28, 20 June 2024 (UTC)


 * Raspberry Pi are the maintainers of the OS and developers of the hardware. Raspberry Pi Foundation, though they are a shareholder of Raspberry Pi, they don't develop hardware or maintain linux distributions. 82.2.89.219 (talk) 08:17, 25 June 2024 (UTC)