Revamped Raspberry Pi OS boasts Wayland desktop and improved imager tool

Raspberry Pi OS has undergone more than a modest version upgrade including a new set of tools for writing it to a bootable SD card. You might have missed it in the excitement over the announcement of the Raspberry Pi 5 at the end of September, but a couple of weeks later, the Raspberry Pi Foundation also updated Raspberry Pi …

[Peter Mount]

Not all PI hardware works with Bookworm yet

I mentioned this before, when Bookworm first came out for the PI I tried it on a PI4.

It worked fine, except for the attached official touch screen which would display but the touch interface would not work under Wayland. Switching it back to XOrg allowed the touch screen to work fully.

So as I mentioned back then, Wayland has a long way to go for some setups, even with official Raspberry PI hardware

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Not all PI hardware works with Bookworm yet

There looks to be quite a lot of stuff which Wayland doesn't do yet. There was an experimental option for Bullseye two years ago so it's rather surprising they haven't got everything working yet.

[TVU]

Re: Not all PI hardware works with Bookworm yet

"There looks to be quite a lot of stuff which Wayland doesn't do yet"

Indeed, and the following quote comes from another forum:

"You failed to read the fine print at the bottom of all the wayland promises over the past 12 years:

"It will improve your performance. Next year. Or the year after that. Or maybe the year after that. If you have the right hardware. And the right desktop. On certain tasks with certain apps. Maybe. Depends on the alignment of the stars and the moon, and if Jupiter is in the 2nd house"."

[bombastic bob]

Re: Not all PI hardware works with Bookworm yet

the touch interface would not work under Wayland.

At least you CAN "switch back" to XOrg. For now.

[this helps to prove that Wayland on RPi, which would interfere with the BEST feature that using Linux for an embedded OS can offer, i.e. running GUI applications via the network on a remote computer, would be a HUGE mistake and any workaround kludge that CLAIMS to still work is just going to create even MORE problems]

How many "native Wayland applications" had to be uninstalled and replaced with Xorg compatible ones? Or was it just the GUI toolkits?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Not all PI hardware works with Bookworm yet

Interestingly I experimented with the latest RaspiOS on a Pi 400 last week in anticipation of getting a Pi5 for my project currently using a Pi4. Was able to ssh -X into the 400 from my PC running OpenSuSE and launch graphical applications remotely fine. So there’s some translation from Wayland to X going on for remote access anyway. Nice.

Did experience an issue where the desktop would freeze on a couple of occasions. Not so nice, but expect that will be sorted in due course. On the Pi400 it seems pretty slick so far. Just need to change my Python code to take into account the changes to virtual environments and griot access, but no biggie.

[m4r35n357]

Huh?

The imager has downloaded the OS for quite some time now . . .

[Liam Proven]

Re: Huh?

[Author here]

> The imager has downloaded the OS for quite some time now . . .

So I gather, but the tabbed UI is apparently new.

TBH previously I have always done the downloading and writing "by hand" myself, but it's reached the point now where this seems like more work rather than less due to exploring new tools.

[Pete 2]

Neatly summaries ...

> work around for a moderately skilled user

... the Linux experience

[werdsmith]

Re: Neatly summaries ...

It's true but you shouldn't say it here.

[keithpeter]

Re: Neatly summaries ...

I think it should be said here, but with supporting detail. For example, from the OA

"this process crashed out when trying to update the wolfram-engine component of Mathematica"

So an issue with a (generously provided) proprietary application.

Icon: getting maths to the yoof is a good thing

[LybsterRoy]

Re: Neatly summaries ...

-- So an issue with a (generously provided) proprietary application. --

Whatever the OS this should have been corrected before release

[ecofeco]

Re: Neatly summaries ...

2016 called, they wanted their stereotype back.

