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For a comprehensive list of operative systems for ARM boards and servers see

The official distribution

Raspbian - The official distribution

Based on Debian, come in a minimal edition and desktop edition with Pixel enviroment, one image for all models

Category

64 Bit distribution, RPi 3 only

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  • Arch Linux ARM

  • Devuan

  • gentoo-on-rpi3-64bit 64 bit only

  • HardenedBSD 64 bit only

  • OpenBSD 64 bit only

  • OpenSUSE Leap

  • OpenSUSE Tumbleweed

  • Pi64 64 bit only

  • RaspBSD 64 bit only

  • SUSE SLES 64 bit only

Audio, Music

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Vendors images

IQaudio http://www.iqaudio.com/downloads/

Signalyst (Raspbian?) https://www.signalyst.eu/bins/naa/images/

Justboom (Volumio) https://www.justboom.co/software/justboom-player/

Archphile 0.99.73 alpha 2018-04-26

Archphile is an Archlinux ARM/MPD based distribution for Raspberry Pi and Odroid C2 ympd web interface (currently using superbfg7 fork)

DietPi Allo Gui

DietPi version with webinterface, are preinstalled Roon, O!MPD, NAA Daemon and Shairport-sync (AirPlay), Squeezelite and Gmrender For Raspberry Pi and Sparky SBC, both armv7

Max2Play formely Squeezplug commercial 9,99/14,99/29,99 for a 1/2/5 year(s) license

Moode Audio Player / MoodeOs

Raspbian based MPD client, forked Volumio Webui, frequently update, upnp renderer

PiCoreplayer 4.10 2018-11-24

Tiny Core based, Squeezelite player, Logitech Media Server, Touchscreen interface Jivelite

PiMusicBox 0.7 RC6 2018-03-20

Raspbian based, Mopidy client. Base system is old

Roopieee 233 2018-12-10

Based on ARch Linux ARM, note that Roon is commercial software; see above RoPieee provides a ready-to-go image that runs Roon Bridge and enables your USB port for playing audio over an USB DAC Without any intervention, official touchscreen is supported

Rune Audio beta 0.4-beta 2017-02-27 RPi 2/3

ArchLinuxARM based, MPD client, forked Volumio webui Base system is old

Volumio formerly Raspify 2.522 2018-12-30

Raspbian based, MPD client, cool webui. Also as i686 live usb

Mediacenter

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All mediacenter OS use Kodi except Rasplex which use OpenPHT

Recalbox have Kodi preinstalled

Kodi is installable on DietPi and Max2Play as on most of general OSes

LibreELEC 8.2.5 2018-04-14

Embedded, lightweight ‘Just enough OS’ Kodi mediacenter distribution, originally forked from OpenELEC, the fast

OpenELEC

Embedded, lightweight ‘Just enough OS’ Kodi mediacenter distribution, the fast Website is unreachable since a while

OSMC formerly RaspBMC

Raspbian based, the full featured. Images are updated monthly

Plex Media Player for Embedded Platforms 1.3.11.758-4be89b5c 2017-10-26

LibreELEC based, companion to Plex Media Server, use Plex Media Player Support RBPi 2/3, Intel NUC and Asus Chromebox For RBPi3+ there are testing images

Rasplex 1.8.0 2017-03-20

LibreELEC based, companion to Plex Media Server, use OpenPHT; fork of the discontinued Plex Home Theater

Xbian

Raspbian based and rolling release; images are released often, the bleeding edge

Gaming, Emulators

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Batocera 5.16 2018-06-23

Based on Recalbox, support also Oddroid XU4/C2, Amlogic S905 boxes, x86 and x86_64 computers

Lakka 2.2 2018-12-24

Based on LibreElec, official Retroarch distro for gaming with XMB user interface

Recalbox 18.07.13 2018-07-13

Raspbian. EmulatioStation, Libretro, Kodi, advancedMame Also support Odroid XU4/C2 and 32/64 bit computers

RetroPie 4.4 2018-04-14

Raspbian, EmulationStation, Libretro Install scripts exist for ODroid C1/C2/XU3/XU4 and Debian/Ubuntu computers

Desktop, server, self-hosting, general purpose, embedded

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AIYprojects

Raspbian. Google Voice Kits

Alpine 3.8.2 2018-12-20

Security-oriented, lightweight Linux distribution based on musl libc and busybox

Android Things preview 5

Build connected devices for a wide variety of consumer, retail, and industrial applications. IoT

Angstrom

Independent embedded Linux system, Yocto 1.7 compatible

Arch Linux ARM

Alarm continues the philosophy of Arch Linux into new architectures, not affilated with ArchLinux

Armv8 info: provides an installation using the mainline kernel and U-Boot. There is no support for the vendor-provided libraries, extensions, or related software. Some of the hardware on the board may not work, or it may perform poorly.

