Best Raspberry Pi distros in 2022

Best Raspberry Pi distros in 2022

Get the most of your Pi

Believe it or not, the Raspberry Pi is almost ten years old. In this relatively short period the Pi has ushered in a new revolution in computing that stretches far beyond its original remit which was to promote basic computer science education in schools.

There have been several Pi developments over the past few years. The Pi Zero (opens in new tab) was released in 2015, and the Pi and its ‘essentials’ kit is available for a very cheap price. The Pi Zero W was added to the Zero family in February 2017, featuring a 1GHz processor, 512MB RAM and support for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, with accessories.

The latest addition to the family is the Raspberry Pi 4 Model B (opens in new tab) that now features a quad-core 1.5Ghz processor. Unlike previous iterations of the single board computer (SBC), there are now three variants of the Raspberry Pi 4; with 2GB, 4GB and 8GB of RAM. This opens up the device to even more use cases that one couldn’t even have imagined when the original device made its debut in 2012. Of course if you just need to use it as a computer, there’s the Raspberry Pi 400 (opens in new tab), which rolls a 1.8Ghz Raspberry Pi inside a keyboard. 

What makes the Raspberry Pi so successful is that it’s backed by an equally impressive line of software that allows tinkerers to adapt the tiny computer for different tasks. Here we round up some of the best Raspberry Pi distros that allow you to consume the device in various ways.

We’ve also featured the best Linux training providers and online courses.

Raspberry Pi OS (opens in new tab) (formerly known as Raspbian) is the official distro of the Raspberry Pi. It’s based on the venerable Debian Linux project and uses a customized LXDE-based desktop environment that uses the Openbox window manager to present a desktop that is functional, looks elegant, and doesn’t consume too many resources.