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C H A P T E R 3
L I N U X S Y S T E M A D M I N I S T R A T I O N
49
About Raspbian’s Parent, Debian
Raspbian is based on one of the original Linux distributions, Debian. Named after its creator and
his girlfriend—Ian and Deb—Debian is a popular distribution in its own right. It is common in
the world of open source software, however, for projects to start up based on refining, customis-
ing or tweaking existing projects in a process known as
forking. Raspbian is a fork of Debian, but
it isn’t alone: Ubuntu Linux from Canonical is also based on Debian, while Linux Mint, one of
the most popular distributions for desktops and laptops, is based in turn on Ubuntu.
This process of forking and forking again is something unique to open source software. With
a closed-source package, like Microsoft Windows, it’s not possible to customise it to your
individual requirements. This is one of the biggest strengths of open source software, and is
brilliantly demonstrated by the ease with which Raspbian was tailored to the requirements
of the Raspberry Pi.
Alternatives to Raspbian
While Raspbian is the recommended Linux distribution for the Raspberry Pi, there are alter-
natives. The most popular are available from the Raspberry Pi Foundation’s Downloads page
at
http://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads
, and most can be installed easily using
NOOBS, as described in Chapter 2, “Getting Started with the Raspberry Pi”.
Next to Raspbian, the most common distributions installed are RaspBMC and OpenELEC,
which both turn the Pi into a dedicated home theatre system, as demonstrated in Chapter 8,
“The Pi as a Home Theatre PC”. The next most popular is Pidora, a distribution based on the
Fedora Linux project, which, in turn, has Red Hat as its parent distribution. Finally, Arch
Linux is designed for those already familiar with Linux; unlike the others in the list, it doesn’t
include a graphical user interface by default.
One entry in the NOOBS list is not a variant of Linux at all: RiscOS. Originally produced by
Acorn Computers in the late 1980s for its Archimedes range of personal computers—which,
like the Raspberry Pi, were based on an ARM processor—RiscOS is a fast, easy-to-use operat-
ing system with a clean appearance to its graphical user interface. While the breakup of
Acorn in 1998 saw the popularity of RiscOS decline, the platform still has its fans, who were
quick to add support for the Raspberry Pi.
Running RiscOS on the Raspberry Pi results in an environment that is significantly more
responsive than any of the other operating systems on offer, thanks to its origins as a plat-
form designed specifically for the ARM instruction set architecture. Sadly, that speed comes
at a cost: RiscOS can only run applications written specifically for RiscOS, of which there are
far fewer than those written for Linux.