Automotive Grade Linux (AGL) demo platform

A Linux Foundation project dedicated to creating open source software solutions for automotive applications Raspberry Pi 3 only

BalenOS formerly resinOS (still commercial??)

A host OS tailored for containers, a Yocto Project

Binary Emotions

Donationware

Digital Signage

Slideshow

Webkiosk

CentOs

CentOs for Raspberry

chilipie-kiosk

Raspberry Pi image for booting directly into full-screen Chromium Based on Ubuntu Mate armhf, don't support the RPi3+ yet

C-STEMbian

Raspbian, comes with C-STEM software including Ch Professional, C-STEM Studio, and Linkbot Labs preinstalled Ch Professional Edition for Raspberry Pi is free for non-commercial use

Debian

Can I put Debian on my Raspberry Pi? Yes (Lolix note: I guess mainline Debian kernel so it miss several things)

Devuan

Devuan GNU+Linux is a fork of Debian without systemd Support RPi (armel), RPi2/3 (armhf) and RPi3 (arm64) and several other boards

DietPi

Raspbian based, server with preconfigured and optimized programs, self-hosting

Fedberry 29.1 2018-11-30

FedBerry is a Fedora Remix specifically built for use with Raspberry Pi 2/3 Model B computers Was created when Fedora did not previously support the Raspberry Pi 2/3 Model B (RPi2/3)

Fedora

Official support for the Raspberry Pi 2/3 is available in Fedora 26 Fedora has a strict adherence to upstream, as a result only support systems supported in the upstream kernel

Flint OS 0.3 2017-05-15

Build on Chromium OS for RPi 2/3 and PC

FreedomBox Stable June 2017

FreedomBox is designed to be your own inexpensive server at home. It runs free software and offers an increasing number of services ranging from a calendar or jabber server to a wiki or VPN

FullPageOS 2018-04-22

A Raspbian distribution to display one webpage in full screen. It includes Chromium out of the box and the scripts necessary to load it at boot, by guysoft

Funtoo

Funtoo Linux is a Gentoo-based distribution developed by Daniel Robbins

Gentoo from source

Check instructions. Cross compilation is an option

gentoo-on-rpi3-64bit 1.3.1 2018-12-29

Bootable 64-bit Gentoo image for the Raspberry Pi 3 B / B+, with Linux 4.14, OpenRC, Xfce4, VC4, weekly-autobuild binhost Developed by Sakaki-

Hypriot 1.9.0 2018-04-28

Minimal debian based os optimezed for Docker

info-beamer commercial

Open Source Digital Signage Tool for Linux Free for personal use only

Kali Linux ARM

Debian based, pentesting

KA-Pi

Educational server, Khan Academy (related to rachel-pi?)

Linutop OS commercial 79 euro

Webkiosk

ManjaroARM

Manjaro in ARMv7 and ARMv8 for Raspberry Pi and some other device

ModdleBox 2.6.1 2018-12-08

Raspbian. A Moodle platform on Raspberry Pi

MotionEyeOs

DVR/security cam os

Moebius 3.0.0 beta1 2017-01-30

Minimal Linux

NextBerry 1.4 2017-06-11

Ubuntu Server 16.04.x with Nextcloud preconfigured, for RPi2 only (for now)

nextcloudpi/nextcloudplus 2018-11-27

Nextcloud self-hosting solution based on Debian, Apache, MariaDB.. Ready to use image for Raspberry Pi, Odroid HC1, rock64 and other boards. Can be installed on any Debian system and images can be created for Armbian and Docker

