RPi Distributions

=Available Distributions=

What is armhf
The Debian Squeeze image originally issued by the Raspberry Pi foundation as the recommended distribution used "soft float" settings. The foundation felt necessary to use the existing Debian port for less-capable ARM devices due to time and resource constraints during development of the Raspberry Pi. Therefore, it does not make use of the Pi's processor's floating point hardware - reducing the Pi's performance during floating point intensive applications - or the advanced instructions of the ARMv6 CPU.

The official Raspberry Pi distributions are now optimized for ARMv6 and for "hard float" which should have better performance on certain CPU intensive tasks.

There are some info on the news groups that "hard float" optimization can speed up floating point operating up to 10x, please read detailed discussion on the Raspberry Pi forums.

Android
Discuss: Forum at raspberrypi.org

Wiki & Main site

Fedora Remix
The Raspberry Pi Fedora Remix is a Linux software distribution for the Raspberry Pi computer. It contains software packages from the Fedora Project (specifically, the Fedora ARM secondary architecture project), packages which have been specifically written for or modified for the Raspberry Pi, and proprietary software provided by the Raspberry Pi Foundation for device access.


 * wiki page

Debian (Squeeze/6.x)
http://www.debian.org/ports/arm/

Debian was the default distribution on the Alpha boards. Boot time depends on width & speed of SD-card. Alpha board boot into Debian prompt (no GUI) was timed taking about 34 seconds.

The Debian distro for Raspberry Pi is the Cambridge reference filesystem, which is a fully functional Debian Squeeze installation containing LXDE (desktop) and Midori (browser); development tools; and sample code for accessing the multimedia functionality on the device.

Arch
Arch Linux ARM is based on Arch Linux, which aims for simplicity and full control to the end user. It provides a lightweight base structure that allows you to shape the system to your needs. For this reason, the Arch Linux ARM image for the Raspberry Pi does not come with a graphical user interface, though you can easily install one yourself. Please note that the Arch distribution may not be suitable for beginners.

Arch Linux ARM is on a rolling-release cycle that can be updated daily through small packages instead of huge updates every few months.

More information is available at http://archlinuxarm.org

Raspbian
Raspberry Pi + Debian = Raspbian. A project to create a hard float port of Debian Wheezy (7.x) armhf for the Raspberry Pi. The intent of Raspbian is to bring to the Raspberry Pi user 10,000s of pre-built Debian packages specifically tuned for optimal performance on the Raspberry Pi hardware. The project is still in its early phases, but the major push to rebuild nearly all Debian packages for the Raspberry Pi is expected to be completed by early June, 2012 (only several hundred packages remain as of June 1st). After that, efforts will focus on making Raspbian the easiest to use, most stable and best performing Linux distribution available for the Raspberry Pi.

More information is available at http://www.raspbian.org

DietPi
DietPi - Minimal Raspbian Image

At its core, DietPi is the goto image for a minimal Raspbian/Debian Server install. We've stripped down and removed everything from the official Raspbian image to give us a bare minimal Raspbian server image that we call DietPi-Core.

DietPi - Core (Minimal image stats):
 * Minimal and optimized Raspbian Image for all Pi models.
 * DietPi-Software: Install optional "ready to run" software, quickly and easily, with optimizations unique to your Pi model.
 * DietPi-Config: A feature rich config tool for your Pi. Overclock and tweak your pi, scan and connect to wifi SSID's, and many many more options.
 * ARMhf - hardware floating point calculations.
 * Small 120MB compressed image.
 * Fits on a 1GB or greater SD card
 * Only 11 running processes after boot
 * 16MB of memory usage after boot
 * RamLog installed. All logs goto RAM and get cleared on daily basis with cron (saves SD writes, performance increased, no need for rsyslog).
 * Lightweight SSH server (Dropbear) is installed instead of OpenSSH.
 * Wifi Support. Unlike most Raspbian minimal images, ours includes full Wifi support.

DietPi-Software: DietPi-Software allows for popular, optional install choices. All of which are pre-configured and "ready to run" with all the optimizations and configurations done for you. This ensures you get the maximum performance from your Pi and the software you choose to install
 * LXDE (Lightweight Desktop, without the bloatware found in Raspbian)
 * Kodi / Xbmc
 * Gaming (RetroPie)
 * Gaming (OpenTyrian Game)
 * Bittorrent Server (Transmission)
 * OwnCloud Server
 * DLNA/UPnP Media Server (MiniDLNA)
 * HiFi / Web Interface Music Player (MPD + YMPD)
 * Forums (phpbb3)
 * Web Server (Apache2 + mysql + php5 + phpmyadmin)
 * FTP server (Proftpd)
 * File Server (Samba)
 * VPN Server (SoftEther)
 * Website URL Address (No-Ip)

DietPi-Config: DietPi-Config is a feature rich configuration tool for your Pi:
 * Change overclocking profiles
 * Change resolution, set audio output, analogue audio quality etc.
 * Tweak ARM temp limits, change CPU governor settings and many more.
 * Full networking tool that allows you to connect to Wifi SSIDs easily, change static IP's address, and many more options.
 * Samba client utility allows you to quickly and easily connect to Windows Shares.
 * NoIp client utility, allows you to quickly and easily setup your website address for your Pi.

