which operating system is best?

[gnewman]

hi guys,
i have just got a new shiny raspberry pi, i dont know which operating systems is best?
which one do you guys recommend?

[tonyhughes]

There is no "best".

The majority on this forum (including me) are likely to recommend Raspbian, as it is recommended by the Foundation, it is easy to use, there is good support here and around the internet in general for it, and it is based on Debian - a very well respected & capable Linux distribution.

But there are plenty of choices, and the Arch Linux and RiscOS and Fedora communities are equally likely to jump in with a similar story, and all those OSes are good too.

What do you want to do with your Pi? If you want a media centre, then suddenly the recommendation changes to RaspBMC, or if you want to do something RiscOS is fantastic at, then it changes again... etc... etc...

[gnewman]

General use at first U know surfing net playing games etc..etc ,then moving on to more challenging stuff when I know how to use it really well

[gnewman]

I heard weezy is not too bad but I was main woundering which software download from the site ?

[tonyhughes]

Yep, Raspbian Wheezy is a very good choice for you. You can download it here:

http://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads

[Cloudcentric]

If you just want to get a feel for Linux both Command Line and Graphical User Environment then you can not go far wrong with Raspbian "wheezy" it is the recommendation of the Raspberry Pi Foundation and download it from:

http://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads


http://debianarmpi.blogspot.co.uk

[tonyhughes]

Snap!

[Cloudcentric]

Touche !

[gnewman]

Thanks guys

[DavidS]

I think that the bigest question is what you are looking for in an OS.

• - If you are looking for the most currently available applications then you probably want Raspbian.
  - If you are looking for a some what sluggish media Center then RaspBMC.
  - If you are looking for a fast and effecient OS designed for the ARM then try RISC OS
  - If you are looking for an exotic OS implemented around a theory as how to improve on others try Plan9
  - If you are just looking at running on the lowest possible level for specialized work, take a look at DexOS.

And of cource this is just a partial list.

There is no "best".

The majority on this forum (including me) are likely to recommend Raspbian, as it is recommended by the Foundation, it is easy to use, there is good support here and around the internet in general for it, and it is based on Debian - a very well respected & capable Linux distribution.

While I agree that there is no best, I would say Linux is Linux for the most part. Yes Raspbian is optimized for the RPi HW.

But there are plenty of choices, and the Arch Linux and RiscOS and Fedora communities are equally likely to jump in with a similar story, and all those OSes are good too.

RiscOS??? That one is news to me as MIPS RiscOS was desinged to run on the MIPS. I had not known that any one had ported it to the ARM.

Though I would also recomend at least taking a look at RISC OS (which is and has always been ARM based) as a good alternative. There is an SD Card image available from the Raspberry Downloads page.

What do you want to do with your Pi? If you want a media centre, then suddenly the recommendation changes to RaspBMC, or if you want to do something RiscOS is fantastic at, then it changes again... etc... etc...

[moravec]

Being partial to openbox, I like pibang. It is also easy to run i3 (which I also like) with a pibang install. Openbox has a little bit of a learning curve but not too bad and it is easy on resources. i3 is a tiling window manager which takes a little bit getting used and probably not best to start out with.

[tonyhughes]

RiscOS??? That one is news to me as MIPS RiscOS was desinged to run on the MIPS. I had not known that any one had ported it to the ARM.

Though I would also recomend at least taking a look at RISC OS (which is and has always been ARM based) as a good alternative. There is an SD Card image available from the Raspberry Downloads page.

Pedantic much?

MIPS RiscOS??? That one is news to me as there is a MIPS RISC/os designed to run on MIPS.

Pretty clear I was talking about RISC OS available on the downloads page of this site, being that I was speaking in the same breath as the Raspberry Pi.

geez

[mrpi64]

Raspbian

XBMC

RetroPi

[Silverslide]

I want to run a C++ program, multithreaded using boost libraries and xerces-c library. Also sqlite but it consist of 1 file as does mongoose. So no problem there. They are compiled into the program. Which OS will be the easiest to install these libraries for? Any experience? A second criterium is stability. Which OS crashes the least?

Thanks!

[NathanBookham]

I want to run a C++ program, multithreaded using boost libraries and xerces-c library. Also sqlite but it consist of 1 file as does mongoose. So no problem there. They are compiled into the program. Which OS will be the easiest to install these libraries for? Any experience? A second criterium is stability. Which OS crashes the least?

Thanks!

It's not really a question of "Which OS crashes the least?", it's more about what you want. If you want a ready-to-go OS, go for Raspbian. If you want a barebones OS that only has the bare minimum, go for Arch.