NixOs

Independent. NixOs for RPi

Octopi 0.15.1 2018-05-26

A Raspbian distribution for 3d printers, by guysoft

OpenMediaVault

Debian based NAS os

OpenSUSE Leap 42.2

Official Opensuse Leap , stable release Upstream non Raspberry Pi foundation kernel Come as Just Enough Os (JeOS) or with E20, XFCE, LXQT desktops

OpenSUSE Tumbleweed

Official Opensuse for ARM boards, Tumbleweed rolling branch Come as Just Enough Os (JeOS) or with E20, XFCE, LXQT desktops

OpenWRT 18.06.1 2018-08-18

Independent embedded Linux system (LEDE project has been merged back) 18.06 is the first stable version since OpenWrt/LEDE project merger and the successor to the previous stable LEDE 17.01 and OpenWrt 15.05 major releases

Parrot Security OS

Debian-based, security-oriented distribution featuring a collection of utilities designed for penetration testing, computer forensics, reverse engineering, hacking, privacy, anonymity and cryptography.

Pi64 2017-07-31

pi64 is an experimental 64-bit OS for the Raspberry Pi 3. It is based on Debian Stretch and backed by a 4.11 Linux kernel

Picroft

Raspbian Jessie Lite with preconfigure Mycroft AI

PiDeck 0.2 (test image) 2018-10-03

Putting embedded GNU/Linux and open source DVS into turntables since 2016. The software is based on the armhf (ARM Hard Float) port of Debian GNU/Linux stable (jessie) and xwax

Pignus 25a alpha 2017-04-08

Fedora 23 optimized for ARMv6 BCM2865. ARMv6 Only (A, A+, B, Zero models) From thir FAQ: You did an Alpha release. When are you doing a real release? When it's ready. Which likely is Q1 2016 Website still point to 23a

PiLFS

Linux from scratch on the rpi

PiNet

Classroom/educational, thin client

PipaOS 0.6 2018-10-03

Compact Raspbian

Pi-Point

Access point made easy

Pi-topOS Polaris

Raspbian for the pi-top computer

PLOP

Independent. Plop Linux is a distribution built from scratch. It's designed for advanced Linux users

Q4OS

Raspbian based with Trinity Desktop (Kde 3 fork)

Quirky Rpi2 Rpi3 xerus-8.1.4 2018-12-13

RancherOS

Independent, RancherOS is a tiny Linux distro that runs the entire OS as Docker containers

RaspArch

Build by Arne Exton, Arch Linux ARM with LXDE

RaspEX

Build by Arne Exton, Ubuntu 16.04 with LXDE

RaspEX with OpenCPN commercial 15$

Build by Arne Exton, Ubuntu 16.04 with LXDE and OpenCPN pre-installed

Rokos

Debian based distro for cryptocurrencies

Screnly Open Source Edition

Digital signage, based on Raspbian. A commercial Screenly Pro exist.

Syncloud

Debian based? owncloud self-hosting, require upnp router for activation (dlna is not enough)

Slackware ARM

Slackware on ARM for RPi

Snappy Ubuntu Core

Ubuntu using new snapp packages

SUSE SLES registration required

Suse Linux Enterprise Server, 12 Service Pack 2, but please note that SUSE doesn't offer commercial support for it. Uses Btrfs for the root file system and IceWM (ICE Window Manager) is used as default desktop environment. Also GCC 6 is integrated and recommended for compiling programs from sources. (Lolix note, upstream or downstream kernel?)

Tiny Core Linux

Very small independent Linux system

TLXOS-RPi commercial 10$

Protocols supported include Citrix HDX, RemoteFX 8.1, RDP, VMWare View, XRDP, VNC, X11, Redhat Spice, NoMachine NX and more TLXOS-RPi Perpetual Firmware License includes support and free firmware updates for 3 years Raspberry zero version, TLXOS-RPi-IoT, cost 5$

UBOS beta 14

ArchLinuxARM based, self-hosting, owncloud, nextcloud, wordpress, etc.. Expanded support to amd64, Virtualbox, VMWare, Docker, EC2 cloud, Marvell EspressoBin and Beagle Bone Black

Ubuntu Mate Rpi2 Rpi3

Mate desktop, based on the regular Ubuntu armhf

Ubuntu Rpi2 Rpi3

Regular Ubuntu armhf

Void Linux

Independent Linux system

Weather Station

Yunohost 3.1 2018-08-15

Debian based, for self-hosting, owncloud etc..

