Notes

Raspberry Pi Releases an OS to Bring new Life to Old PCs

The Raspberry Pi Foundation has released an experimental version of its Linux-based Pixel OS for Windows and Mac PCs. The OS was originally intended to be run on Raspberry Pi hobby boards. It comes with the Chromium web browser, a suite productivity and coding tools, and the OS. "We asked ourselves a simple question What is the reason we would want people to buy Raspberry Pi hardware to run Pixel? founder Eben Upton wrote in an article on his blog.



Built on top of Debian The OS is lightweight enough to run on old machines, provided that you have at least 512MB of RAM. games Upton stated that the OS runs on the long-running i386 architecture version. It should run on older machines, such as my ThinkPad X40 (above).



Although it's simple to use, Upton recommends backing up any valuable data. After downloading the image, you burn it either to a DVD or USB stick, and then allow booting of these devices. You can usually do this by tweaking the BIOS of your PC or by pressing the "C" key down when you boot up a Mac.



It will then start the OS without the need to install anything. You can boot from an USB stick to have the option of running "with persistence." This means that any changes or files made will be saved for the next session. If you'd rather just play around and start fresh next time, you can either run without persistence or reset it. As stated, you get a full suite of applications and a web browser, but unlike the Pi version, there's no Minecraft or Wolfram Mathematica because of licensing issues.



There are numerous lightweight Linux distros available for older computers (including Debian), or you can try Neverware that turns your old laptop into an Android tablet. The Pi Foundation provides a number of useful Linux applications that use Pixel, and is aiming to make it as easy as is possible. Upton feels that by porting it to desktop computers, "we can see where the weaknesses of operating systems are and work on them [on the Pi].



The group thinks it could be a perfect for schools (where the Raspberry Pi already has a large foothold) to aid students in learning programming and various apps. The idea is that they could learn at school, then using the option of persistent boot and work at home with the same configuration.



As previously mentioned, the Pixel OS is still in the experimental stages and isn't running on all machines. Upton admitted that his modern Mac could not recognize the image as bootable on his machine. They will be releasing more updates in the coming months but you can try it out by hitting announce post.


Here's my website: https://kirn.net/