[djatie]

i want to run client server with C#/mono/xamarin, xml/sql database (mysql/pgsql/or other) and maybe will run web server, wat os best for me, some time i need gui like ldxe but this not very important. thx for help

[DavidS]

I want to run a C++ program, multithreaded using boost libraries and xerces-c library. Also sqlite but it consist of 1 file as does mongoose. So no problem there. They are compiled into the program. Which OS will be the easiest to install these libraries for? Any experience? A second criterium is stability. Which OS crashes the least?

Thanks!

Probably Linux, depending on the extras. So I would say try linux, and if that does not work for you try FreeBSD.

[DavidS]

i want to run client server with C#/mono/xamarin, xml/sql database (mysql/pgsql/or other) and maybe will run web server, wat os best for me, some time i need gui like ldxe but this not very important. thx for help

You enjoy running the slowest possible interpreted languages on earth do you?
Heck MicroSoft 8KB BASIC is faster (in instructiosn per second per MIPS of CPU speed) than any of those, and it was known for being very slow.

Well the obvious choice would be Linux, though it is possible to do the same with FreeBSD.

I am not sure what the question really is as Linux and FreeBSD are the only two OSes for the RPi that I know of at this time that meet your needs.

[MontagueFlange]

Does Raspbian have ICS options ?

[GTR2Fan]

- If you are looking for a some what sluggish media Center then RaspBMC.

In defence of RaspBMC Final, it's very fast and responsive here on a 256MB Rev1 Pi running from an old no-name 4GB Class 6 SDHC card. It drags it's heels noticably on either of my expensive big-name 32GB Class 10 cards, but they both have woefully slow small-transfer speeds compared to any of my cheap Class 4 or Class 6 cards.

I'm running it from an external 3.5" Seagate 1.5TB HDD now and, with the Pi overclocked within safe limits, it's hard to distinguish RaspBMC speed-wise from XBMC running on my Intel C2D 3.67GHz PC, so I think Sam Nazarko has worked wonders with it!

[mahjongg]

RiscOS??? That one is news to me as MIPS RiscOS was desinged to run on the MIPS. I had not known that any one had ported it to the ARM.

That one is not called RiscOS, (or Risc OS) its called MIPS_RISC/os (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIPS_RISC/os), it a much rarer (UNIX like) OS, and came much later than the "real" ARM based Risc OS we were obviously talking about here.

[chrisryall]

Just to say that I chose Raspian specifically because I wanted to become familiar with Unix methods. These are a little "write only memory" at times but I don't regret the decision. In particular a whole load of Internet and networking issues that I used to regard as black arts have become clearer to me.

Having gone that way, would do the same again.

[Phills]

Hello GTR2Fan - I know this thread is old, but I was just reading it and had a question. How did you overlock your Pi? Is there a guide of thread that talks about the specifics?

Thanks!

- If you are looking for a some what sluggish media Center then RaspBMC.

In defence of RaspBMC Final, it's very fast and responsive here on a 256MB Rev1 Pi running from an old no-name 4GB Class 6 SDHC card. It drags it's heels noticably on either of my expensive big-name 32GB Class 10 cards, but they both have woefully slow small-transfer speeds compared to any of my cheap Class 4 or Class 6 cards.

I'm running it from an external 3.5" Seagate 1.5TB HDD now and, with the Pi overclocked within safe limits, it's hard to distinguish RaspBMC speed-wise from XBMC running on my Intel C2D 3.67GHz PC, so I think Sam Nazarko has worked wonders with it!

[ame]

Hello GTR2Fan - I know this thread is old, but I was just reading it and had a question. How did you overlock your Pi? Is there a guide of thread that talks about the specifics?

Thanks!

Did you try typing 'overclock pi' into Google?

[fruitoftheloom]

Hello GTR2Fan - I know this thread is old, but I was just reading it and had a question. How did you overlock your Pi? Is there a guide of thread that talks about the specifics?

Thanks!

- If you are looking for a some what sluggish media Center then RaspBMC.

In defence of RaspBMC Final, it's very fast and responsive here on a 256MB Rev1 Pi running from an old no-name 4GB Class 6 SDHC card. It drags it's heels noticably on either of my expensive big-name 32GB Class 10 cards, but they both have woefully slow small-transfer speeds compared to any of my cheap Class 4 or Class 6 cards.

I'm running it from an external 3.5" Seagate 1.5TB HDD now and, with the Pi overclocked within safe limits, it's hard to distinguish RaspBMC speed-wise from XBMC running on my Intel C2D 3.67GHz PC, so I think Sam Nazarko has worked wonders with it!

Amazing what information the Raspberry Pi Foundation put on their website.

http://www.raspberrypi.org/introducing- ... e-for-free