Linux Repository only

Archstrike

An Arch Linux ARM repository for security professionals and enthusiasts Optimized for i686, x86_64, ARMv6, ARMv7, and ARMv8

BlackArch Linux

Pentesting, a repository compatible with Arch Linux ARM

BSD OS

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FreeBSD

FreeBSD for Raspberry Pi

HardenedBSD

HardenedBSD is a security-enhanced fork of FreeBSD

OpenBSD

OpenBSD/arm64 bundles various platforms sharing the 64-bit ARM architecture Due to the fact that there are many System on a Chips (SoC) around OpenBSD/arm64 differentiates between various SoCs and may have a different level of support between them The current target platforms are Firefly-RK3399, Pine64, Raspberry Pi 3 and Opteron A1100.

RaspBSD 320995M 2017-07-14

RaspBSD is a image of FreeBSD 12 aarch64 (previously armv6) Currently there are no packages for the 12 (HEAD) branch on aarch64, so you will have to use the packages for 11.x (STABLE).

NetBSD

NetBSD/evbarm is the port of NetBSD to various evaluation and prototyping boards based on CPUs implementing the ARM architecture evbarm is in Tier I support, RPis are supported up to RPi3 in earmv6hf and earmv7hf as of version 7.1.2

Other OS

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RiscOS

from the late 80's an OS for RISC/ARM by Acorn

Windows 10 IOT

They got it before Google!

Minoca OS

Minoca OS is a general purpose operating system written from scratch

AROS research/experimental

Research operating system, genereic armhf image, no install guide

AEROS donationware 15$ (check website for more details, there are 4 options)

Hybryd system, Aros on Debian Gnu/Linux

Plan9 research/experimental

Experimental operative system

Inferno-rpi research/experimental 0.6 2016-02-08

Fork of Plan9

9front research/experimental

Fork of Plan9, to cross compile

Helen OS research/experimental 0.7.2 2018-07-15

HelenOS is a portable microkernel-based multiserver operating system designed and implemented from scratch. The system boots to the kernel console. Use the USB-TTL cable and the pinout depicted on the picture to get the console going. For full user experience, a userspace serial driver is needed, in addition to a mechanism for passing boot arguments to HelenOS. Only Raspberry Pi 1 is supported (don't boot in last version 0.8.0)

Mobile OS

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emteria.OS commercial

Superseed RTAndroid, Android for industrial, embedded applications etc. Free evaluation image upon registration, reboot every 48h

LuneOS in development

LuneOS is a mobile operating system based on the Linux kernel and currently developed by WebOS Ports community

Maemo Leste

Maemo Leste continues the legacy of Maemo, is based on Devuan Ascii, use mainline kernel

webOS OSE from source - in development

LG announced a open-Source edition of webOS on 2018-03-19 Support only RPi3 and must be build from source, several images compiled by third-party exist

Unofficial Android Rpi3 in development

Unofficial Android brought by Peter Yoon and Sahaj Sarup

Unofficial LineageOS in development

It is unofficial and unsupported by the LineageOS team. It’s for advanced users only. LineageOS 14.1 (Android 7.1.2) for Raspberry Pi 3

RaspEnd commercial 9$

Android compiled by Arne Exton from github.com/peyo-hd/device_brcm_rpi3 code

Last version in 2016

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AudiculaPi v2016-08-18

OpenWRT based, MPD client, don't support RPi3

Fatdogarm beta5 2016-12-07

FatdogArm is a port of Fatdog64 to the ARM platform. Currently in Beta release, it is based on Fatdog64 and thus shares much of Fatdog64 features. Like Fatdog64, FatdogArm is intended for desktop-style operations but on the lower-cost ARM-based systems.

