 Visitor Reviews |
Raspberry Pi OS
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Reader supplied reviews for Raspberry Pi OS
Average rating
7.5 from 15 review(s)
Version: 2024-11-19
Rating: 8
Date: 2025-01-16
Votes: 1
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I wanted to add this review because I've noticed some strange things with performance. The responsiveness is sometimes the exact opposite of what you'd expect. I had better performance on the PI5 with KDE than other desktop environments (though I think a lot of that has to do with it working much better with Wayland than x11). In terms of the PI4b, the more time goes by, the more releases seem strangely divided on performance. I've gotten better responsiveness from Cinnamon than from XFCE or MATE (especially with video and web browsing). In fact, I'd say that Cinnamon is almost as responsive as an IceWM setup I cobbled together with Thunar and Picom. But, with previous releases, I'd say that XFCE and MATE performed better and desktop environments like Cinnamon were a lot slower and less responsive.
I still can't stand the default desktop environment that comes with the desktop install of Raspberry PI OS. It's frustrating to use, ridiculously buggy, has too many options hidden or obscured, and I haven't found one scenario where I'd prefer it over something else. To each their own, but I really wouldn't recommend it to anyone.
Also worth noting, there are issues with the installer that need to be fixed. They're ongoing problems which don't seem to have been addressed. For some reason, during installation of the OS, you can select a keyboard, but it doesn't ask you anything else. It just kind of decides to default everything else to UK settings. (I've tried setting up preferences when using the imager to burn the image onto the SD card, but more often than not, they don't seem to stick.) So, you could be in the US or Siberia or Timbuktu and select your keyboard reflecting that, then you boot up and your time zone and language settings are for the UK. So, the clock is hours off and you have a "Wastebasket" instead of a "Trash" icon on your desktop. (Equal parts funny and annoying.) You can change those settings through `raspi-config`, but it feels like it really should be addressed during the installation process instead of having to launch a separate program to deal with it.
Overall, I'd still recommend this OS for the PI systems (particularly the 4b and 5), as it's the best I've found for performance, stability, and reliability. I'd just recommend the Lite 64-bit installation (currently Bookworm) and for you to shop around for desktop environments. Having Cinnamon be almost snappy in performance on a PI4b is pretty surprising, given how other desktops have performed. I'd recommend getting an extra SD card and experimenting with different desktop environments to test performance before deciding on one.
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Version: 2023-12-05
Rating: 7
Date: 2024-01-01
Votes: 4
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They released an update to the firmware that helps with how hot the PI5 can get. It doesn't appear to install automatically, though. You have to use `rpi-update` to install it. (Which is why it wasn't the first thing I tried over the last week or two, to help with the PI5 performance issues.) You can check your version of the firmware with `sudo rpi-eeprom-update`. The December 14th release seems to be working well and cut down the heat issues I'd been having by between 2-10C. It's a bit inconsistent with temperature, though. Sometimes, the temperature will shoot up and then go down. Before, the temperature was more consistent, but it was also hotter on average. I'd consider this an improvement and I'm grateful they put it out -- credit where it's due. It was disappointing to have a machine that didn't work well that was brand new when I first got the PI5. Note: If you're worried about messing with the firmware, just record all the info that's spit out in the terminal, that way you can revert the firmware to your previous version if you encounter any issues. The output of `rpi-update` lists both the previous and updated firmware versions.
In regards to desktop environments, with the PI5, the best performance I've gotten is out of Wayland-backed KDE Plasma. You'd think a beefy desktop environment like KDE would run more slowly, but there's something about how Wayland and the PI5 interact that allows it to work better. (You can also get reasonably good performance out of GNOME, but I'm not a fan of GNOME -- it lacks a lot of features that are in KDE for customization and the performance doesn't suffer at all. If anything, I found KDE a bit more responsive.) I also don't think the fixes are out yet for X11 in regards to the blinking cursor issue, etc. GDM is slower than Lightdm, but works better at setting Plasma/Wayland as the default when logging in. SDDM is buggy and glitchy with the mouse (on Bookworm, but not Bullseye, though you can't use Bullseye with the PI5 -- not exactly thrilled about being locked in to the much-more-glitchy Bookworm). If you're comfortable installing Lightdm and editing the .conf file, it's faster to start up and you can manually set the default to Plasma/Wayland. It will default to X11 sessions, otherwise, and you'll have to select Plasma/Wayland on login each time. GDM is slower, but I found that it remembered my previous choice without having to edit anything.
I'd consider this an improvement for now. But, I still look forward to refinements with X11 performance, some more firmware tweaks, etc. It is moving in the right direction, though. I'd be happy to rate it higher as future fixes/refinements come out.
