4 Little Known Operating Systems for the Raspberry Pi
Raspberry Pi OS has a number of advantages and disadvantages. Among its advantages, we can highlight the fact that we are faced with an official operating system, very complete and full of functions and capabilities. However, having such a large and complete distribution implies a waste of resources and performance, which can be quite noticeable on a device with limited power.
Fortunately, besides this system, there are many others that allow us to maximize its potential. Let’s take a look at some of the most interesting ones.
DietPi, 400MB Debian for Raspberry Pi
The first of the alternative systems we’re going to talk about is DietPi … This system is based on Debian, like the Raspberry Pi OS, but with the difference that it takes up 3 times less space than the Raspberry Pi OS Lite, leaving it at just 400MB. A highly optimized distribution, perfect for getting the most out of RAM and horizontal CPU allocation.
Its appearance may not be the most beautiful, but we have one of the lightest distributions on the market, which will offer us the maximum performance of microcomputer hardware. Also, being Debian based, we can install any package or program we need.
We can download the distribution from this link.
Lakka, all-in-one for retro gaming
The Raspberry Pi isn’t just about building a professional server. Its capabilities go much further. And one of the most exciting we find is the ability to function as a hub for retro games. We can install any emulator kit for this feature on the Raspberry Pi OS, but if we want to dedicate it 100% to this work, we might better choose to use a dedicated distribution like Lakka …
This distro offers us an interface similar to that of the PlayStation 3, from which we will have access to all our games and all ROMs. One of the best distros for retro gaming we can find that doesn’t depend on any other frontend like RetroPie.
We can download the latest version of Lakka from here.
OpenMediaVault, your very own home NAS
Need a NAS server but don’t want to spend a lot of money? OpenMediaVault is an operating system for the Raspberry Pi that will allow us to turn a microcomputer into a NAS server. This distribution will allow us to enable or disable the services that we want to have available, as well as use the most commonly used network protocols.
One of its best features is that it can be completely controlled remotely from a web panel. The best way to mount your own NAS at home, but much cheaper.
We can download this system from your website.
Android turns Raspberry Pi into a smartphone
Of course we all know Android but we associate this with mobile devices. However, there are projects that have been involved in porting this operating system to other platforms. And one of them is the Raspberry Pi. By installing this operating system on a microcomputer, we can have all kinds of applications and games as if we were running them on our mobile phone. These distros are also ready to work with keyboard and mouse and even connect to a TV and act as a multimedia center.
Of course, the Raspberry Pi Android distributions are not official. Therefore, some features (for example, Google Game Services) may cause us problems.
We can download the Android ROM for the Raspberry Pi from here.