DietPi - Download / Info

nOS
nOS is an operating system for the Raspberry Pi that aims to make the device simple, fast and easy to use. It incorporates an XFCE desktop which is lightweight and user friendly for previous users of Microsoft Windows. It uses a modified version of the NOOBS installer for the installation as it only requires a quick drag and drop to the SD card.

More information is available at http://www.nos.net.nz

Moebius
A very compact ARM HF distribution, using 20Mb of RAM (with SSH server running) for the entire operating system. It fits in a 128Mb SD card, has auto-resizing features to better adapt to your SD card size and uses its own repositories for installing everything you need. A wise configuration and a small memory footprint are ideal for an headless machine or for interacting with real word I/O devices, take a look at Moebius Website. Version 2 is current stable version.

Raspbian Server Edition
This is a stripped-down version of Raspbian with some extra packages.
 * Main site of version 2.3
 * Download Version 2.3

Red Sleeve Linux
Red Sleeve Linux is a Linux distribution that aims to bring the RHEL clone design to the ARM architecture. There are images for several ARM devices including the Raspberry Pi.

IPFire
IPFire is an Open Source firewall distribution for x86 and ARM-based systems. It turns the Raspberry Pi computer into a small router for home networks and very small businesses. As the Raspberry Pi computer comes with only one NIC, it works perfectly as a 3G router without plugging in additional hardware.

The generally small system that provides essential services for networks can be enhanced by addons which add new features to IPFire. So the system can be turned into a file server and much more.

More information is available at http://www.ipfire.org

Raspberry Pi Thin Client
Thin Client project want to create a very cheap thin client over Raspberry Pi board! Microsoft RDC, Citrix ICA & VMWare View
 * Homepage
 * Download

BerryTerminal
BerryTerminal is a minimal Linux distribution designed to turn the Raspberry Pi mini computer into a low-cost thin client. It allows users to login to a central Edubuntu or other LTSP server, and run applications on the central server
 * Main Site
 * Download

GeeXboX ARM
GeeXboX is a free and Open Source Media-Center purposed Linux distribution for embedded devices and desktop computers. GeeXboX is not an application, it’s a full-featured OS, that one can boot as a LiveCD, from a USB key, an SD/MMC card or install on its regular HDD. The GeeXboX distribution is lightweight and designed for one single goal: embed all major multimedia applications as to turn your computer into an HTPC.

http://www.geexbox.org/category/arm/

ANDROID TRANSPORTER
The Android Transporter allows you to share display content wirelessly with remote screens in real time. Please be aware that the Transporter is still a technology study and it is missing the maturity of a full-featured product. However, we think that the Android Transporter is already exciting enough to let you play around with it. We believe that with the recently released Miracast standard you will get a very similar technology in upcoming Android devices, and we are considering making the Transporter compliant with the Miracast specs.

QUICK START GUIDE Let’s start with the Asus Nexus 7. By installing the Android Transporter firmware on your Asus Nexus 7 all data on the device will be removed including the contents of the /sdcard directory! So maybe you want to backup some data before you begin. To start, enable USB debugging on your Nexus 7 by switching on this option under Settings -> Developer options. Next, unlock the bootloader of your Nexus 7 device. This will void your device warranty and it will also do a factory reset! Install the adb and fastboot utilities. On Microsoft Windows you will also need Google’s USB drivers. Just search the Internet for instructions how to install this tools. Unlocking the bootloader is done by getting the device into the bootloader using the adb reboot bootloader command. Now unlock it with the fastboot oem unlock command. Download the Android Transporter firmware for the Asus Nexus 7 and unpack it. Reboot your Nexus 7 device into the bootloader using adb reboot bootloader. In the Android-Transporter directory you will find the flash script, which is called flash-all.sh. Be aware that the fastboot utility has to be available in the PATH environment for the flash script. Execute the flash script. Your Asus Nexus 7 is now ready. To switch back to the original Nexus 7 firmware image you should first download it fromGoogle’s factory images site. Then you can flash the original firmware image using the same instructions that you used to flash the Android Transporter firmware image.