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Version: 2023-12-05
Rating: 5
Date: 2023-12-19
Votes: 1
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I went through testing every desktop environment available on tasksel with the Raspberry PI 5 and the newest release of Raspberry PI OS (64-bit) available for rpi-imager. Because, why not? MATE was the only one that didn't have a problem with either mouse flashing or screen tearing on the default installation. Everything else was either choppy or flashing or both. I tried changing the backend for xfwm4 to xpresent (this was the best selection for MATE in MATE Tweak and it was also referenced on the official forums as a 'fix' for XFCE), but it didn't stop screen tearing from happening with the Kodi flatpak on XFCE. On contrast, the Kodi flatpak worked well under MATE.
I reduced my rating to a 5/10, because with the Raspberry PI 5, compatibility isn't much of a benefit anymore. There are real issues with getting a desktop environment to work comfortably on the Raspberry PI 5 and I really don't think the hardware should've been released without software/firmware already in place to allow for better compatibility. Since the hardware and software are really designed to go together, I consider this a really important aspect of the OS, unlike with other distros.
As a side note and for the sake of comparison, I also tried the Ubuntu server installation for Raspberry PI 5. It took an eternity to install xubuntu-desktop (even on 8GB RAM and a wired, fast Internet connection), and it ran terribly -- even after replacing the XFCE backend with xpresent. At this stage, I don't consider it it be a viable alternative. It really was the only alternative distro I got to work, which makes Raspberry PI OS compatibility with the hardware that much more important. I'll keep up to date on new releases and really hope this gets fixed soon. I'd be glad to add a handful of stars to my rating when that happens.
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Version: 2023-12-05
Rating: 7
Date: 2023-12-15
Votes: 0
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The Raspberry PI 5 (8GB) does well with the MATE desktop -- installed through the Lite (64-bit) installer -- and is a preferable experience compared to the default PIXEL desktop. But, the limited compatibility of Raspberry PI hardware among distros makes me reluctant to ever get more Raspberry PI hardware.
I was hoping that with the release of the PI 5, they would've fixed a lot of the issues in the default PIXEL desktop, but no such luck. It's still a pain to use. I also really don't get what they're going for. If you want to provide users with a minimal desktop environment, why the ugly, resource-wasting window animations? If you want a more robust desktop environment, why reinvent the wheel with a buggy, feature-lacking desktop environment, when there are more functional options already out there? As a side note, this does seem to be some company-wide theme. When I purchased the Raspberry PI 5, I got an official case and an official keyboard. Neither of them worked well. The case did a truly awful job at cooling and the keyboard was uncomfortable to use. Again, why reinvent the wheel? Who knows. But, it's apparently a trend.
To be fair, I did give PIXEL a chance, but I quickly abandoned it in favor of using the Lite (64-bit) installer and installing XFCE. Xorg had an error and didn't start properly. I don't recall having this issue when doing the same installation for the PI 4B, but I might have selected slightly different packages. I found that installing the 'gldriver-test' package fixed the problem. I rebooted and it went quickly to lightdm, then into XFCE. I didn't have trouble at first, but then the mouse started flickering like crazy. No one online seemed to have an idea why this happened. Some suggested it was the mouse theme (same as on the PI 4B, and I had no issue there). Others suggested it was X causing the problems (again, the same as on the PI 4B, and I had no issues there). It was unusable in this state, so I began looking for other options.
My first thought was MATE. I'd tried it ages ago when it first came out. It was a bit buggy at that point, so I stuck with XFCE. But, it's been adopted by a lot of distros and quite some time had passed, so I was hopeful. I did a fresh Lite (64-bit) install, added all the MATE packages (including the -extra and -extras packages), added lightdm, and the 'gldriver-test' package just to stop any issue before it occurred. I set up the GUI login through 'raspi-config' and rebooted. It was fast -- not just lightdm, but MATE. It ran smoothly with no mouse cursor issues. I tested the flatpak of Kodi and video played really well. I had to select options to not render windows when moving or resizing in XFCE on the PI 4B to avoid screen tearing, but whipping a window around on the screen barely tore when using MATE on the PI 5 (8GB RAM). The MATE team clearly put a lot of work into things, because the experience using it now was much better than my previous experience.
The hardware compatibility is the real win here. I don't think I've ever bothered with "lite" installs before this. But, this distro has the best compatibility with Raspberry PI hardware (for the PI 5, half the distros I tried didn't even boot). That said, I really don't like being boxed in. So, while this setup works well, I don't think I'd ever get another piece of Raspberry PI hardware.
Note: Check out the Pragmatic Linux tutorial for setting up XFCE on Raspberry PI for a general outline on how to use the Lite install with a different desktop environment. I found it really helpful.
