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Raspbian minimal. What's your choice? (Part II)

Jose CerrejonAbout 2 minRaspberry PIRaspberry PI

Raspbian minimal: What's your choice? (Part II)

raspberrypi
raspberrypi

We continue exploring new distros, new flavors, to boldly go where no operating system has gone before...


Remember I start to write about some minimal Raspbian based distribution on this article. Now it's the turn of two new OS very interestings: pipaOS and PiBang Linux.

pipaOS. A Debian Raspian based distribution for the Raspberry Pi board computer.

Download pipaOS: 512MBopen in new window | 1GBopen in new window

Last file updated on May, 2014.

Login: sysop | Password: posys

Info:

  • Fully functional Linux system based on latest Raspbian ArmHF distro

  • Runs the official Raspberry PI kernel version 3.12.18

  • Compact size dual versions fit in 512MB/1GB cards

  • Built-in support for most popular wireless usb dongles

  • Fast: login screen in 10 seconds, online wireless association in 20 seconds

  • Network time synchronization built-in using public NTP servers.

  • System customization support: Just plug the SD-card and edit a text configuration file.

  • System administrators can chroot into the card from a Linux Intel system, QEMU static emulator included

  • Power failure tolerant: Uses ext4 non-journal file system

  • Automatic open wireless association builtin: just plug in a usb dongle and get connected

  • Secure shell server ready, sysop user with root privileves available to login with password or RSA key

  • USB tethering ready: Connect the Android/iPhone phone and get pipaOS networked

  • Support for FM radio transmission built-in

  • Python 2.7.3 ready

  • Python GPIO libraries

  • HostAP ready, turn your RaspberryPI into a Wireless Access Point

  • Comes with dnsmask so you can turn it into a lightweight DHCP server

Notes: I wrote an article about pipaOS that you can read here. No desktop environment installed. raspistill and raspivid ready to use. raspi-config is missing. Very fast distro. SSH enabled by default. RECOMMENDED.

PiBang Linux. Openbox Linux distro for the Raspberry Pi

Direct Download: sourceforge.netopen in new window

Last file uploaded: pibang-server-systemd-20131119.img.zip (557.9 MB)

Login: You must create a user with raspi-setup

Info:

  • No specified on its website. Read the notes.

Notes: Inspired by Crunchbang Linux. The author cover three versions: server, openbox and i3open in new window. Long time that not being updated. Pibang use SystemD. They have their own repository and a forumopen in new window to get involve.

Conclusion

This 4 presented distros are for me the best option to get a Raspbian minimal with a base system packages. Like I said, I recommend pipaOS because it's the lighter distro I've tested and fast. I hope you liked these articles.

Do you know any other minimal OS?...