Let’s move on to the Raspberry Pi. Download the Android Transporter firmware for the Raspberry Pi and unpack it. Insert an SD card into your card reader and flash the firmware image using the dd utility: sudo dd bs=1M if=esrlabs-rpi-android-transporter-2012-10-02.img of=/dev/sdX. Substitute /dev/sdX with the real SD card device name. For more information on flashing the Raspberry Pi see the Embedded Linux Wiki page for the Raspberry Pi. The Raspberry Pi is now also ready.

Next, you have to set up the networking between the two devices. You can either connect both devices to your home router or you can make use of the Raspberry Pi Wi-Fi hotspot. Both scenarios require the Raspberry Pi to be plugged into your home router. The Wi-Fi hotspot works with USB Wi-Fi adapters that are supported by the Realtek rtl8192cu Linux driver. We tested the Wi-Fi hotspot with the Netgear N150 Microadapter and with the Asus N13 Wi-Fi Stick. It works well with both Wi-Fi sticks except that we occasionally had some power consumption issues with the Asus device. If you want to make use of the Wi-Fi hotspot plug in the stick before the Raspberry Pi starts up. The network name of the Wi-Fi hotspot is RaspberryPiAP and the default password is E.S.R.Labs. The Wi-Fi hotspot may have the advantage that the Android Transporter has its own dedicated network to minimize the latency jitter during screen mirroring. If you connect both devices to your home router please make sure that the Wi-Fi transmitting power of your router is set to high. Otherwise you may experience high packet loss, which is bad for the Android Transporter.

When you now connect your Nexus 7 to the Wi-Fi network and start the Android Transporter you should see the Raspberry Pi in the list of available media hubs. The Raspberry Pi has announced itself as media sink via service discovery. Just tap on the Raspberry Pi item to start the screen mirroring. If you want to stop the screen mirroring just pull down the notification bar and click the Android Transporter “Switch off” item.

By default the Android Transporter will make use of the H.264 over RTP over UDP streaming protocols according to RFC3984. If you are in a building with a lot of Wi-Fi networks, it may be possible that the Android Transporter does not work really well because of high packet loss. If that is the case you should switch to the H.264 over RTP over TCP streaming protocols according to RFC3984 and RFC4571. You can do this in the preferences of the Android Transporter app. The latency will typically be around 20-30ms higher when using the reliable TCP transport protocol.

Enjoy the Android Transporter tech demo.

The Android Transporter is a custom ROM and not an app since we had to make adjustemts to various parts of the Android platform to make it happen.

DarkElec
None of the currently available solutions do a perfect job with running XBMC/Kodi on the Pi, however OpenELEC comes by far the closest, in spite of its locked-down nature. This fork aims to remedy the very few flaws in its implementation and to focus 100% on the Pi, while also sticking to upstream and incorporating its updates. Features: •Low idle CPU usage (< 15%) •Smoother and more responsive •Built-in XBMC addons: iPlayer, custom fixed version of Demand 5, various unofficial repos •iPlayer, 4oD, Demand 5, ITV Player, SportsDevil all fully tested+working •Improved wifi connectivity •Added test-connman scripts for easy wifi setup •Added wireless_tools (iwconfig etc.) •Added rndis_wlan wifi driver (broadcom 4320 chipset) •Easy SD card installation script for building from source


 * Main site
 * Download DarkELEC Release 3

OpenELEC
OpenELEC is an embedded operating system built specifically to run XBMC, the Open Source entertainment media hub. The idea behind OpenELEC is to allow people to use their Home Theatre PC (HTPC) like any other device you might have attached to your TV, like a DVD player or Sky box. Instead of having to manage a full operating system, configure it and install the packages required to turn it into a hybrid media center, OpenELEC is designed to be simple to install, manage and use, making it more like running a set-top box than a full-blown computer.


 * OpenELEC Mainsite
 * In February 2012, OpenELEC.tv announced their ARM port for Raspberry Pi
 * OpenELEC forum thread
 * RaspberryPi forum thread
 * Raspberry Pi build instructions for OpenELEC

Raspbmc
Raspbmc is a minimal Linux distribution based on Debian that brings XBMC/Kodi to your Raspberry Pi. This device has an excellent form factor and enough power to handle media playback, making it an ideal component in a low HTPC setup, yet delivering the same XBMC/Kodi experience that can be enjoyed on much more expensive platforms. Raspbmc is brought to you by the developer of the Crystalbuntu Linux Distribution, which brings XBMC/Kodi and 1080p decoding to the 1st generation Apple TV.