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Version: 2023-10-10
Rating: 8
Date: 2023-11-22
Votes: 3
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The greatest part of this OS is how well it's tweaked to utilize the PI hardware. The PI 4B (8GB RAM) board works so well that you could make a slim desktop out of it or a media center, and that's pretty impressive. The worst part is how 'sticky' the GUI feels on the default PIXEL desktop (a tweaked version of LXDE/Openbox). Not only are there bugs and segmentation faults that make some of the theme-changing apps unusable, but some of them will work and set one setting only to unset another. On top of that, the menu doesn't show all installed apps, which just adds to the headache that is the look/feel of the default installation. They really shouldn't have released the OS in this state. The desktop environment really felt like a buggy development version that should've been in testing by staff, not released to the general public. One of the first things I did when my PI 4B board arrived was to install XFCE. I thought that would be it, but the login manager wouldn't give me an option to switch the desktop environment. I didn't feel like fighting with it anymore and just installed SLIM and finally I had a usable desktop environment. At this point, all I seem to benefit from with this OS over others is the OS-hardware connection and the Chromium tweaks. While that might not seem like much, it's probably the most significant part of things. Manjaro (the pi-specific image, not the general arm image) crawled on this same hardware. Chromium was blurring pages on Manjaro when I had one or two tabs open. I can have ten or more tabs open on Raspberry PI OS without an issue. Really, that was just when I stopped needing to open tabs, it wasn't that the OS slowed down -- and it really hasn't heated up much, though I'm using a passively-cooled box for it. It's impressive how well this OS works with the hardware. I just really, really don't like the default desktop environment and the 'sticky' aspect of things (making changing things harder that it arguably has to be). I'd rate this as a 6 or 7 due to how many issues I had, but the connection between this OS and the hardware makes it seem like the only real option, which I gave back points for. The fact that I could get Kodi to run without much of an issue on the PI, with an HD monitor was great. It was a real pain to set up, but it's great that it makes such use of the hardware. It's a great option for a less-costly desktop or a media center. I really do look forward to them fixing those issues with PIXEL, though. Or, I hope they release the code for the OS-hardware connection so that other distros can make use of it and have their distros fly on the PI hardware, as well.
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Version: 2023-05-03
Rating: 10
Date: 2023-09-28
Votes: 0
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The RaspiOS on the Pi4 just gets better.
However, the likelihood of using it as my daily driver just went to zero, but this is NOT the fault of RaspiOS ...
Google has now removed the ability for Citrix Workspace to run on a Chrome browser - if the OS is not ChromeOS:
"Citrix Workspace app for ChromeOS is supported only on ChromeOS. The app is no longer supported on non-ChromeOS platform."
And even though Citrix has released an arn64 Linux version, there is no full support for Teams:
"The following features aren’t supported on Citrix Workspace app for Linux when using ARM64 architecture-based devices:
Optimized Microsoft Teams
Optimized Skype for Business (RTOP/RTME)
Browser Content Redirection (BCR)
Multimedia redirection"
So, no more full-functionality Citrix Workspace on the Pi4 + RaspiOS + Chromium. How annoying.
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Version: 2022-09-22
Rating: 10
Date: 2023-02-01
Votes: 3
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The arm64 version has progressed well. I.e. "Raspberry Pi OS Lite (64-bit)."
The Xfce desktop environment works well.
Chromium seems to run a little faster than in the beta arm64 versions. (I assume the dev team have been working on further optimisation?)
HDMI sound in Chromium now works without having to make a post-installation tweak.
I no longer need the armhf architecture to run Citrix Workspace - I discovered you can run it in Chromium by installing a Google Chrome (yes, Chrome) "Citrix Workspace" extension (NOT the "Citrix Workspace Web" extension).
I would prefer no systemd. (I'm now trailing Alpine Linux on my RPi 4B for that reason.)
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Version: 2022-04-04
Rating: 10
Date: 2022-09-04
Votes: 26
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This is for RaspberryPi-OS for PC. Debian Bullseye. 32-bit
I installed this on an older Dell inspiron E1505. Tiny dual core, 4 GB's Ram, 32GB SSD. A very low powered laptop, that should have been recycled long ago. I just hated to do that. I tried several other distros before settling on this. This distro worked well on first install. All drivers were installed, even Bluetooth. It is very light on resources. It has allowed this old tired PC, with some older parts to be useful again. Like the tiny 32GB SSD. Typically too small for PC use. Total install with the software I wanted and I still have almost 20GB to spare.
I know it is not much, but it does emails, casual browsing, youtube videos, and movies really well. I have a CD burner and I make music CD's with it. This is not of course my daily, but if I had to, it could be used in a tight. It just works.
This could be put on any old PC, and given to children to learn on, and play with. If they break the OS, just reinstall and go again. Its easy to install, no special knowledge needed. Easy to set up, and get the software you want installed.
I guess this would run really fast on a not so old or new PC, and could replace any other OS as a general daily driver. It has a pleasing looking desktop, easy to navigate to files
I can not really think of many cons that really amount to much. Depends on what you do with a PC I guess. There will be certain things this will not do well. I do hope for a 64 bit PC version to be able to make use of more ram. But so far I have not needed more then the 4GB's installed.
I will say Linux has come such a long ways. Long gone are the days you need a cheat sheet with a bunch of commands and a degree to install it. It is so user friendly now, Sure there is a learning curve, but it has been shortened drastically. Especially little distros like Raspberry PI.