In the meantime, do try and keep up.

https://www.darkreading.com/threat-intelligence/a-year-in-microsoft-bugs-the-most-critical-overlooked-and-hard-to-patch

[david 12]

Re: Neatly summaries ...

http://www.swdsi.org/swdsi07/2007_proceedings/papers/236.pdf

"A SECURITY COMPARISON OF OPEN-SOURCE AND CLOSED SOURCE OPERATING SYSTEMS"

"Our analysis leads us to conclude that there are no inherent qualitative differences between Windows and other operating systems."

[hittitezombie]

Moved all of my 1B and 2Bs across to Bookworm w/o a problem and w/o requiring a new installation, also had it on Zero 2W w/o a problem.

My only Pi4 runs Ubuntu, and Pi5 only arrived today, so haven't decided how I'm going to use the new hardware, yet.

[A.P. Veening]

I also moved four of my RPi4s across to Bookworm without a problem. However, OpenMediaVault doesn't work with Bookworm yet, so there are still a couple of RPis to do.

[David 132]

One of my favourite things about hanging out on these forums, is learning about new software that's escaped my notice.

Thanks for the pointer to OpenMediaVault - I have to build a NAS for a friend soon and that might just be the ticket. Was going to use Linux Mint, but OMV looks like it'll require him to do less tinkering with the oily bits.

Have a pint.

[A.P. Veening]

I use those RPis with OMV for Pi-Hole in Docker containers and with Docker running anyway, I've got some more containers running.

[David 132]

Yep, and I see there's a docker container for Jellyfin too, so all needed bases are covered!

[Altrux]

I'm told my Pi5 has just been delivered at home! Look forward to playing with that later - I have a 64-bit bookworm SD card ready to roll...

[David 132]

I want you to imagine that my upvote is tinged bilious green in colour!

[timrowledge]

I’ve had one for a month or so now and it really is quite fast. For the benchmarks that matter to me it equals about 70% of my 3.9GHz iMac. Everything I need works ok, though the VNC server could usefully be faster.

[bombastic bob]

embedded stystem development

(put on your gravelly 'movie trailer guy' voice for this one)

"In a world, where embedded developers use the Raspberry Pi hardware to create awesome devices, something is brewing underneath..."

'"I used to be able to do my code editing on my Xorg-based Linux desktop, with the DISPLAY environment variable pointing to it on the RPi. But NOW, Wayland is PREVENTING THIS from WORKING! The RPi touch screen is just WAY TOO SMALL! And I can't even work with HEADLESS systems any more! What am I going to do?'

PFF dit dit dit dit dit dit dit dit BOOM dit dit dit BAM dit dit dit *PWAAAH*

"Embedded developers, forced to work on a small RPi-compatible screen, lose their patience... and their SANITY"

'I cannot TAKE this any more! WAYLAND has RUINED MY CAREER!!! DAMN YOU, Raspnerry OS!!!'

"Coming this year, to an engineering lab near you: NIGHTMARE on WAYLAND STREET!"

[timrowledge]

Re: embedded stystem development

So go to the immense trouble of running the raspi-config and swap to X

[m4r35n357]

Re: embedded stystem development

. . . and don't expect any support, and don't expect the option to be there in the next release.

[DoctorPaul]

They broke VNC

Got a handful of Pi's and all of them run headless.

Default for this is VNC but it doesn't work with Wayland - "maybe next year".

So it's back to the legacy version for now.

[David 132]

Re: They broke VNC

Is it just me, or is Wayland the Systemd of display managers?

"We haven't implemented <Feature X> yet, but we don't use it, so who cares, #WONTFIX".

[steelpillow]

Re: They broke VNC

Not at a technical level. SystemD tries to do more than init does, eating up a few other toys besides - in theory more conveniently, but the jury seems to be out on that one. Wayland tries to do rather less that X11 does, requiring some other new toys to help out - in theory therefore doing it all well, but the jury seems out on that one.

But what, foisted on flock after flock of penguinistas before it's ready for prime time and choice pulled needlessly, yeah, same story.

[Bitsminer]

Re: They broke VNC

But what, foisted on flock after flock of penguinistas before it's ready for prime time and choice pulled needlessly, yeah, same story.