 * Main Site


 * Blog
 * image
 * 1-click-Installer (Win)
 * Installation instructions (Mac/Lin)
 * source

XBian
XBian is a small, fast and lightweight media center distro for the Raspberry Pi, based on a minimal Raspbian image. It's slogan is "XBMC on Raspberry Pi, bleeding edge" and thus it's main focus is delivering the fastest XBMC/Kodi solution for the Raspberry Pi. Thereby making most of the commercial media-center products obsolete...

Features:


 * Fits on a 1GB SD card
 * Low RAM and CPU usage
 * Very smooth UI
 * Auto mount USB
 * AFP support
 * NFS support
 * AirPlay support
 * CEC support
 * Lirc support
 * PVR support
 * Kernel 3.10.9
 * Performance as the default governor
 * Out of the box support for almost all wlan adapters
 * User friendly configuration tool xbian-config
 * Source code on github
 * Large community
 * Debian-based Apt repo so keeping your system up-to-date is easy.


 * Main Site
 * Xbian Github

RasPlex
RasPlex is an Entertainment Center Solution for Raspberry Pi Simply put, RasPlex lets you turn your TV into a Smart TV. Similar to the AppleTV, but completely free and Open Source, RasPlex is basically a set-top box software. Once RasPlex is stable, it will have support for legacy console game emulation (NES, SNES, etc), as well as Plex Channels (Netflix, Crackle, Youtube, etc). RasPlex is a Plex Home Theater Client More technically stated, RasPlex is a complete port of Plex Home Theater (formerly Plex Media Center) for Raspberry Pi. RasPlex currently runs on OpenELEC for reasons of limited manpower, but there is a working Raspbian port that just needs some time to be brought up to speed. RasPlex was created on Gentoo linux, but that port has since been abandoned for performance reasons. We regularly merge in changes from Plex Home Theater and OpenELEC. Once things cool off a bit and we are more stable (or we get the manpower), we will maintain a Raspbian release as well. RasPlex is the Perfect Companion to a Plex Media Server Many people will use expensive computers as Plex Clients, or have to go through the inconvenient of plugging a computer into their TV every time they want to use Plex. With RasPlex, just plug it in and your media is always ready. Put one on every TV, and have your media everywhere! You can even put RasPlex on your friend's TV's, and watch your media remotely.
 * Download
 * Main Site

PwnPi
PwnPi is a Linux-based penetration testing Dropbox distribution for the Raspberry Pi. It currently has 181 network security tools pre-installed to aid the penetration tester. It is built on the Debian Squeeze image from the Raspberry Pi foundation's website and uses XFCE as window manager
 * http://pwnpi.net/

ha-pi
Description This Debian Squeeze image created to perform "pwn plug" type of attacks using Raspberry Pi. Please look at the wiki for further details Wiki
 * Main Site

Kali
Kali Linux Features

Kali is a complete rebuild of BackTrack Linux, adhering completely to Debian development standards. All-new infrastructure has been put in place, all tools were reviewed and packaged, and we use Git as VCS. rk3306 mk/ss808 Raspberry Pi ODROID U2/X2 Samsung Chromebook
 * More than 300 penetration testing tools: After reviewing every tool that was included in BackTrack, we eliminated a great number of tools that either did not work or had other tools available that provided similar functionality.
 * Free and always will be: Kali Linux, like its predecessor, is completely free and always will be. You will never, ever have to pay for Kali Linux.
 * Open Git source tree: We are huge proponents of Open Source software and our development tree is available for all to see and all sources are available for those who wish to tweak and rebuild packages.
 * FHS compliant: Kali has been developed to adhere to the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard, allowing all Linux users to easily locate binaries, support files, libraries, etc.
 * Wide wireless device support: We have built Kali Linux to support as many wireless devices as we possibly can, allowing it to run properly on a wide variety of hardware and making it compatible with numerous USB and other wireless devices.
 * Custom kernel patched for injection: As penetration testers, the development team often needs to do wireless assessments so our kernel has the latest injection patches included.
 * Secure development environment: The Kali Linux team is made up of a small group of trusted individuals who can only commit packages and interact with the repositories while using multiple secure protocols.
 * GPG signed packages and repos: All Kali packages are signed by each individual developer when they are built and committed and the repositories subsequently sign the packages as well.
 * Multi-language: Although pentesting tools tend to be written in English, we have ensured that Kali has true multilingual support, allowing more users to operate in their native language and locate the tools they need for the job.
 * Completely customizable: We completely understand that not everyone will agree with our design decisions so we have made it as easy as possible for our more adventurous users to customize Kali Linux to their liking, all the way down to the kernel.
 * ARMEL and ARMHF support: Since ARM-based systems are becoming more and more prevalent and inexpensive, we knew that Kali’s ARM support would need to be as robust as we could manage, resulting in working installations for both ARMEL and ARMHF systems. Kali Linux has ARM repositories integrated with the mainline distribution so tools for ARM will be updated in conjunction with the rest of the distribution. Kali is currently available for the following ARM devices:

Kali is specifically tailored to penetration testing and therefore, all documentation on this site assumes prior knowledge of the Linux operating system. Install Download If all you want to do is to install Kali on your Raspberry Pi, follow these instructions: On Windows you can use win32 disk imagier Guide how to usewin32 disk imagier
 * 1.Get a nice fast 8 GB (or more) SD card. Class 10 cards are highly recommended.
 * 2.Download the Kali Linux Raspberry Pi image from our downloads area.
 * 3.Use the dd utility to image this file to your SD card.

Alert! This process will wipe out your SD card. If you choose the wrong storage device, you will wipe out your computer's hard disk.

This process can take a while depending on your USB storage device speed and image size. Once the dd operation is complete, boot up your Rasberry Pi with the SD card plugged in. You will be able to log in to Kali (root / toor) and startx. That’s it, you’re done!
 * Main Site

I2Pberry
The Invisible Internet Project (I2P) is a computer network layer that allows applications to send messages to each other pseudonymously and securely. Uses include anonymous web surfing, chatting, blogging and file transfers. The software that implements this layer is called an I2P router and a computer running I2P is called an I2P node. The software is Free and Open Source and is published under multiple licenses.

I2Pberry was created to turn a Raspberry Pi into a I2P node through which you can access all the services offered through I2P. Detailed installation instructions and alternate download methods are included on our main site.


 * Main Site
 * Torrent

Bodhi
Bodhi Linux is a small Linux distribution using the Enlightenment window manager and the ARM build is based on Debian.

If you hit any snags or find bugs with this image please let us know in the R_Pi section of our user forums so we can improve this release.


 * ARMHF announced for Bodhi Linux on R_Pi
 * Release Announcement from Bodhi Developer Blog
 * Download from SourceForge.net
 * what-about-the-raspberry-pi Forum thread

Alpha Release | Link Alpha Bodhi R_Pi) User/Password: bodhi/bodhi  root/raspberry Beta Release | Link Beta Bodhi R_Pi User/Password: pi/bodhilinux   Root: sudo su root/bodhilinux

Bodhi Linux moves ARM branch to ARMHF Download newest Release from SourceForge.net The R_Pi Bodhi build is built directly on top of Raspbian and incorporates all of their changes and improvements.

Gentoo
Gentoo Linux is a source based rolling-release meta-distribution which emphasizes choice and flexibility. Gentoo ARM aims to be the most up to date and fastest ARM distribution available.

A Quick Start Guide exists how to install Gentoo on the Raspberry Pi.

Gentoo Section on the official Raspberry Pi forum.

Adafruit - Occidentalis v0.1
http://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-raspberry-pi-educational-linux-distro/occidentalis-v0-dot-1 Occidentalis v0.1. Rubus occidentalis is the black raspberry. It is derived from Raspbian Wheezy July 15 Made a few key changes to make it more hardware-hacker friendly! ... Please keep in mind, adafruit is not full time linux distro maintainers - we will try to fix any bugs we find but this distro is not for beginners or people who are new to linux!
 * I2C and hardware SPI support
 * I2C/SPI modules initialized on boot

Tiny Core Linux
What is Tiny Core?

First, if you don't know what Linux and distributions are, you should read some interesting and conflicting definitions of Linux. Then, read about distributions. In short, the Tiny Core distribution is like a customized version of the Linux kernel and other tools

Download

RISC OS
RISC OS is a fast and lightweight computer operating system designed in Cambridge, England by Acorn. First released in 1987, its origins can be traced back to the original team that developed the ARM microprocessor. RISC OS includes BBC BASIC which was primarily conceived to teach programming skills as part of the BBC computer literacy project.


 * RISC OS Open (ROOL) has released the sources. Community members have ported the OS to the BeagleBoard and similar hardware
 * In November 2011, RISCOScode.com announced that RISC OS will be available as an alternative OS for Raspberry Pi from launch
 * RaspberryPi forum thread
 * ROOL forum thread
 * http://www.pilearn.com/Pages/Page1001.html