Minibian

Minimal Raspbian

Sabayon on ARM

Sabayon in Base or Media center editions

Discontinued

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Benja OS +2018-03-12

An HW Accelerated IoT oriented Web Kiosk for Makers, based on Arch Linux ARM * https://github.com/WebReflection/benja/

SolidX +2017-07-16

Debian based with XFCE, for RPi 2 and RPi 3 * https://solydxk.com/downloads/solydx-rpi/

arkOS +2017-04-22

Arch Linux ARM based, self-hosting, owncloud * https://arkos.io/

Chromium for SBC +2016-09-5

Chromium OS for raspberry * http://www.chromiumosforsbc.org/ * https://sourceforge.net/projects/chromnium-os-for-all-sbc/

Sailfish Os last image 2015/11/11

RPi 3 devel image not tested 11-Mar-2016 * https://sailpi.wordpress.com/ * http://images.devaamo.fi/sfa/raspberrypi/

Pearl Linux Mate RPi2 last image 2015/10/29

Raspbian based * https://sourceforge.net/projects/pearl-linux-mate-raspberry-pi2/

Crux last kernel image 2015/10/25, RPi 1 only (Linux version 3.6.1)

Independent lightweight targeted at experienced Linux users * https://crux-arm.nu/SupportedDevices/Raspberrypi

O!MPD on Raspberry Pi last image 2015/09/19 Xbian preconfigured for O!MPD * http://ompd.pl/ompd-on-raspberry-pi

PearlPi LXDE+KODI RPi2 last image 2015/08/19

Raspbian based
* https://sourceforge.net/projects/pearlpi-lxde-kodi/

Tizen last image 2015/08/18

Useless, it boot, you can move the mouse but apps don't start (calc, terminal) * https://blogs.s-osg.org/tizen-on-rpi2/ * https://files.s-osg.org/tizen-on-rpi2/

Voyage Linux last release 2015/06/30

Voyage is a very stripped-down Debian Linux, Voyage MPD for RPi * http://linux.voyage.hk/ * http://mirror.voyage.hk/download/voyage-mubox/rpi/

Finnix Technology preview 111 2015-06-03

Finnix for armhf does not officially support the Raspberry Pi 2, though it has been confirmed as working with it, when combined with a third-party >= 3.18 kernel with Raspberry Pi 2 support. The original Raspberry Pi uses an ARMv6 CPU, and is not and will never be compatible with Finnix. * http://www.finnix.org/ARM

Piplay formerly PiMAME beta, last image 2015/03/27 * http://piplay.org/ * https://sourceforge.net/projects/pimame/files

OpenMandriva last image 2015/03/04 * https://sourceforge.net/projects/openmandriva/files/Raspberry_Pi2/

Slrpi

Minimal Slackware, last image 2015-01-01 * https://sourceforge.net/projects/slrpi/

GeexBox

Independent Kodi media center * http://www.geexbox.org/download/ * http://download.geexbox.org/snapshots/

Adafruit Occidentalis * https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-raspberry-pi-educational-linux-distro/occidentalis-v0-dot-3

Berry Terminal * http://www.berryterminal.com/ * https://github.com/maxnet/berryterminal

Binary Emotions commercial abandonware (owncloud totally deleted seems) * https://sourceforge.net/u/binaryemotions/profile/

Bohdi Linux * https://sourceforge.net/projects/bodhilinux/files/ARMHF/Pi/

DarkELEC * http://darkimmortal.com/tag/darkelec/

Firefox OS One build in 2013 * http://www.philipp-wagner.com/ffos-for-rpi/manual/index.html#getit

Ipfire * http://planet.ipfire.org/post/ipfire-on-raspberry-pi-ready-to-first-test

i2pberry * https://github.com/m6urns/i2pberry

Minepeon * https://minepeon.com/

Nos

Ubuntu KDE * http://nos.net.nz/

PiBangLinux Crunchbang for Rpi * https://sourceforge.net/projects/pibang/

Pidora

Fedora Remix, last image in 2014 * http://pidora.ca/

PwnPi * http://pwnpi.sourceforge.net/index.html

Raspicade

The developer as joined Recalbox * https://sourceforge.net/projects/raspicade/

RedSleeve Unofficial Red Hat based

SlaXBMC * http://slaxbmc.blogspot.it/

Slitaz last image 2014/03/15 * http://arm.slitaz.org/rpi/

Torberry * https://code.google.com/archive/p/torberry/downloads

VPNBian * http://techfunbln.blogspot.it/2013/09/raspberry-pi-as-openvpn-gateway-with-or.html

Sources and inspiration

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