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Version: 2022-04-04
Rating: 5
Date: 2022-06-06
Votes: 0
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The arm64 version has progressed well. I.e. "Raspberry Pi OS Lite (64-bit)."
The Xfce desktop environment works well.
Chromium seems to run a little faster than in the beta arm64 versions. (I assume the dev team have been working on further optimisation?)
HDMI sound in Chromium now works without having to make a post-installation tweak.
I no longer need the armhf architecture to run Citrix Workspace - I discovered you can run it in Chromium by installing a Google Chrome (yes, Chrome) "Citrix Workspace" extension (NOT the "Citrix Workspace Web" extension).
I would prefer no systemd. (I'm now trailing Alpine Linux on my RPi 4B for that reason.)
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Version: 2022-04-04
Rating: 10
Date: 2022-04-19
Votes: 3
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The arm64 version has progressed well. I.e. "Raspberry Pi OS Lite (64-bit)."
The Xfce desktop environment works well.
Chromium seems to run a little faster than in the beta arm64 versions. (I assume the dev team have been working on further optimisation?)
HDMI sound in Chromium now works without having to make a post-installation tweak.
I no longer need the armhf architecture to run Citrix Workspace - I discovered you can run it in Chromium by installing a Google Chrome (yes, Chrome) "Citrix Workspace" extension (NOT the "Citrix Workspace Web" extension).
I would prefer no systemd. (I'm now trailing Alpine Linux on my RPi 4B for that reason.)
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Version: 2021-10-30
Rating: 10
Date: 2022-01-13
Votes: 2
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It always amazes me when this free stuff works so well. So, I am pretty happy to give this one a "10", even though others may be a bit more critical of the OS.
I have recently installed the arm64/64-bit version of Raspberry Pi OS ... the "Lite" version, on my RPi 4B. It's available if you know where to look, and seems pretty complete.
I then installed Xfce on top, which is my current favourite desktop environment ... and that works as well on the Raspberry Pi as my PC (albeit a little slower).
You can then select the armhf (32-bit) architecture and install things like Citrix Workspace (currently only available in armhf), and that works well too.
The only hiccup was getting Chromium to play sound across HDMI, but I soon found on the web a Chromium workaround for that.
What a cool little OS running on a cool little device!
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Version: 2021-05-28
Rating: 6
Date: 2021-10-31
Votes: 0
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my setup:
running RPI 4 with 8 gig of RAM.
CONS:
This is only 32 bit OS( ARM processor is capable of running 64 bit. )
Only 700 MHz when it can be overclocked to 3 times that.
UI is ancient like Windows 2000
You better off install Arch's ARM OS that supports 64 bit and then overclock this .
PROS:
The hardware is super energy efficient and compact with lots of supports for different modules.
The official OS is lagging at least 20 years behind. horrible. The OS and hardware needs a lot tighter intergration
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Version: 2021-03-04
Rating: 1
Date: 2021-04-25
Votes: 0
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BOTTOM LINE: One of the worst distros ever, basically unusable.
This is the most buggy (and hands-down the worst) Debian-based distro I've ever used, and I used many. Basic tools for everyday work, like LibreOffice, take forever to load. Many of the pre-installed packages, including the pre-shipped Sonic Pi, do not work at all. Included non-CLI tools for package management and installation work extremely slowly, make it problematic to access basic software utilities that should work perfectly fine on my hardware, and installing Synaptic (not-included) does not really solve the problem. Given that the system doesn't include even a utility for flashing .iso images to USB, and is the only Linux distro I've yet encountered that does not include Vim and makes installing Emacs a pain, the system is simply unusable — and my needs are really pretty basic, revolving against text editing and processing plus a little bit of a very, very unsophisticated sound recording.
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Version: 2021-03-04
Rating: 5
Date: 2021-03-27
Votes: 7
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Raspbian has some pretty dumb quirks that it needs to sort out.
While its performance is pretty good when compared to other ARM OS', the ones I've tried anyway, it seems to have two problems that I cannot get around - sound doesn't work, or does poorly, and the services do whatever they want.
Sound in Linux seems to me like it's black magic - it either works or it doesn't, and in either case I don't know why. What really irks me though is services that I've disabled at least three times, either via systemctl or update-rc.d, keep coming back after booting.
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Version: 2020-12-02
Rating: 10
Date: 2021-01-03
Votes: 22
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The PC (x86) version is fantastic. It is one of the lightest distributions I have ever used and runs well on single core 32-bit machines. Along with the performance, it is quite attractive as it follows Raspberry Pi's colorful branding. This is basically Debian with a customized desktop environment, but it also includes some non-free drivers for ease of use. The excellent Raspberry Pi website has great documentation and how-to guides.