Commodore Pi
What It Is... The goal of this project is to develop a native Commodore 64 emulator and operating system for the Raspberry Pi, with the following features: •Fast boot up time - nearly instant on •Output to HDMI and composite video sources •GPIO pin connection to external devices (hooks via the kernal code) •Ethernet connection •USB Connections •Access to the full RAM of the Pi possibly via bank switching •Multitasking by means of multiple emulation cores •Modern graphics modes Think of the project as a Commodore 64 operating system. It is based on the Comeback64 emulator. The goal will be to include all of the expected emulation features such as SID sound, sprites, joystick connectivity, REU access, etc. In time, even the emulation speed could be changed, as well as additional modern graphics modes. Links Just copy to your Raspbian card. It has only been tested on composite output
 * Git Repository
 * A video of the OS running
 * Latest bootable SD card

PiParted
A lot of issues come from people not knowing how to do it right, e.g. just dropping the img file onto an SD card. So I’ve customised a GParted LiveCD ISO and written up a custom script to *hopefully* install a distro straight onto an SD card. This is a very early iteration of this idea, but hopefully will develop into something useful.

At the moment, essentially what it will do is


 * 1. Grab the list of Distros from the RPI Download page
 * 2. Let the user select which distro he wants to install
 * 3. Select the Disk device that he wants to install it onto
 * 4. dd the image onto the disk device.
 * 5. Flash OS from zip file on SD Card:
 * 6. Reset SD Card: This will format an SD Card back to defaults, i.e. one vfat partition.
 * Download
 * Main site

PiBang Linux
PiBang linux is a Raspbian-based distribution. PiBang is inspired by Crunchbang Linux, an i686 and x86_68 Debian-based distribution. It comes preconfigured with many helpful scripts and pipemenus as well as a fork of Raspi-config with increases functions such as support for changing the user and hostname. PiBang is also one of the heavier Rasperry Pi distributions boasting a complete package set with favorites such as Abiword, OMXPlayer, GIMP, and VLC all pre-installed.

http://www.pibanglinux.org

Plan 9
Plan 9 is a distributed operating system originally designed and implemented by Ken Thompson, Rob Pike, Dave Presotto, and Phil Winterbottom @ Bell Labs. It is a lean operating system that has been ported to super computers such as IBM's Blue Gene down to tiny boards such the Raspberry Pi.


 * Distribution disk image
 * Plan9 subforum @ raspberryPi.org
 * Acme editor tutorial
 * Plan 9 Main page
 * Plan 9 wiki

NetBSD
NetBSD is an operating system based off 4.3BSD and is geared towards embedded systems. There has been an unofficial public release Download here comments about the release here

FreeBSD
Details of the FreeBSD port Download here

SlaXBMCRPi
SlaXBMCRPi is a minimal Linux distribution based on Slackware ARM that brings a full-featured XBMC/Kodi solution to your Raspberry Pi. It allows the user to exit from XBMC/Kodi to the Desktop should he need to perform typical desktop tasks (browsing, text editing etc.). There are two pre-built images available: Developer: Weighs 3.2GB and contains all development packages required to compile the Linux kernel, XBMC and other XBMC-related (or not) packages Minimal: Weighs 1.9GB and contains only the packages required to run XBMC. (Does not include Midori and relevant dependencies)
 * Main Site
 * Developer Image
 * Minimal Image
 * Manual Installation Packages
 * Source Code
 * Installation Instructions (Windows/Linux)

PiMAME
Raspberry Pi distribution geared towards emulating video games. Maintained by Shea Silverman
 * Main site

PiBox
PiBox provides a build system based on Crosstool-NG, Buildroot/Busybox, the Linux kernel, Rasperry Pi firmware and installation tools to create a base system that can be installed to an SD card to boot a Raspberry Pi. The base system serves as a foundation on which opkg based extensions such as XBMCBox can be installed. PiBox originated as a build system and has been extended with opkgs to the media distributions. It's current focus is to provide a lightweight system for providing services (wifi webcam, media server, platform for DLP display) for travel trailers, though this is just an initial target audience.

PiBox Development Platform is the official name of the core build system. It provides the platform on which the following two products are based.

PiBox Media Server is a purpose-specific implementation built on PiBox with a goal of providing a media server that can stream webcam video and serve video files over SMB. This is accomplished by adding custom opkg installs on the base PiBox development platform. The PiBox Media Server can be used as a node on a network or as a wireless access point. Future plans include support for sensor management making it similar to a home monitoring system.

PiBox Media Player is a purpose-specific implementation built on PiBox with a goal of providing a remote media player companion to the Media Server. The player is intended to integrate with PiBox Media Server over wifi with the server acting as a wireless access point. HDMI-based DLP projectors for use as a personal Drive In Theater experience. This is also accomplished by adding custom opkg installs on the base PiBox development platform.

PiBox Media Server and PiBox Media Player are consumer oriented distributions for distributed media playback in travel trailers without Internet connectivity. The UI is based on GTK+ with Cairo and the system runs on the Raspberry Pi optimized PiBox Developement Platform distribution.

