Questions about the Raspberry Pi's Operating Systems.

[Rehan Choudhery]

Hello. I have some questions about the Raspberry Pi. Before I start, I would like to tell you that I'm not so smart with electronics. I have never used Linux before. Anyway, on to the questions.

1. I would like to ask, Is there ANY version of windows that is compatible with the Raspberry Pi?

2. If there is not ANY version of windows that is compatible with the Raspberry Pi, what is the best operating system for it that is good for the person who is switching from windows?

3. If anyone has a Raspberry Pi, could they please post a review on it?

[JeremyF]

No version of Windows is compatible with the Raspberry Pi, and there never will be one. (Not even Windows 8; and Windows CE, while still Windows, can"t run x86 software so there isn"t really a point to it unless you like Internet Explorer 6)

At the moment there are three operating systems compatible with the Raspberry Pi. (later there will be a fourth and fifth, Puppy Linux and RiscOS) The three current operating systems are Debian Linux, Fedora (Remix) Linux, and Arch Linux. Right now Fedora is buggy and Arch is too advanced for most beginners. Even when Fedora becomes less buggy, I recommend Debian as it can be configured to be very user friendly. (Although Fedora can too.)

(What most people don"t understand is that they aren"t dependent on Windows in most cases. They just want an easy to use graphical interface with an internet browser, a word processor, spreadsheet tool, and presentation designer. All of these things can be accomplished in Linux rather easily--you can even, if motivated, skin a Linux desktop to look like Windows.)

[abishur]

Rehan Choudhery said:


Hello. I have some questions about the Raspberry Pi. Before I start, I would like to tell you that I'm not so smart with electronics. I have never used Linux before. Anyway, on to the questions.

1. I would like to ask, Is there ANY version of windows that is compatible with the Raspberry Pi?

2. If there is not ANY version of windows that is compatible with the Raspberry Pi, what is the best operating system for it that is good for the person who is switching from windows?

3. If anyone has a Raspberry Pi, could they please post a review on it?



1. Yes, Windows 3.1 barely squeaks by while using dosbox, it has no networking and it's video abilities are laughable   No version of Windows that would actually be useful to the general user will work

2. Linux is the *only* OS that is capable of working with the R-pi at the moment.  There is some work being done to get riscOS installed, but that's rather advanced.  Linux comes in many flavors and for the moment I would recommend the Debian distro

3. Cycle through the front page and twitter, there are *tons* of reviews on it

[abishur]

side note, please don't spam the tags section of the post in the future.

[Jongoleur]

A few more points.

All the operating systems that are currently available for the Raspberry Pi can be downloaded (for free) from thos location http://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads.

Any of these may then be transferred to an SD memory card for use on the Pi. Full instructions are available on the download page.

There are also a number of links to reviews in the News articles and blog posts thread in the General Discussion forum, http://www.raspberrypi.org/for.....-50#p70466

Theres a lot of stuff about the Pi in the forum.  Have a good look around!

[Rehan Choudhery]

Thanks for the detailed answers. I'm going to give Debian "Squeeze" a try. Also, I wont spam the tags again.

[CrashlanderXL]

I don't know if this helps at all but you can actually download Ubuntu (a version of Linux) and run it from windows without installing it.



http://www.ubuntu.com/download.....ou-install



I'm not sure if this will help you at all, as I don't think Ubuntu will be available for the Pi, but the point is you could download a non-windows, Linux variant OS and have a bit of a play with it without upsetting what you already have.

[antiloquax]

One good way to get used to Linux (if you don't want to actually install it on your PC) is to make a bootable usb. Then you can boot into it if you wish without altering your Windows drive at all, and of course it'll save your changes and so on in a way that's much simpler than if you are working with a Live-CD.

I am a Puppy user and I'd recommend giving Puppy a try.

This link is for the latest version of Racy.

And this one takes you to Slacko. Both are excellent Operating Systems. They are fast and lightweight.

Puppy includes very helpful utilities for installing onto a bootable USB. I have sticks with Racy and Slacko on which I use very regularly! Your whole system on a memory stick!

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