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Latest Reviews
Project: Raspberry Pi OS
Version: 2024-11-19
Rating: 8
Date: 2025-01-16
Votes: 1
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I wanted to add this review because I've noticed some strange things with performance. The responsiveness is sometimes the exact opposite of what you'd expect. I had better performance on the PI5 with KDE than other desktop environments (though I think a lot of that has to do with it working much better with Wayland than x11). In terms of the PI4b, the more time goes by, the more releases seem strangely divided on performance. I've gotten better responsiveness from Cinnamon than from XFCE or MATE (especially with video and web browsing). In fact, I'd say that Cinnamon is almost as responsive as an IceWM setup I cobbled together with Thunar and Picom. But, with previous releases, I'd say that XFCE and MATE performed better and desktop environments like Cinnamon were a lot slower and less responsive.
I still can't stand the default desktop environment that comes with the desktop install of Raspberry PI OS. It's frustrating to use, ridiculously buggy, has too many options hidden or obscured, and I haven't found one scenario where I'd prefer it over something else. To each their own, but I really wouldn't recommend it to anyone.
Also worth noting, there are issues with the installer that need to be fixed. They're ongoing problems which don't seem to have been addressed. For some reason, during installation of the OS, you can select a keyboard, but it doesn't ask you anything else. It just kind of decides to default everything else to UK settings. (I've tried setting up preferences when using the imager to burn the image onto the SD card, but more often than not, they don't seem to stick.) So, you could be in the US or Siberia or Timbuktu and select your keyboard reflecting that, then you boot up and your time zone and language settings are for the UK. So, the clock is hours off and you have a "Wastebasket" instead of a "Trash" icon on your desktop. (Equal parts funny and annoying.) You can change those settings through `raspi-config`, but it feels like it really should be addressed during the installation process instead of having to launch a separate program to deal with it.
Overall, I'd still recommend this OS for the PI systems (particularly the 4b and 5), as it's the best I've found for performance, stability, and reliability. I'd just recommend the Lite 64-bit installation (currently Bookworm) and for you to shop around for desktop environments. Having Cinnamon be almost snappy in performance on a PI4b is pretty surprising, given how other desktops have performed. I'd recommend getting an extra SD card and experimenting with different desktop environments to test performance before deciding on one.
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Project: Raspberry Pi OS
Version: 2023-12-05
Rating: 7
Date: 2024-01-01
Votes: 4
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They released an update to the firmware that helps with how hot the PI5 can get. It doesn't appear to install automatically, though. You have to use `rpi-update` to install it. (Which is why it wasn't the first thing I tried over the last week or two, to help with the PI5 performance issues.) You can check your version of the firmware with `sudo rpi-eeprom-update`. The December 14th release seems to be working well and cut down the heat issues I'd been having by between 2-10C. It's a bit inconsistent with temperature, though. Sometimes, the temperature will shoot up and then go down. Before, the temperature was more consistent, but it was also hotter on average. I'd consider this an improvement and I'm grateful they put it out -- credit where it's due. It was disappointing to have a machine that didn't work well that was brand new when I first got the PI5. Note: If you're worried about messing with the firmware, just record all the info that's spit out in the terminal, that way you can revert the firmware to your previous version if you encounter any issues. The output of `rpi-update` lists both the previous and updated firmware versions.
In regards to desktop environments, with the PI5, the best performance I've gotten is out of Wayland-backed KDE Plasma. You'd think a beefy desktop environment like KDE would run more slowly, but there's something about how Wayland and the PI5 interact that allows it to work better. (You can also get reasonably good performance out of GNOME, but I'm not a fan of GNOME -- it lacks a lot of features that are in KDE for customization and the performance doesn't suffer at all. If anything, I found KDE a bit more responsive.) I also don't think the fixes are out yet for X11 in regards to the blinking cursor issue, etc. GDM is slower than Lightdm, but works better at setting Plasma/Wayland as the default when logging in. SDDM is buggy and glitchy with the mouse (on Bookworm, but not Bullseye, though you can't use Bullseye with the PI5 -- not exactly thrilled about being locked in to the much-more-glitchy Bookworm). If you're comfortable installing Lightdm and editing the .conf file, it's faster to start up and you can manually set the default to Plasma/Wayland. It will default to X11 sessions, otherwise, and you'll have to select Plasma/Wayland on login each time. GDM is slower, but I found that it remembered my previous choice without having to edit anything.
I'd consider this an improvement for now. But, I still look forward to refinements with X11 performance, some more firmware tweaks, etc. It is moving in the right direction, though. I'd be happy to rate it higher as future fixes/refinements come out.
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Project: Raspberry Pi OS
Version: 2023-12-05
Rating: 5
Date: 2023-12-19
Votes: 1
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I went through testing every desktop environment available on tasksel with the Raspberry PI 5 and the newest release of Raspberry PI OS (64-bit) available for rpi-imager. Because, why not? MATE was the only one that didn't have a problem with either mouse flashing or screen tearing on the default installation. Everything else was either choppy or flashing or both. I tried changing the backend for xfwm4 to xpresent (this was the best selection for MATE in MATE Tweak and it was also referenced on the official forums as a 'fix' for XFCE), but it didn't stop screen tearing from happening with the Kodi flatpak on XFCE. On contrast, the Kodi flatpak worked well under MATE.