Linux, as it ever was.

[martinusher]

Re: They broke VNC

I think it all goes back to the notion that "X is not a remote desktop, it just looks a bit like one". It took a bit of time for me to get my head around this but once I did it made a lot of sense.

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: They broke VNC

True, X is not a remote desktop. Once you get your head around what an X server and an X client is, you realise that you don't need a remote desktop at all, along with all it's overheads.

This is something the Wayland people don't seem to have managed. Previously, they said it would not be done as it was a pointless waste of effort and almost no one used remote GUI apps. Now, apparently, they seem to have spent some considerable amount of time and effort trying make something that looks a little like using SSH -X. I guess they finally got the message that this IS something people use and quite like. It's a shame it took them so long to listen to the real-world users.

[Abominator]

Re: They broke VNC

At my work, we all exclusively use remote GUI apps on much larger hardware than our desktops. Almost a thousand of us.

[timrowledge]

Re: They broke VNC

Funny, my Pi 5 works ok via RealVNC in either X or Wayland config

[TReko]

Re: They broke VNC

They also broke RDP.

[RedGreen925]

"But what, foisted on flock after flock of penguinistas before it's ready for prime time and choice pulled needlessly, yeah, same story."

That is what happens when you have the GNOME mororns and Redhat at the helm of all of them. They have never met a choice they did not like to squash, been doing it for decades, after all they know what is best for you.

[Ian 55]

It worked for Apple...

Still does.

[keithpeter]

Wayfire

I've just noticed that wayfire and the associated panel are in slackbuilds for Slackware 15.0 along with the dependencies required starting from a full Slackware install.

Could be a Sunday morning project.

[Will Godfrey]

Re: Wayfire

I admire your optimism

[Will Godfrey]

Not used any of that.

I've been running devuan on all my PI's. I've no idea how that actually compares with the official OS, but it's good enough for everything I've wanted to do so far - including running quite a beast of a soft-synth.

[spireite]

DietPI

I used to run the RaspberryPI OS, then discovered DietPI...

I'm going to stay there..

[Dave559]

a stern warning not to try to upgrade

Hmm, so Raspbian Raspberry Pi OS still has that particular "Bug #1", does it?

Yeah, they have far fewer developers than Debian or Ubuntu, etc, but it's surely at least a little bit embarrassing (and not very newbie-friendly) that they have never managed (or bothered?) to get 'upgrade in place' working, which is very much one of the best features of Debian-based distros…

(Kudos for all that they do, nevertheless…)

[Liam Proven]

Re: a stern warning not to try to upgrade

[Author here]

> Yeah, they have far fewer developers than Debian or Ubuntu, etc,

No, not really. Raspberry Pi OS *is* Debian.

As it happens, last night I spent 45 min chatting with David Jones who looks after the Raspi builds of Ubuntu, and I found out some very interesting stuff, but I'll have to get the OK to publish it.

But the RPiOS team is the entire Debian team _plus_ the PiOS developers _as well_. You have the arithmetic backwards: it has _more_ developers.

> they have never managed (or bothered?) to get 'upgrade in place' working

Again, no, and in the article I linked to not one but two ways to do it.

The real point is that this is a £35 computer and it's not worth spending hours of your time carefully upgrading it when a reflash is much quicker and easier and lets you spend the time on making something with it, or learning a new skill with it.

It doesn't have much space. Its nonvolatile storage is slow. Therefore, the upgrade process will also be slow. It might fail because you run out of room.

The Pi Foundation doesn't want to have to help people who tried it and it failed. So, they tell you not to.

But it's Linux. You are free to ignore that and do it anyway if you wish... but you're on your own if you do.

It is, as others have pointed out above, the same old story, but at least with Linux if you don't want to follow the rules you are free not to.

If Microsoft tells you "thou canst not upgrade 32-bit Windows to 64-bit" then that is it: you can't.

If the Pi crew tell you that you can't, you can do it anyway, and I provided instructions on how to.