PiBox is currently a one man project. I'd like to have more users of the system and welcome new developers. To get started using the system please download the tarball, unpack it and use the mksd card to format your SD card. Then use the mkinstall script to install the distribution to the SD card. To get started with development, please read the developer wiki on how to build the PiBox Development Platform.

Contact me at mjhammel@graphics-muse.org or if you're interested in helping out, have ideas for improvement or just want to know how to use the system.

Created and maintained by Michael J. Hammel


 * Web Site
 * Binary Downloads
 * Screenshots and videos
 * Issue Tracker
 * Git

OpenWrt
OpenWrt is described as a Linux distribution for embedded devices.

The Raspberry Pi is now supported by the Barrier Braker release (14.07-rc1) available here:

http://downloads.openwrt.org/barrier_breaker/14.07-rc1/brcm2708/generic/

The Raspberry Pi is also supported by the older Attitude Adjustment release (12.09-beta) available here:

http://downloads.openwrt.org/attitude_adjustment/12.09-beta/brcm2708/generic/

The daily trunk is now finally available here:

http://downloads.openwrt.org/snapshots/trunk/brcm2708/

You should mirror those files if you want to use them because they are built daily.

OpenWrt Wiki for Raspberry Pi http://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/raspberry_pi

Related links:
 * http://www.zoobab.com/raspberry-pi-openwrt
 * http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.embedded.openwrt.devel/14815
 * openWRT Thread about Raspberry Pi status

Nard
Nard is a software development kit (SDK) written from scratch for the Raspberry Pi family of boards. Unlike Raspbian, which primarily is for desktop use, Nard focuses on embedded systems 24x7 over years. It has many features requested by industrial users.

http://www.arbetsmyra.dyndns.org/nard/

Volumio
Volumio is described as an Audiophile Music Player solution for Raspberry PI and embedded single board computers. Evolution of RaspyFi project it is based on a custom minimal Debian system fine tuned for Bit Perfect Audio Playback. It is designed to be operated in headless mode, controlling and configuring it via its WebUI or from third party clients.

Features: •Ready to play: flash it and you're ready •Audiophile Quality: fine tuned ALSA for bit perfect and low latency playback •Control it via integrated Webui with PC, Smartphone, Tablet •FLAC, WAV, MP3, AAC, ALAC, PLS, Muse, DSD, OGG playback •Easy configuration of Wi-Fi networking and NAS Mounts •Airplay, UPNP, DLNA and WebRadios playback capability •Audio out via HDMI, USB, Analog Jack, S/PDIF, I2S (depends on platform) •All Raspberry PI i2s DACs supported •Multiroom Playback via Android App

Related links:
 * Project Homepage
 * Forum
 * Wiki

Kano OS
Kano is a fast and fun OS for the Raspberry Pi, pre-installed with modified Minecraft Pi and Chromium.

Related links:
 * Kano Homepage

MINIBIAN
MINIBIAN is a minimal Raspbian-based Linux image for Raspberry Pi. The main focus is to have a small, updated and stable distribution that is fully compatible with official Raspbian “Wheezy” image, without GUI and unneeded tools. So this image is perfect for embedded projects, or wherever you need to use all RPi resources for your specific tasks. The main advantage is that MINIBIAN has a very small footprint, boots in some seconds and uses just few of precious RPi RAM. Unlike other similar projects, MINIBIAN has not been obtained purging unneeded packages from original image, neither recompiling the source code: it’s just a customized Raspbian installation obtained from the same repository used for official RPi Wheezy image. So kernel and binary files are exactly the same you will find on standard image, with the difference that MINIBIAN fit on 512Mb SD Card, is fastest, and more frequently updated.

Related links:
 * Minibian Homepage
 * Minibian Sourceforge Page

slrpi
Slrpi (slackware/raspberry pi) is a minimal installation of Slackware ARM on a Raspberry Pi. It is built with the mini root filesystem and the Raspbian image.

Related links:
 * slrpi Sourceforge Page

motionPie
motionPie is a video surveillance distro for the Raspberry PI based on BuildRoot and Motion.

