Practical 2
Aim: Study of OS available for raspberry Pi and installation of OS on RPI
Introduction
As read above, Raspberry Pi is a very low-cost computer that comes along with the advantage
of portability. However, being in such a small form factor, it gets bounded by the type of
hardware to use in making it; hence, it will be significantly tough to run regular operating
systems on it.
Due to this, specific operating systems were designed to power a Raspberry Pi; some of them
were entirely new, while some originated from existing popular operating systems. Most of
the Raspberry Pi OS is Linux based, but it also has windows 10-based Raspberry Pi
OS (Windows 10 IOT core) built explicitly for low-powered devices like this.
What is an Operating System?
The technical definition is an operating system is an interface between the hardware of a
machine and the user who is using it, but what does this really mean? It means it is basically
the medium using which we communicate with our computer machine. It does not matter if
we have the fastest system in the world; at the end of the day, that is just hardware, an object;
and we do not know how to work with it, so we need some medium that works as an
intermediate between us and the computer, i.e., when we press ctrl on our keyboard, it should
instruct the computer what to react based on that; when we want to open some application, it
should provide us a way to do so, by listing all the available applications on the system.
Meaning an operating system is a software program that helps us to use and to connect with
the computer hardware. For example, if we want to use our mouse or keyboard, only with the
help of an OS we can do that; if we want to install some program on our computer, we would
be needing an OS; if we want to create a file, we need an OS; we want to delete a file, we
would again be needing an OS, i.e., without an operating system we cannot use the computer
hardware, we would be needing some underlying software, i.e., some operating system, using
which we would do so.
User
Application
Operating
System
Hardware
What is a Raspberry Pi Operating System?
Now, what is Raspberry Pi operating system? Before that, let's first try to understand what
Raspberry Pi is. Raspberry Pi is a small, low-cost computer, and its size is about the size of
an ATM card, which is developed by the Raspberry Pi foundation. The organization's mission
is to educate people in computing and to provide easier access to computer education The
above image is a picture of a Raspberry Pi; we can see that there are various ports available in
it on which different devices can be mounted and used.
It was first launched in 2012, and from then onwards, various variations of it have been
launched. The original Raspberry Pi had a single-core 700 MHz CPU and a 256MB of RAM,
but it has evolved a lot since then; today, we have a quad-core Raspberry Pi with a clock
speed of around 1.5 GHz and up to 4GB of RAM. Surprisingly the cost of Raspberry Pi has
always been less than 100 USD. In fact, the Raspberry Pi Zero (an even low-cost version of
regular Raspberry Pi) costs as less as 5 USD. A full-fledged general-purpose CPU under 5$,
that's what the organization's mission is "Aiming to provide people easier and low-cost access
to the computers."
Raspberry Pi is used by people all around the world in learning how to program, build
hardware projects, do home automation, and implement Cabernets clusters, and it is even
getting used in some industrial applications. Raspberry Pi is a very economical computer that
runs Linux Operating System.
Now, let's talk about which specific distribution of Linux Raspberry Pi uses. Raspberry Pi
officially recommends the use of the Raspbian Operating System. It is a Debian-based OS,
explicitly made for Raspberry Pi and hence its name Raspbian.
Raspbian
Raspbian or Raspberry Pi OS is a Linux-based operating system built specifically for
Raspberry Pi. It is packed with all the necessary tools and features that are required for day-
to-day use. It will possibly run on every kind of Raspberry Pi board with a few exceptions,
like the Raspberry Pi's Pico edition, because of its far smaller form factor and computing
power.
NOOBS
New out Of the Box Software, or simply NOOBS is an operating system installer for
Raspberry Pi, delivered primarily on an SD card, which contains a variety of operating
systems, out of which we can choose which one we want to install on our Raspberry Pi. It is
made for people who are absolutely new to the Raspberry Pi and do not want to deal with the
complex setting up process of burning an OS image on an SD card. NOOBS is provided
along with every new Raspberry Pi at the time of its purchase.
With NOOBS, the user only needs to connect their Raspberry Pi to a display screen and a
keyboard and then power it up; the NOOBs will boot. There we can select which operating
system we want to install, and NOOBS will install the respective OS on the same SD card
within a few minutes.
Other Operating Systems
Let's now look at some of the other Operating systems apart from the Raspbian OS, which
can be booted on the Raspberry Pi.
Minibian
While Raspbian OS is very lightweight as far as we talk about operating systems, but if we
want something even more straightforward, then we can go for Minibian OS. It is a minimal
version of Raspbian for Raspberry Pi machines. The now-going version of minibian is based
on the recent Raspbian build and will run on all the versions of Raspberry Pi. Minibian
differs from Raspbian in a number of ways, but the main difference is it is built more for
electronics people instead of those who are interested in making a full-fledged computer.
Minibian includes the core system and some fundamental utilities like web servers, some
electronics applications, etc. Notably, it does not include a Graphical interface for interaction,
which makes it an excellent choice for embedded projects. The result then is, we have a
capable and working operating system in less than 500MB which merely uses 30MB of
RAM.
