Raspbian
The obvious choice for a general-purpose operating system, Raspbian was the first OS to receive support for the Raspberry Pi 2, and in a very clever manner. Rather than branching into two builds, Raspbian detects whether it’s running on the original ARMv6 BCM2835 or new ARMv7 BCM2836 and loads an appropriate kernel; everything in user-space, meanwhile, uses ARMv6 code.
Pidora
The Pi-compatible spin of Red Hat-based Linux distribution Fedora, Pidora was lagging behind the Debian-based Raspbian for compatibility; at the time of writing, the official download from the Raspberry Pi Foundation was marked as incompatible with the Raspberry Pi 2. For anyone who can’t live without their rouge chapeau fix, an alternative exists in the form of a community-built spin of Fedora 21, dubbed Fidora, and it’s available in the form of SD card images with a minimal install, and Xfce, KDE or LXDE desktop environments as required.
As this feature went to press, it was unclear whether Pidora’s development would continue or whether it will find itself replaced on the official download pages and within the NOOBS installer by Fidora. In the meantime, Fidora can be downloaded from www.digitaldreamtime.co.uk/images/Fidora for manual installation on an 8GB or larger micro-SD card.
RISC OS
One for the nostalgists, RISC OS is the operating system originally developed for the Acorn Archimedes and RiscPC family of ARM-based computers. Given the Raspberry Pi’s ARM-based processor, it’s a natural fit for the device and includes many of the features you’d expect from a modern operating system, while being immediately familiar to anyone who grew up with Acorn products.
Since RISC OS RC14, the operating system has natively supported both the BCM2835 and BCM2836 processors and – much like Raspbian – can be used on either device with no modifications required. For anyone who requires ultimate responsiveness, RISC OS is a great choice, but don’t expect to have the same expanse of third-party software that’s available with the more mainstream Raspbian or other Linux- or BSDbased systems.
UBUNTU CORE
While Ubuntu had initially been a planned operating system for the original Raspberry Pi boards, Canonical’s decision to drop support for the ARMv6 microarchitecture meant it’s never been compatible - until now. With the ARMv7 BCM2836, it’s possible to run Ubuntu on the Raspberry Pi 2 - but not the original models.
However, you’ll be disappointed if you’re expecting a desktopclass experience. The version of Ubuntu released for the Raspberry Pi is a new spin dubbed Ubuntu Core, and developed specifically for embedded platforms.
Ubuntu Core is a command-line slimline distribution that dispenses with Ubuntu’s usual apt package manager in favour of a new package format dubbed Snappy. While it offers plenty of potential for developers, there isn’t much here for the average user.
OPENELEC
The most popular media-centric Linux distribution for the original Raspberry Pi boards, OpenELEC now supports the new Raspberry Pi 2, meaning it can finally address the poor performance of the Kodi user interface by throwing more compute power at it.
While the version available on the Raspberry Pi downloads page was, at the time of writing, only available for the original model, a manually downloaded image or one installed through NOOBS (new out-of-the-box software – see www.raspberrypi. org/help/noobs-setup ) offers compatibility with the new Raspberry Pi 2.
Be careful, though, as the project has split into two images – one for the BCM2835 and the other for the new BCM2836. For more information on how to install and use OpenELEC, turn to p88.
WINDOWS 10
The announcement that the Raspberry Pi Foundation had partnered with Microsoft to bring support for Windows 10 to the Raspberry Pi 2 was a shock, especially given the company’s recent decision to cease development of the Windows for ARM branch it used on the Surface tablet family.
Anyone hoping that the promised free download will enable a cheap desktop replacement are going to be disappointed, however: although Microsoft has yet to release full details, the company has indicated that Windows 10 for the Raspberry Pi 2 will be an embedded-centric build aimed at developers. The company has previously released a similar variant of Windows 8.1 for Intel’s Galileo development board, and it isn’t a system you’ll be using for day-to-day computing. Windows 10 will also, like Ubuntu Core, be exclusive to the BCM2836; original Raspberry Pi owners need not apply.
