Installing Debian on a Raspberry Pi

[Enigma83]

Some years ago I bought a Raspberry Pi (can't remember the model, but I think it was a 3B). I used it for a few months, mainly trying out different tutorials from the Web. When I bought it I didnt really have a clear purpose to use it for, but the concept of Linux on a small computer was intriguing enough. Eventually, I moved to a new neighborhood, and placed all my belongings in containers, much of which has been sitting in the same storage unit for well over 5 yrs. I go to the unit every now and then to grab items as needed. But I now need to do a "spring cleaning", take a complete inventory of everything in there, and that is when I remembered that I had an RPI in there buried in one of several dozen boxes. And now I figure "why not use it, otherwise it's a waste of hardware that I paid for". I'm happy and well established where I'm at now, there is no real chance of moving anytime soon.

Anyway, I know there is RPI OS on their official website. Which is think is just based on Debian anyway. Should I go with the RPI OS images they've provided? Or perhaps a pure Debian install would work just as well? If it can run the latest Bookworm, then I think I should go with that, since it will continue to get updates for awhile longer, and definitely as long as it's the current stable release. Or maybe the RPI would be better served by a rolling release distro like Arch?

My main concern is that eventually, whatever RPI OS/Debian I install on it will no longer get regular updates. Whereas a rolling distro like Arch will get updates "forever", and should continue to work for as long as the hardware is supported by Linux. I can't foresee a situation in which the hardware will reach an unsupported state, not anytime soon. Linux has a track record of continuing to support old hardware for many yrs, and in the case of an RPI, I suspect the hardware will die long before a hypothetical scenario of its' hardware not being supported by Linux anymore.

[limotux]

Some years ago I bought a Raspberry Pi (can't remember the model, but I think it was a 3B). I used it for a few months, mainly trying out different tutorials from the Web. When I bought it I didnt really have a clear purpose to use it for, but the concept of Linux on a small computer was intriguing enough. Eventually, I moved to a new neighborhood, and placed all my belongings in containers, much of which has been sitting in the same storage unit for well over 5 yrs. I go to the unit every now and then to grab items as needed. But I now need to do a "spring cleaning", take a complete inventory of everything in there, and that is when I remembered that I had an RPI in there buried in one of several dozen boxes. And now I figure "why not use it, otherwise it's a waste of hardware that I paid for". I'm happy and well established where I'm at now, there is no real chance of moving anytime soon.

Anyway, I know there is RPI OS on their official website. Which is think is just based on Debian anyway. Should I go with the RPI OS images they've provided? Or perhaps a pure Debian install would work just as well? If it can run the latest Bookworm, then I think I should go with that, since it will continue to get updates for awhile longer, and definitely as long as it's the current stable release. Or maybe the RPI would be better served by a rolling release distro like Arch?

My main concern is that eventually, whatever RPI OS/Debian I install on it will no longer get regular updates. Whereas a rolling distro like Arch will get updates "forever", and should continue to work for as long as the hardware is supported by Linux. I can't foresee a situation in which the hardware will reach an unsupported state, not anytime soon. Linux has a track record of continuing to support old hardware for many yrs, and in the case of an RPI, I suspect the hardware will die long before a hypothetical scenario of its' hardware not being supported by Linux anymore.

This is an interesting topic for me.
It has been a while I was thinking to get a Raspberry Pi to use it with some external USB drives for my personal cloud storage. I am using an old laptop in addition to this laptop with Resilio Sync.
The only thing that kept me from getting it I was not sure how would I install an OS of my choice on the Raspberry Pi.
I hope I will get some feedback on how to do it.
Sorry, I am not that techie, maybe I didn't read enough (a bit impatient, a bit old man here), I do not know how if it is possible to connect the Raspberry Pi to my laptop (well, I need a keyboard and a screen, don't I) so I can install Debian on it and use it for my personal cloud.

[bbbhltz]

There is plenty of info about this topic around the web and on the specific Rpi forums.

I like the idea of just putting Debian on everything, but there is an advantage to using the official Raspberry Pi OS spin. Once you flash the ISO to the microSD (or whatever) it is installed. You can even setup the WiFi before putting the microSD in the Pi and powering it on.

In the past I used alarm (Arch Linux on ARM) but in the end I stuck with the official spin. Especially when I used it to host my personal cloud, I didn't want update daily or even weekly.

