Getting old versions of NOOBS

[nick13131]

I have an extra SD card that I want to use to put operating systems other than Raspian on, but I don't have admin rights on this computer (I can't use the Win32 disk imager!). I have, however, used NOOBS successfully on another SD card.

Where can I get version 1.3.4 (which has ARCH, RISC OS, etc.) for download?

[DirkS]

Try http://downloads.raspberrypi.org/NOOBS/images/
IIRC 1.3.9 was the last one with all the OSs in it, so that would be in http://downloads.raspberrypi.org/NOOBS/ ... 014-07-08/

Gr.
Dirk.

[drgeoff]

If you don't want Raspbian why not put NOOBS-lite on the card and do a network install of the OS(s) you want?

[B.Goode]

Another way...

If you can install NOOBS you can install Raspbian. And once you have installed Raspbian you have a linux-based operating system over which you have complete control, and you can use that to write image files for whatever OS you choose to the spare SD card via a usb-connected sd-card-reader. Not having admin rights on your Windows PC is no longer an impediment.

Raspberry Pi Foundation documentation for this process is found here.

[drgeoff]

Another way...

If you can install NOOBS you can install Raspbian. And once you have installed Raspbian you have a linux-based operating system over which you have complete control, and you can use that to write image files for whatever OS you choose to the spare SD card via a usb-connected sd-card-reader. Not having admin rights on your Windows PC is no longer an impediment.

Raspberry Pi Foundation documentation for this process is found here.

That method is good for putting a single OS on a card. May or may not be the original wish.

[fruitoftheloom]

http://www.berryterminal.com/doku.php/berryboot

[beta-tester]

you can try to make a full NOOBS installation sd card / cards, by downloading the wanted or all OS images by hand at an other computer and create a full pre-downloaded OS compilation.

1. download NOOBS 1.3.10 (normal or lite version)
2. unzipp it to a temporary folder

3. download the available OS list http://downloads.raspberrypi.org/os_list.json to see, that files you need from http://downloads.raspberrypi.org/ to make your full pre-loaded NOOBS compilation.
4. download the files/folders and put them to the NOOBS/os/ folder (only ".xz", ".json", ".sh", ".png" files of the main OS folder, not of its subfolders, are needed. the marketing.tar contains only the banners (.png files) that are shown at installation time - this tar file you have to untar and put the files to its subfolders - e.g. raspbian/A/)
...
5. if you are finished with downloading and putting the files/directories to their place, you can copy the whole NOOBS to a FAT
formated SD card as usual for NOOBS.
when you now boot NOOBS, it does not need to download any of the OS you pre-downloaded.

in case you have a custom OS, you can integrate it to NOOBS as well by following these steps:
https://github.com/raspberrypi/noobs#ho ... os-version

i made it already for the updated version of OpenELEC (because the default provided one for NOOBS is an old) and for PiPLAY...
it is relative easy to do.

[nick13131]

@DirkS I downloaded that one and it worked just fine.

Interesting note: Nearly every site that describes how to use NOOBS says to use the official SD card formatter, yet when I just copy NOOBS to an SD card and boot with my Pi, it somehow works. It even auto-partitions correctly without the official program. Why is that?

[beta-tester]

Nearly every site that describes how to use NOOBS says to use the official SD card formatter, yet when I just copy NOOBS to an SD card and boot with my Pi, it somehow works. It even auto-partitions correctly without the official program. Why is that?

you don't need the special formater for NOOBS but these tools ensure that the partition is prepared in a good and easy way for newbe's. for those, how know how to do it without the tools, they don'T need them.

[B.Goode]

Nearly every site that describes how to use NOOBS says to use the official SD card formatter, yet when I just copy NOOBS to an SD card and boot with my Pi, it somehow works. It even auto-partitions correctly without the official program. Why is that?

NOOBS requires that the SD card be formatted as a single FAT partition. That is normally how SD cards are pre-formatted fresh from the factory. In that case, as you have found, re-formatting is not necessary.