I reduced my rating to a 5/10, because with the Raspberry PI 5, compatibility isn't much of a benefit anymore. There are real issues with getting a desktop environment to work comfortably on the Raspberry PI 5 and I really don't think the hardware should've been released without software/firmware already in place to allow for better compatibility. Since the hardware and software are really designed to go together, I consider this a really important aspect of the OS, unlike with other distros.
As a side note and for the sake of comparison, I also tried the Ubuntu server installation for Raspberry PI 5. It took an eternity to install xubuntu-desktop (even on 8GB RAM and a wired, fast Internet connection), and it ran terribly -- even after replacing the XFCE backend with xpresent. At this stage, I don't consider it it be a viable alternative. It really was the only alternative distro I got to work, which makes Raspberry PI OS compatibility with the hardware that much more important. I'll keep up to date on new releases and really hope this gets fixed soon. I'd be glad to add a handful of stars to my rating when that happens.
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Project: Raspberry Pi OS
Version: 2023-12-05
Rating: 7
Date: 2023-12-15
Votes: 0
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The Raspberry PI 5 (8GB) does well with the MATE desktop -- installed through the Lite (64-bit) installer -- and is a preferable experience compared to the default PIXEL desktop. But, the limited compatibility of Raspberry PI hardware among distros makes me reluctant to ever get more Raspberry PI hardware.
I was hoping that with the release of the PI 5, they would've fixed a lot of the issues in the default PIXEL desktop, but no such luck. It's still a pain to use. I also really don't get what they're going for. If you want to provide users with a minimal desktop environment, why the ugly, resource-wasting window animations? If you want a more robust desktop environment, why reinvent the wheel with a buggy, feature-lacking desktop environment, when there are more functional options already out there? As a side note, this does seem to be some company-wide theme. When I purchased the Raspberry PI 5, I got an official case and an official keyboard. Neither of them worked well. The case did a truly awful job at cooling and the keyboard was uncomfortable to use. Again, why reinvent the wheel? Who knows. But, it's apparently a trend.
To be fair, I did give PIXEL a chance, but I quickly abandoned it in favor of using the Lite (64-bit) installer and installing XFCE. Xorg had an error and didn't start properly. I don't recall having this issue when doing the same installation for the PI 4B, but I might have selected slightly different packages. I found that installing the 'gldriver-test' package fixed the problem. I rebooted and it went quickly to lightdm, then into XFCE. I didn't have trouble at first, but then the mouse started flickering like crazy. No one online seemed to have an idea why this happened. Some suggested it was the mouse theme (same as on the PI 4B, and I had no issue there). Others suggested it was X causing the problems (again, the same as on the PI 4B, and I had no issues there). It was unusable in this state, so I began looking for other options.
My first thought was MATE. I'd tried it ages ago when it first came out. It was a bit buggy at that point, so I stuck with XFCE. But, it's been adopted by a lot of distros and quite some time had passed, so I was hopeful. I did a fresh Lite (64-bit) install, added all the MATE packages (including the -extra and -extras packages), added lightdm, and the 'gldriver-test' package just to stop any issue before it occurred. I set up the GUI login through 'raspi-config' and rebooted. It was fast -- not just lightdm, but MATE. It ran smoothly with no mouse cursor issues. I tested the flatpak of Kodi and video played really well. I had to select options to not render windows when moving or resizing in XFCE on the PI 4B to avoid screen tearing, but whipping a window around on the screen barely tore when using MATE on the PI 5 (8GB RAM). The MATE team clearly put a lot of work into things, because the experience using it now was much better than my previous experience.
The hardware compatibility is the real win here. I don't think I've ever bothered with "lite" installs before this. But, this distro has the best compatibility with Raspberry PI hardware (for the PI 5, half the distros I tried didn't even boot). That said, I really don't like being boxed in. So, while this setup works well, I don't think I'd ever get another piece of Raspberry PI hardware.
Note: Check out the Pragmatic Linux tutorial for setting up XFCE on Raspberry PI for a general outline on how to use the Lite install with a different desktop environment. I found it really helpful.