If you go the route of using the Pi as a desktop, at least check out the other available OSs to see what they do software-, DE- and WM-wise.

Re: updates

I think ARM-based devices will continue to receive updates for a long time, and with Raspberry Pi thinking about going public there is a good chance they will continue maintaining the devices as well.

[limotux]

I like the idea of just putting Debian on everything, but there is an advantage to using the official Raspberry Pi OS spin. Once you flash the ISO to the microSD (or whatever) it is installed. You can even setup the WiFi before putting the microSD in the Pi and powering it on.
....

I appreciate your feedback @bbbhltz
I thought that Debian would give me a more powerful machine.
I will follow up the thread to learn more.

Thank you all for everything.
Amazing distro and amazing community.

[Enigma83]

I found this:
https://wiki.debian.org/RaspberryPiImages

Seems like a viable alt to the official Raspberry Pi OS images. Not sure if there would be any downsides. The builds appear to be Debian built specifically for these devices.

For 100% guaranteed compatibility, the official images would probably be better. But these might be worth a try anyway. Can't hurt to test. And read the release notes for these images, not all are problem-free. There are Bookwork/12 stable variants too. I also noticed that there are daily images and tested images. The daily images are of course untested and have no release notes, so they're possibly not as reliable as the tested images.

[limotux]

Thanks @Enigma83
Checking the link you provided it says

We are automatically building daily images to run on all of the Raspberry Pi models.

I wonder if this means I will be getting daily updates? Is it as stable as Debian that we use on laptops?
If it requires frequent updates I don't think it would be a good idea for personal cloud!

[Enigma83]

Thanks @Enigma83
Checking the link you provided it says

We are automatically building daily images to run on all of the Raspberry Pi models.

I wonder if this means I will be getting daily updates? Is it as stable as Debian that we use on laptops?
If it requires frequent updates I don't think it would be a good idea for personal cloud!

From what I can tell, Debian rarely gets daily updates. I remember when I last had Arch installed, it seemed like new packages were available almost every time I ran pacman. And because it's rolling release, installing any new packages meant that you had to update everything else alongside it.

Unfortunately, I can't test any images yet. I found the Pi in one box, but the power supply wasn't with it. I know it's buried in one of those boxes, just have to figure out which one. I know I didn't lose it.

[Hallvor]

I don't think you'll be happy using this as a desktop computer; the hardware is too weak to run modern desktop environments and web browsers in a sensible manner. As a headless server of some sort, these little things are very nice! They are completely silent and use very little electricity. (I use a Raspberry Pi 2 Model B for this purpose.)

Just use Debian. Dist-upgrading from one version to the next is much less complicated on a headless system; they should be flawless if you read the release notes and follow standard procedure, and I have done so successfully many times.

It is a myth that Debian must be reinstalled, and that rolling release distros don't. The oldest current GNU/Linux install - probably on the planet - is a Debian installation from 1993: https://www.theregister.com/2022/07/25/ ... _upgraded/

[Enigma83]

I don't think you'll be happy using this as a desktop computer; the hardware is too weak to run modern desktop environments and web browsers in a sensible manner. As a headless server of some sort, these little things are very nice! They are completely silent and use very little electricity. (I use a Raspberry Pi 2 Model B for this purpose.)

Just use Debian. Dist-upgrading from one version to the next is much less complicated on a headless system; they should be flawless if you read the release notes and follow standard procedure, and I have done so successfully many times.

It is a myth that Debian must be reinstalled, and that rolling release distros don't. The oldest current GNU/Linux install - probably on the planet - is a Debian installation from 1993: https://www.theregister.com/2022/07/25/ ... _upgraded/

If I were to run a desktop on it all, I would limit it to a lightweight window manager like Openbox. No full blown DE. Like you say, probably as a headless setup, accessed mainly via CLI.

[Enigma83]

Found the power supply, of course mixed in with a bag of drycleaned suits that I haven't worn in like forever. Don't know how they ended up in such an odd place, but I was pretty haphazard and in a rush when packing the boxes. Time to get digging and choose something to flash on the 64GB MicroSD.

[bbbhltz]

As mentioned by @Uptorn, use as a desktop will be a lagging experience. Not impossible, but patience will be required. I did use a Pi3 for a number of months as a desktop, but I wasn't watching any YT on it. It was an email checking machine that could also play music.