The Raspberry Pi is undoubtedly a device that has gained considerable popularity among Linux users, and for good reason: thanks to its affordable price and constant growth, it has become a multifunctional device.
And we must also add the large number of projects that exist for the Raspberry Pi ; we have many options to give this great device a place in our projects.
There are several operating systems for this device, but in this article we will talk about its official operating system, which is Raspbian OS.
As you might deduce from its name, this is a Debian-based system that was optimized for Raspberry Pi since this device uses the armhf, ARM v7-A architectures and their different versions.
Raspbian OS has two versions to choose from:
- Raspbian Pixel: This version is the most complete as it is the one that includes the graphical environment, this version is usually the one most used by desktop users.
- Raspbian Lite: This is the reduced version of the system because it is without a graphical environment, so it only has the console mode, this version is the one used for server-type tasks and that they usually include in most of the projects that have to do with what related to creating multimedia servers with the device.
The Pixel version of Raspbian OS uses the LXDE desktop environment , which includes several development tools such as IDLE for the Python programming language or Scratch.
As for the web browser, we find Midori , and we also find the "raspi-config" menu which allows us to configure the operating system without having to modify configuration files manually.
Among its functions, it allows you to expand the ROOT partition to occupy the entire memory card, configure the keyboard, apply overclock, etc.
Raspbian has been updated
The system was updated a few days ago, due to the recent arrival of the new Raspberry Pi model, the Raspberry Pi 3+ . This new version also includes new features, new packages, and, above all, bug fixes.
While one of the major challenges encountered in the development of Raspbian is the problem of application compatibility with the different types of processors used in its various Raspberry Pi versions.
Well, since the commitment that Raspbian has is that it be fully functional with any version of Raspberry.
A practical example is with Chromium which is no longer compatible with ARM6 processors, which is inside the Raspberry Pi 1 and Pi Zero.
Screen Resolutions
This new update also addresses screen resolutions , since previously there was a button to set everything to a default value, which meant working with a default configuration for average-sized screens.
But now a new default tab with multiple options has been included , which adjusts the font size, icon size, and various other settings to values ​​that should work well on screens with high or low resolution.
Along with this new tool, an option has been added that will allow support for high-resolution screens ; this option is called pixel doubling.
We find it at the bottom of the System tab, in the Raspberry Pi Settings application.
The reason it was added was as follows:
We included this option to make it easier to use the x86 version of Raspbian with ultra-high resolution displays that have very small pixels, such as Apple's Retina displays. When running our desktop on one of these, the smallness of the pixels made the whole thing too small for comfortable use.
Download Raspbian 2018-03-13
Finally, if you want to install this new version, you can go to its official website and download the version you prefer.
On the other hand, if you have the system already installed and you want to update, you just have to run the following in your terminal:
sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get dist-upgrade