Quick question about OSs

[Toothless2005]

So I just got a raspberry pi and installed the raspian OS with NOOBS but I would like to try other operating systems to see which one I like best however I am not sure how to switch operating systems.

If anyone knows how to change between operating systems please let me know. Thanks in advance!

[DarkPlatinum]

If you have a big SD card, you can download PINN and install many operating systems from a boot menu. Just so you know, Raspbian is probably the fastest OS out there for the Raspberry Pi.

PINN installation guide: https://html.dynu.net/index.php/installing-pinn/

[procount]

If you replace NOOBS with PINN (it's a modified version of NOOBS with improvements) and connect your Pi to the internet, you will have access to 30-50 OSes that you can download, install and try out. Depending on the size of your SD card, you could install multiple OSes to your SD card and decide which one to run when you boot it up.

If you have only Raspbian installed, it will boot into Raspbian if you do nothing at startup.
If you have multiple OSes installed, you will get a menu to select which one you want to use. if you do nothing, it will select the last used OS for you.
If you press the Shift key on startup, as directed when the Raspberry Logo appears, Then you can get into the NOOBS or PINN recovery program whcih will allow you to download install and try out a different set of OSes.

Additionally, PINN will allow you to replace each OS individually, whereas NOOBS requires the whole SD card to be wiped and reinstalled.

(See my signature for a link to the main PINN thread on this Forum, which will take you to the documentation pages on github and the pinn download from sourceforge. You can install it like you do NOOBS, or there is a version that can be installed by Etcher).
The official documentation and quick start guide is at https://github.com/procount/pinn/blob/master/README.md and https://github.com/procount/pinn/blob/m ... ME_PINN.md


(DarkPlatinum just beat me to it!)

[fruitoftheloom]

If you replace NOOBS with PINN (it's a modified version of NOOBS with improvements) and connect your Pi to the internet, you will have access to 30-50 OSes that you can download, install and try out. Depending on the size of your SD card, you could install multiple OSes to your SD card and decide which one to run when you boot it up.

If you have only Raspbian installed, it will boot into Raspbian if you do nothing at startup.
If you have multiple OSes installed, you will get a menu to select which one you want to use. if you do nothing, it will select the last used OS for you.
If you press the Shift key on startup, as directed when the Raspberry Logo appears, Then you can get into the NOOBS or PINN recovery program whcih will allow you to download install and try out a different set of OSes.

Additionally, PINN will allow you to replace each OS individually, whereas NOOBS requires the whole SD card to be wiped and reinstalled.

(See my signature for a link to the main PINN thread on this Forum, which will take you to the documentation pages on github and the pinn download from sourceforge. You can install it like you do NOOBS, or there is a version that can be installed by Etcher).

(DarkPlatinum just beat me to it!)

viewtopic.php?f=63&t=225568#p1384716

[jahboater]

So I just got a raspberry pi and installed the raspian OS with NOOBS but I would like to try other operating systems to see which one I like best however I am not sure how to switch operating systems.

If anyone knows how to change between operating systems please let me know. Thanks in advance!

Another possibility is just to have multiple SD cards.
Put a different OS on each and have fun!
There is no (user) information stored on the Pi itself, so swapping SD cards is all you need.

[DougieLawson]

So I just got a raspberry pi and installed the raspian OS with NOOBS but I would like to try other operating systems to see which one I like best however I am not sure how to switch operating systems.

Once you've installed one OS with NOOBS you can't change without trashing that (and everything you've done with it) and going back to the NOOBS recovery system to wipe it all out and start again.

If you've got stuff you need on the current Raspbian (complete with a B) system you don't want to lose you've either got to save it away, clone your SDCard to a backup or start your new OS adventure on a new SDCard.

That initial OS choice on the NOOBS menu is a one-shot process.

You'll need a 16GB (better a 32GB) SDCard if you want more than one OS installed on the same SDCard. With NOOBS or PINN as a boot manager.

[HawaiianPi]

Also note that the newer Raspberry Pi 3B+ model requires an updated kernel and firmware, so operating systems other than Raspbian may not be compatible (check with the developers of those other operating systems for 3B+ compatibility).

Another possibility is just to have multiple SD cards.
Put a different OS on each and have fun!
There is no (user) information stored on the Pi itself, so swapping SD cards is all you need.

This is the way I do it.

If you have a Pi 3B or 3B+ you can also boot from a USB drive (flash drive, SSD or HDD).