Raspbian Lite
It is also a lightweight operating system for Raspberry Pi with a minimal set of packages. It is
advised only for experienced users who are able to establish Ssh connections and remote
management using the command line, as it does not includes the GUI interface. It is more like
a command line-based operating system where we would be needing to type commands to
control our Raspberry Pi computer. One advantage of this is that it can run on a very low
amount of CPU and RAM. It should be noted that Raspbiain lite OS can also be converted
into a complete desktop environment with a GUI interface by installing the necessary
packages.
RISC OS
RISC OS is an open-source OS initially developed in Cambridge in the 1980s and was the
first operating system for ARM processors. It is neither related to Linux, Windows, or any
other operating system; hence, diving into it will ignore our previous operating system
experiences. Understanding the RISC OS will be a completely different thing, and it will take
time for us to get used to it.
Windows IoT Core
It is a version of Windows OS, specifically windows 10, built explicitly for Raspberry Pi. It is
helpful for windows enthusiasts who wish to utilize the Raspberry Pi environment to develop
their projects. It is mostly used to construct and build IoT prototype requirements based on
windows 10. This version of Raspberry Pi OS lays emphasis on the device mainly on
connectivity, security, cloud integration, etc., regions.
Ubuntu Mate
Ubuntu Mate is a free and open-source operating system of raspberry pi that specifies low-
performance devices as its design requirements, meaning it works seamlessly on low-power
or old appliances. It is a flavour of Ubuntu that uses the Mate desktop environment. It
prioritizes pre-packaging the apt package manager into its software deployment and talking
about the communication to remote workstations; Ubuntu MATE is dependable. To run it on
a Raspberry Pi device, a 4GB sd card is all that is required. It should also be noted that
Ubuntu mate OS is consistently maintained and updated by its developers. It can be
downloaded from the official website of Ubuntu MATE.
Gentoo Linux
Gentoo Linux is an open-source Linux-based lightweight operating system of the raspberry
pi. Its built-in portage package manager makes the package installation straightforward and
easy using emerge instead of apt installer. Moreover, it offers unique adaptability, which
makes it an ideal Linux distribution for these low-powered devices. A 4GB SD Card will be
enough to fulfil the device requirements of Gentoo OS on Raspberry Pi.
SARPI
Slackware ARM, or SARPI, is a well-known operating system in the Raspberry Pi
community. It is often regarded as one of the substantial operating systems to run on the
Raspberry Pi. This is because it has a very simple-to-implement software architecture. The
boot time of SARPI OS is really less, making it live in less than 30 seconds of time.
FreeBSD
FreeBSD is an open-source Unix-like operating system derived from the Berkeley Software
Distribution or BSD, which was based on the research of UNIX (early versions of the UNIX
operating system). It works seamlessly with powerful hardware. Its software design makes it
a significantly great OS to interact with servers, desktop PCs, IoT devices, cloud computing,
etc. The FreeBSD OS can run on as less as a Raspberry Pi with 512MB of RAM; it can also
be a perfect choice for one's Raspberry Pi system.
Lakka
A free, open-source, and lightweight operating system that can turn any PC into a full-fledged
gaming console without the keyboard and mouse. It is basically used to set up emulators on
systems like Raspberry Pi.
OpenELEC
Open Embedded Linux Entertainment Centre or OpenELEC. It is a minimal-sized OS, often
referred to as Just Enough Operating System or JeOS. If one is aware of the Kodi Media
Center, which is a tool for managing media files. The primary purpose of this OS is to
transform the running system into Kodi.
OSMC
OSMC is a free and open-source operating system of raspberry pi that stands for Open
Source Media Centre. It is simple and easy to work with the program that can independently
supply Kodi Operating System functions like media file format management. Its user-friendly
interface is simple and sophisticated, and its built-in image library contributes to its extensive
customization possibilities. Therefore, it is an excellent choice if we majorly want to handle
media materials on the Raspberry Pi system.
RaspBSD
RaspBSD is a special kind of FreeBSD operating system of raspberry pi and similar systems.
It is an open-source OS software that contains the FreeBSD 11 image. The live image of
RaspBSD features FreeBSD with the pre-installed Open box window manager and the LXDE
desktop environment. RaspBSD is based on FreeBSD's current tree.
Linutop
Linutop is a Raspbian OS-based Linux operating system of the raspberry pi. Its software
security makes it the ideal choice for web kiosks and digital signage players. Moreover, it
obligates its features and performance specifications to business users who wish for
Raspberry Pi's digital signage and internet stall solutions.
Kali Linux
Kali is a Debian-based operating system particularly made for penetration testing. It comes
with both the 32bit and 64bit architecture and is also one of the most feature-rich OS we have
talked about so far. It has all the necessary tools needed for penetration testing installed by
default. In addition, Kali's community is very effective and helpful. With Kali Linux, a
Raspberry Pi device can become a toolset for penetration inside one's pocket.
Conclusion
Raspberry Pi is a low-cost, economical pocket-sized computer, the size of an ATM
Card.
It was developed by Raspberry Pi Foundation in 2012with the aim of providing
people easy access to computing and computer education.