Related links:
 * Homepage
 * Downloads
 * Install Instructions

Slackware ARM
Slackware ARM's primary goal is to provide (as near as possible) a full port of Slackware x86. Some packages have not been built since they are x86 only, whilst some have been added to support ARM platforms. Slackware is the longest surviving-- currently maintained-- Linux distribution available and is still the most "UNIX-like" Linux distribution out there. Slackware complies with the published Linux standards, such as the Linux File System Standard and has always considered simplicity and stability paramount. As a result, Slackware has become one of the most popular, stable, and friendly distributions available. There's a vast number of people running Slackware ARM on their RPis. Since before the release of Slackware ARM 14.0, there have been a number of community efforts to bring Slackware to the Raspberry Pi. From preinstalled images to full installation guides, Slackware ARM has a thriving community of Raspberry Pi users, and is very well supported in that respect. Slackware has always been well known for its reliability, power, and versatility, and that's exactly what you will find when running it on the Raspberry Pi. The Slackware-on-Raspberry Pi community caters for all the original RPi versions as well as the latest Raspberry Pi 2 model B.

Slackware ARM is not supported by the Raspberry Pi Foundation. The Raspberry Pi is only supported by the Slackware community, outside of the official Slackware ARM tree.

Related links:
 * Slackware-on-Raspberry Pi Community Page
 * Slackware ARM Forum
 * SARPi - Slackware ARM on a Raspberry Pi 1 installation guide
 * SARPi2 - Slackware ARM on a Raspberry Pi 2 installation guide
 * Slackware ARM preinstalled Raspberry Pi images
 * Slackware ARM 13.37 on the Raspberry Pi 1 model A/B

Windows 10 IoT Core Edition
Windows 10 Internet of Things Core Edition is available as preview version at the moment, with the release of it it will be available to the maker and IoT community for free.

Related links:
 * Windows on Devices Home
 * Detailed Setup and Admin Guide (German)

=Announced distributions=

The following distributions have been announced and may have been publicly demonstrated but distributions are not generally available quite yet.

Firefox OS

 * news

OpenSuSE
https://en.opensuse.org/Portal:ARM

An ARM port of OpenSuSE has existed for several years. Since July 2012 it been available as well for the Raspberry Pi.

The status is currently beta. The OpenSuSE RPi image is minimalistic, without YaST. Installation of required and optional software and performing updates are quite simple with zypper, the same as on x86.

Current infomation is gathered at the RPI Forum: http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewforum.php?f=87

Meego MER & XBMC
The MeeGo MER project provides a Linux-based, Open Source software platform for the next generation of computing devices. The MeeGo MER software platform is designed to give developers the broadest range of device segments to target for their applications, including netbooks, handheld computing and communications devices, in-vehicle infotainment devices, smart TVs, tablets and more – all using a uniform set of APIs based on Qt. XBMC is an award-winning free and open source (GPL) software media player and entertainment hub for digital media. Meego TV 1.2 uses XBMC as a reference GUI (that is, a starting point for creating a custom GUI).


 * http://www.madeo.co.uk/?p=783
 * http://www.madeo.co.uk/?page_id=605
 * http://wiki.meego.com/User:Vgrade#Raspberry_Pi
 * http://wiki.merproject.org/wiki/Community_Workspace/RaspberryPi
 * https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc-rbp

Puppy
Puppy Linux is designed to be a tiny Linux distribution (<100MB). One distro version of Puppy for ARM is SAP6 Debian6 armel binaries and another PuppiPlan all under the Puppy initiative. Puppy Linux is going back to his roots. Designed to run from 256MB of RAM. Making every bit count. Join the Puppy geek adventure for 2012. Woof Woof

RPi-Buildroot
RPi-Buildroot is a set of Makefiles and patches that make it easy to generate a complete customized embedded Linux system for your Raspberry Pi. This distro is based on Buildroot so it's perfect for somebody looking to build a trimmed-down or task-specific system.

Please note that this distro is intended for advanced users.


 * More Information
 * Git Repository
 * Test-drive SD card images and toolchain
 * Marshmallow Entertainment System

Aros Hosted on Linux
Aros is an Open Source Amiga like operating system (OS) at the API level. This version runs as a task under Linux to take advantage of the drivers available inside the GNU Linux OS core.

Related links


 * http://amigaworld.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=35843&forum=48
 * http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/tag/aros
 * Youtube videos
 * http://www.amiga.org/forums/archive/index.php/t-62135.html

=Other Distributions=

These are other popular distributions that are often asked about for Raspberry Pi but are not available.

Ubuntu
Ubuntu was initially planned to be the default distribution, but the current version of Ubuntu only supports ARMv7 onwards, not the ARMv6 architecture used by the Raspberry Pi's processor (until Pi 2). Therefore Ubuntu does not work on Raspberry Pi 1, and there is no further information about this changing in the near future.

A bug report on this subject was submitted to Ubuntu's bug tracker. The responses to that bug include an unofficial viewpoint from a Canonical employee, outlining the amount of work required to support ARMv6 (and therefore, potentially, Raspberry Pi 1). See Bug 848154

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ARM

=References=