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Project: Raspberry Pi OS
Version: 2023-10-10
Rating: 8
Date: 2023-11-22
Votes: 3
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The greatest part of this OS is how well it's tweaked to utilize the PI hardware. The PI 4B (8GB RAM) board works so well that you could make a slim desktop out of it or a media center, and that's pretty impressive. The worst part is how 'sticky' the GUI feels on the default PIXEL desktop (a tweaked version of LXDE/Openbox). Not only are there bugs and segmentation faults that make some of the theme-changing apps unusable, but some of them will work and set one setting only to unset another. On top of that, the menu doesn't show all installed apps, which just adds to the headache that is the look/feel of the default installation. They really shouldn't have released the OS in this state. The desktop environment really felt like a buggy development version that should've been in testing by staff, not released to the general public. One of the first things I did when my PI 4B board arrived was to install XFCE. I thought that would be it, but the login manager wouldn't give me an option to switch the desktop environment. I didn't feel like fighting with it anymore and just installed SLIM and finally I had a usable desktop environment. At this point, all I seem to benefit from with this OS over others is the OS-hardware connection and the Chromium tweaks. While that might not seem like much, it's probably the most significant part of things. Manjaro (the pi-specific image, not the general arm image) crawled on this same hardware. Chromium was blurring pages on Manjaro when I had one or two tabs open. I can have ten or more tabs open on Raspberry PI OS without an issue. Really, that was just when I stopped needing to open tabs, it wasn't that the OS slowed down -- and it really hasn't heated up much, though I'm using a passively-cooled box for it. It's impressive how well this OS works with the hardware. I just really, really don't like the default desktop environment and the 'sticky' aspect of things (making changing things harder that it arguably has to be). I'd rate this as a 6 or 7 due to how many issues I had, but the connection between this OS and the hardware makes it seem like the only real option, which I gave back points for. The fact that I could get Kodi to run without much of an issue on the PI, with an HD monitor was great. It was a real pain to set up, but it's great that it makes such use of the hardware. It's a great option for a less-costly desktop or a media center. I really do look forward to them fixing those issues with PIXEL, though. Or, I hope they release the code for the OS-hardware connection so that other distros can make use of it and have their distros fly on the PI hardware, as well.
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Project: Raspberry Pi OS
Version: 2023-05-03
Rating: 10
Date: 2023-09-28
Votes: 0
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The RaspiOS on the Pi4 just gets better.
However, the likelihood of using it as my daily driver just went to zero, but this is NOT the fault of RaspiOS ...
Google has now removed the ability for Citrix Workspace to run on a Chrome browser - if the OS is not ChromeOS:
"Citrix Workspace app for ChromeOS is supported only on ChromeOS. The app is no longer supported on non-ChromeOS platform."
And even though Citrix has released an arn64 Linux version, there is no full support for Teams:
"The following features aren’t supported on Citrix Workspace app for Linux when using ARM64 architecture-based devices:
Optimized Microsoft Teams
Optimized Skype for Business (RTOP/RTME)
Browser Content Redirection (BCR)
Multimedia redirection"
So, no more full-functionality Citrix Workspace on the Pi4 + RaspiOS + Chromium. How annoying.
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Project: Raspberry Pi OS
Version: 2022-09-22
Rating: 10
Date: 2023-02-01
Votes: 3
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The arm64 version has progressed well. I.e. "Raspberry Pi OS Lite (64-bit)."
The Xfce desktop environment works well.
Chromium seems to run a little faster than in the beta arm64 versions. (I assume the dev team have been working on further optimisation?)
HDMI sound in Chromium now works without having to make a post-installation tweak.
I no longer need the armhf architecture to run Citrix Workspace - I discovered you can run it in Chromium by installing a Google Chrome (yes, Chrome) "Citrix Workspace" extension (NOT the "Citrix Workspace Web" extension).
I would prefer no systemd. (I'm now trailing Alpine Linux on my RPi 4B for that reason.)
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Project: Raspberry Pi OS
Version: 2022-04-04
Rating: 10
Date: 2022-09-04
Votes: 26
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This is for RaspberryPi-OS for PC. Debian Bullseye. 32-bit
I installed this on an older Dell inspiron E1505. Tiny dual core, 4 GB's Ram, 32GB SSD. A very low powered laptop, that should have been recycled long ago. I just hated to do that. I tried several other distros before settling on this. This distro worked well on first install. All drivers were installed, even Bluetooth. It is very light on resources. It has allowed this old tired PC, with some older parts to be useful again. Like the tiny 32GB SSD. Typically too small for PC use. Total install with the software I wanted and I still have almost 20GB to spare.
I know it is not much, but it does emails, casual browsing, youtube videos, and movies really well. I have a CD burner and I make music CD's with it. This is not of course my daily, but if I had to, it could be used in a tight. It just works.
This could be put on any old PC, and given to children to learn on, and play with. If they break the OS, just reinstall and go again. Its easy to install, no special knowledge needed. Easy to set up, and get the software you want installed.
I guess this would run really fast on a not so old or new PC, and could replace any other OS as a general daily driver. It has a pleasing looking desktop, easy to navigate to files
I can not really think of many cons that really amount to much. Depends on what you do with a PC I guess. There will be certain things this will not do well. I do hope for a 64 bit PC version to be able to make use of more ram. But so far I have not needed more then the 4GB's installed.
I will say Linux has come such a long ways. Long gone are the days you need a cheat sheet with a bunch of commands and a degree to install it. It is so user friendly now, Sure there is a learning curve, but it has been shortened drastically. Especially little distros like Raspberry PI.
