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 found it 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 it's 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

Moebius
A very compact ARM HF debian based distribution, it fits in a 1Gb SD card, has autoresizing features to better adapt to your SD card size and uses Raspbian huge 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

Raspbian Server Edition
It's a stripped version of Raspibian with some other packages
 * Main site of version 2.3
 * Dowload 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 low price thin client over Raspberry Pi board! Microsoft RDC, Citrix ICA & VMWare View
 * Homepage
 * Dowload

DarkElec
None of the currently available solutions do a perfect job with running XBMC 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 the 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 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 experience that can be enjoyed on much more costly platforms. Raspbmc is brought to you by the developer of the Crystalbuntu Linux Distribution, which brings XBMC 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 solution for the Raspberry Pi. Thereby making most of the commercial media-center products obsolete...

Features:


 * Fits on a 1GB SD card
 * Low RAM usage and low CPU usage
 * Very smooth UI
 * Auto mount USB
 * AFP support
 * NFS support
 * AirPlay support
 * CEC support
 * Lirc support
 * PVR support
 * Kernel 3.6.7 + a lot of modules
 * Performance as the default governor
 * Out of the box support for almost all wlan adapters
 * User friendly configuration tool xbian-config
 * Source code on git
 * Large community
 * Apt repo so updated was never easier!


 * Main Site
 * Xbian Github

RasPlex
What is 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. 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 man power, 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 man power), 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 in to their TV every time they want to use Plex. With RasPlex, just plug it in and you're 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 the window manager
 * http://pwnpi.net/

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

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
 * 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 Sourcforge 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 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

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

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 RaspberryPi.


 * 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 here comments about the release here

FreeBSD
Details of the FreeBSD port Dowload here

SlaXBMCRPi
SlaXBMCRPi is a minimal Linux distribution based on Slackware ARM that brings a full featured XBMC solution to your Raspberry Pi. It allow the user to exit from XBMC to the Desktop should he need to perform typical desktop tasks (browsing, text editing etc.). There are two pre-built images available: Developer: It is 3.2GB and contain all development packages required to compile the Linux kernel, XBMC and other XBMC related (or not) packages Minimal: It is 1.8GB and contain only the packages required to run XBMC. (Does not include firefox and other GUI apps)
 * 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

=Announced distributions=

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

Chromium OS
Details about the work Chromium OS is Google own version of linux os

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 small 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 ram. Making every bit count. Join the Puppy geek adventure for 2012. Woof Woof

OpenWrt
OpenWrt is described as a Linux distribution for embedded devices. The Rpi is now supported by the Attitude Adjustment (12.09-beta) release available here:

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

OpenWrt Wiki for R_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

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.

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/

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. Therefore Ubuntu does not work on Raspberry Pi, 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). See Bug 848154

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ARM

=References=