In addition to the manufacturer's operating system, the Raspberry Pi microcomputer can also accept other operating systems and even with better results.
The Raspberry Pi is a range of small and inexpensive single board computers (SBCs) developed in the UK by the Raspberry Pi Foundation in partnership with Broadcom.
The Raspberry Pi project was originally started to promote the teaching of basic computer science in schools. But it gained wide acceptance and is now used in a variety of different tasks and applications.
Some of the most popular uses for the Pi include turning it into a media player or emulation engine. There are even cases where it can replace a desktop that is configured to do a simple task.
Given the flexibility of the system, you first need to install an operating system on it that will be very light and can work seamlessly with the Raspberry Pi.
The manufacturing company of course recommends its own Raspberry Pi OS, but we inform you that there are many other alternative operating systems that will do your job properly. Let's look at some of them. What we mention will concern the latest model of the company, namely the Raspberry Pi 5, which was announced on September 28, 2023, and not older models.
While it may be possible to run these functionals on weaker hardware such as the Zero or Pi 4, you may see large differences in performance. The ranking order, other than official functional, is alphabetical and has no relation to quality or prompting in any of them.
Table of Contents
Raspberry PiOS
We start out of alphabetical order, with the company's official operating system, Raspberry Pi OS. It is a very lightweight linux distribution based on Debian and contains many built-in features and programs built for the Pi.
It has a sleek Chromium-based web browser, a powerful office suite, and a code editor, making it ideal for both general and specialized computing tasks. It contains several pre-installed programs such as VLC Player, photo viewer, games, pdf viewer, task manager, terminal, text editor and a bunch of others.
Additionally, it contains its own app store and package repositories similar to Debian and Ubuntu. This allows you to install newer apps.
Read: Build a virtual Raspberry Pi for free
Finally, you have two different options when downloading Raspberry Pi OS, one with recommended software and one without. Alternatively, if you really want a lightweight version of the system, you can also try Raspberry Pi OS Lite. However, you should know that there is no desktop or GUI of any kind, just the terminal.
Alpine Linux
Alpine is a powerful Linux distribution that provides a highly optimized operating system. Due to its small size and fast startup, it is commonly used in containers that require fast boot times, virtual machines, dedicated rental servers, and hardware embedded in various devices such as routers and NAS.
Unlike other systems, Alpine emphasizes code correctness and security, making it great if you require your Pi to be reliable and lightweight.
It uses musl, BusyBox and OpenRC instead of the more commonly used glibc, GNU Core Utilities and systemd. This results in a small, lightweight operating system, ideal for resource-constrained systems such as the Raspberry Pi.
Like PiCore, the basic installation of Alpine Linux does not include GUI tools, making it a good choice for developing Linux servers and container images. Additionally, Alpine's community repository is mature enough that you can install almost any software you need for your system.
ArchLinux ARM
Arch Linux ARM is the king of minimalist general purpose Linux distributions. This is a release of Arch Linux for ARM processors (not an official release of Arch Linux).
Its design philosophy is "simplicity and complete control to the end user", and it aims to be more Unix-like.
It has a huge community repository and provides you with everything you need to build your custom system using the best Linux has to offer.
Edubuntu
Edubuntu (formerly called Ubuntu Education Edition) is a lightweight Linux distribution based on Ubuntu and focused on education.
Although not designed specifically for the Raspberry Pi, the developers of the operating system provide a fast and lightweight version that works with it. It's a great choice for parents who want to build an affordable and accessible computer for their kids.
The biggest advantage of Edubuntu is its zero configuration requirement, as far as educational use is concerned. For example, setting up Edubuntu on the Pi only requires burning its image to an SD card and some simple configuration settings.
Additionally, Edubuntu comes with a bunch of learning utilities. It has the game gbrainy, gCompris for younger kids, and kGeography and Stellarium for looking at the Earth and the stars. In addition, Edubuntu also has a good set of tools.
DietPi
DietPi is a flexible Debian-based Linux distribution that provides a lightweight and streamlined operating system for SBCs.
Apart from Raspberry Pi, it also supports other similar systems such as Odroid, Orange Pi and Rock64. Additionally, the DietPi developers also ship an x86_64 image, which means you can also install it on a traditional desktop computer.
One of DietPi's strengths is the custom DietPi-Software utility, which combines system tasks on your machine into a single terminal interface.
DietPi developers use this program to reduce the complexity of installing and configuring large software packages on your Pi. For example, DietPi condenses the entire NextCloud installation process into a single checkbox tick.
OpenFide
If you've ever used a Chromebook, you'll be instantly familiar with OpenFyde. OpenFyde is based on Google's open source Chromium operating system, which is the same system used in Chromebooks.
Like Chromebooks, OpenFyde relies on apps and web services. This makes OpenFyde one of the few lightweight cloud-based operating systems available for the Raspberry Pi.
Because OpenFyde runs a series of web applications it consumes far less resources than a traditional operating system. In addition, because it does not require the same processing power as other systems, it is possible to run on weaker hardware.
Additionally, if you're building a Pi-based laptop, you're likely to get better battery life with OpenFyde. If you only need web-based applications, OpenFyde is definitely worth a look.
PiCore
PiCore is the official Tiny Core Linux distribution for the Raspberry Pi. As with its upstream, PiCore does not come with a desktop environment or any graphics utilities. Instead, it chooses to provide the user with a command line and a set of basic UNIX tools.
Although having only one terminal sounds daunting to novice users, it can nevertheless be attractive to those who want a simple, lightweight operating system that they can build using commands.
It is around 32MB in size making PiCore one of the smallest and lightest Linux operating systems on the Raspberry Pi today. Apart from this, PiCore is also efficient when it comes to resource management. While idle, the system consumes around 100-120MB of RAM, making it a good choice for smaller and older Raspberry Pis.
Epilogue
By knowing the most lightweight and free operating systems for Raspberry Pi, you can try them all to find the one that best suits your needs.
Anyway, the Raspberry Pi itself is a machine – a tool for experimentation, for playing and above all for learning.
