Debian on Raspberry Pi

Introduction

Debian is becoming the Linux distribution of choice for use on the Raspberry Pi, it is the one I expect to be using the most, it is also the base of many other distribution that may be more popularly known.

Debian

There are a number of OS options for running on your Raspberry Pi, currently I am using the Debian Squeeze image although expect to play with a few more later down the line. The most common solutions are listed on the official downloads page. Debian seems to be the common choice and the most supported in the forums etc.

Debian is one of the big names in Linux distributions, and if you haven’t heard of Debian you will almost certainly have heard of Ubuntu, Ubuntu is Debian based. Debian is free software in the GNU sense which along with some of its other philosophies makes it an excellent partner to the Raspberry.

Another factor that probably contributed to Debian usage on the Raspberry is it’s strong history of ‘ports‘, it already runs on a number of non Intel x86 architectures.

Moving on to Wheezy

Currently there a few issues with the squeeze image, the next version of Debian (name Wheezy) is currently a test release, and there is already a beta image being worked on and tested for the Raspberry. Personally I am going to wait a little before I try it out (I need to buy some more SD cards, family members keep pinching them).

Installing

Basically the helicopter view of installing an operating system to run on your Raspberry Pi involves: Copy an image to an SD card, insert SD card in the Raspberry Pi and turn it on. Easy to say, I will be putting some links and more precise instructions up shortly and will update this post then.