Raspberry Pi OS

Reader supplied reviews for Raspberry Pi OS Average rating 7.5 from 15 review(s) What are your thoughts on Raspberry Pi OS? Please include a few pros and a few cons, along with your overall impression of the operating system. Our FAQ page has tips on writing a good mini-review. Version: -- 2025-05-062023-05-032020-12-022019-04-082018-11-132017-07-052015-02-16 Rating:    -- 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 out of 10 Your review (minimum 250 words): Past reviews - sort by: DateVotes Version: 2024-11-19 Rating: 8 Date: 2025-01-16 Votes: 2 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. Was this review helpful? Yes No Version: 2023-12-05 Rating: 7 Date: 2024-01-01 Votes: 4 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. Was this review helpful? Yes No Version: 2023-12-05 Rating: 5 Date: 2023-12-19 Votes: 1 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. Was this review helpful? Yes No See all 15 reader reviews of Raspberry Pi OS...