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Project: Raspberry Pi OS
Version: 2022-04-04
Rating: 5
Date: 2022-06-06
Votes: 0
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The arm64 version has progressed well. I.e. "Raspberry Pi OS Lite (64-bit)."
The Xfce desktop environment works well.
Chromium seems to run a little faster than in the beta arm64 versions. (I assume the dev team have been working on further optimisation?)
HDMI sound in Chromium now works without having to make a post-installation tweak.
I no longer need the armhf architecture to run Citrix Workspace - I discovered you can run it in Chromium by installing a Google Chrome (yes, Chrome) "Citrix Workspace" extension (NOT the "Citrix Workspace Web" extension).
I would prefer no systemd. (I'm now trailing Alpine Linux on my RPi 4B for that reason.)
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Project: Raspberry Pi OS
Version: 2022-04-04
Rating: 10
Date: 2022-04-19
Votes: 3
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The arm64 version has progressed well. I.e. "Raspberry Pi OS Lite (64-bit)."
The Xfce desktop environment works well.
Chromium seems to run a little faster than in the beta arm64 versions. (I assume the dev team have been working on further optimisation?)
HDMI sound in Chromium now works without having to make a post-installation tweak.
I no longer need the armhf architecture to run Citrix Workspace - I discovered you can run it in Chromium by installing a Google Chrome (yes, Chrome) "Citrix Workspace" extension (NOT the "Citrix Workspace Web" extension).
I would prefer no systemd. (I'm now trailing Alpine Linux on my RPi 4B for that reason.)
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Project: Raspberry Pi OS
Version: 2021-10-30
Rating: 10
Date: 2022-01-13
Votes: 2
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It always amazes me when this free stuff works so well. So, I am pretty happy to give this one a "10", even though others may be a bit more critical of the OS.
I have recently installed the arm64/64-bit version of Raspberry Pi OS ... the "Lite" version, on my RPi 4B. It's available if you know where to look, and seems pretty complete.
I then installed Xfce on top, which is my current favourite desktop environment ... and that works as well on the Raspberry Pi as my PC (albeit a little slower).
You can then select the armhf (32-bit) architecture and install things like Citrix Workspace (currently only available in armhf), and that works well too.
The only hiccup was getting Chromium to play sound across HDMI, but I soon found on the web a Chromium workaround for that.
What a cool little OS running on a cool little device!
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Project: Raspberry Pi OS
Version: 2021-05-28
Rating: 6
Date: 2021-10-31
Votes: 0
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my setup:
running RPI 4 with 8 gig of RAM.
CONS:
This is only 32 bit OS( ARM processor is capable of running 64 bit. )
Only 700 MHz when it can be overclocked to 3 times that.
UI is ancient like Windows 2000
You better off install Arch's ARM OS that supports 64 bit and then overclock this .
PROS:
The hardware is super energy efficient and compact with lots of supports for different modules.
The official OS is lagging at least 20 years behind. horrible. The OS and hardware needs a lot tighter intergration
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Project: Raspberry Pi OS
Version: 2021-03-04
Rating: 1
Date: 2021-04-25
Votes: 0
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BOTTOM LINE: One of the worst distros ever, basically unusable.
This is the most buggy (and hands-down the worst) Debian-based distro I've ever used, and I used many. Basic tools for everyday work, like LibreOffice, take forever to load. Many of the pre-installed packages, including the pre-shipped Sonic Pi, do not work at all. Included non-CLI tools for package management and installation work extremely slowly, make it problematic to access basic software utilities that should work perfectly fine on my hardware, and installing Synaptic (not-included) does not really solve the problem. Given that the system doesn't include even a utility for flashing .iso images to USB, and is the only Linux distro I've yet encountered that does not include Vim and makes installing Emacs a pain, the system is simply unusable — and my needs are really pretty basic, revolving against text editing and processing plus a little bit of a very, very unsophisticated sound recording.
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Project: Raspberry Pi OS
Version: 2021-03-04
Rating: 5
Date: 2021-03-27
Votes: 7
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Raspbian has some pretty dumb quirks that it needs to sort out.
While its performance is pretty good when compared to other ARM OS', the ones I've tried anyway, it seems to have two problems that I cannot get around - sound doesn't work, or does poorly, and the services do whatever they want.
Sound in Linux seems to me like it's black magic - it either works or it doesn't, and in either case I don't know why. What really irks me though is services that I've disabled at least three times, either via systemctl or update-rc.d, keep coming back after booting.
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Project: Raspberry Pi OS
Version: 2020-12-02
Rating: 10
Date: 2021-01-03
Votes: 22
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The PC (x86) version is fantastic. It is one of the lightest distributions I have ever used and runs well on single core 32-bit machines. Along with the performance, it is quite attractive as it follows Raspberry Pi's colorful branding. This is basically Debian with a customized desktop environment, but it also includes some non-free drivers for ease of use. The excellent Raspberry Pi website has great documentation and how-to guides.
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