9 ms·

Bookworm – the new version of Raspberry Pi OS

182 points by sohkamyung 3y ago

xd1936 3y ago
Wayland, PipeWire, and NetworkManager. Three huge changes in one release. Congrats, Pi software team!
- MrBuddyCasino 3y ago
  Will be interesting if configuring a Bluetooth sink using PipeWire is less of a hassle than Alsa, which was really unpleasant. Having all the codecs on a Pi Zero is nice!
  - pianohacker 3y ago
    I've had a much more pleasant experience with Bluetooth under Pipewire, though fixing issues such as incorrect Bluetooth profiles requires understanding still-pretty-young projects like WirePlumber.
- adql 3y ago
  Those are upstream Debian changes. Well, not setting Wayland default or QAing it for rpi but still, most it's a Debian's team job
  - sho_hn 3y ago
    If you read the article, they developed their own(?) lxpanel clone for Wayland apparently, so there's some custom work there. Of course I wonder why that wasn't done upstream (or maybe it was, and it's just not spelled out).
darkwater 3y ago
Just an en-passe mention (under "Documentation") to the new Bookworm way of handling Python modules which already pissed me off^W^W^W surprised me in Ubuntu 23.04. Basically you cannot install modules with `pip3 install module` (or `python3 -m pip install module`) without using a virtualenv or using the .deb packaged version in the repos. I've got used to it but it was a headache for a few days after the first upgrade I did.
- extraduder_ire 3y ago
  Can you use ensurepip to install pip, and then use pip from there? I recently had to deal with missing pip on the last ubuntu LTS version, and that's what I had to do. Makes some amount of sense to stop novices messing up their python install right off the bat, much like I have on most of my machines.
- imp0cat 3y ago
  I think `pip install --break-system-packages` will still work if you insist on mixing pip and deb.
- josephcsible 3y ago
  > you cannot install modules with `pip3 install module` (or `python3 -m pip install module`) without using a virtualenv or using the .deb packaged version in the repos. Wasn't that always a really bad idea to do, though, since it was so easy to break your system Python that way?
  - darkwater 3y ago
    I'm not saying it was the best way but if you just ran some small 3rd party script or wrote some small Python script with non packaged deps, well, it was easy, fast and usually safe. But forcing this new behavior is surely a good decision.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - asddubs 3y ago
    I'm fairly ignorant of the python ecosystem beyond extremely casual use for a few scripts, how does it break your system to do this?
    - sjsdaiuasgdia 3y ago
      There's a few ways Python packages can be installed. They can be installed at the system level, making the package available to any Python program on the system. This can get problematic if not all of your Python usage can function with the same versions of all system-installed packages. They can be installed at the user level, sitting in your homedir instead of somewhere under /usr. This gives some isolation from the system defaults, but may just move the problem down a level - you still have the potential for version conflicts. They can also be installed at the virtualenv level, and now the package install is specific to Python programs launched from that virtualenv. Upgrading a package can only break stuff in that virtualenv, it can't spread beyond it. If you mostly use stuff from the standard library and stable packages that don't change their APIs much, you can go a long way without venvs before it actually bites you.
acatton 3y ago
I'm always confused by Raspberry Pi OS. It feels like Debian with a pre-set of packages, and a few additional software to control the board and bootloader. Why not maintain these additional pieces of software packaged in debian, and provide a prebuilt image for the Raspberry Pi? Why maintain an entire different apt repository? Why publish new version months after the upstream debian is already released?
- whalesalad 3y ago
  Hard agree and I too am curious as to why it is not like this.
- afavour 3y ago
  The blog post offers some clues: e.g. they're using Wayland on the Pi 4 and 5 but still X11 on lower devices. It's a tight coupling of hardware and software that means they can best tailor the experience to specific devices. Not everyone needs it but it's nice for newbies (and the Pi is intended to be very approachable) to get sensible defaults out of the box.
  - acatton 3y ago
    You can do this with pre-built images. They can just install different packages on the rbpi3.img and the rbpi4.img, one with wayland one with x11. If you don't want to use pre-built images you can also do this with metapackages.
- simcop2387 3y ago
  I believe one of the biggest reasons is that because the boot process is very different from the way debian does things, it ends up needing significant changes from the starting tasks to do things. Along with that I think the original 32bit RPIs didn't support some version of the compiled binaries in the debian arm repos which meant that they weren't necessarily compatible. These days on the 64bit version, I'm not sure why it needs that much either. I'd think that having a few new task-* metapackages that setup the boot and raspberry pi specific boot management stuff should be doable and then they could use the main debian packages I would think. There's probably something that's not obvious that makes things just incompatible enough that it isn't simpler to manage that way.
404mm 3y ago
Interesting, I’m curious how the OS is assembled together, since they discourage users from in-place upgrade. Debian 11 was just a regular Debian with their repos added on top. It feels like since the times of Raspbian they are trying to thin out their changes to Debian (which is a good thing). So to see the recommendation to re-image is quite unexpected.
peterhull90 3y ago
I've been using X to view graphical applications running on the Pi from my desktop - will this still be possible?
- rkangel 3y ago
  Do you mean X forwarding of a window over SSH? You've got a couple of options: Use waypipe (https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/mstoeckl/waypipe https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/mstoeckl/waypipe). I haven't tried it myself, but I gather it's not as "easy" as X forwarding. Use VNC instead (remote the whole desktop instead of just one app)
spandextwins 3y ago
Did they fix the USB 3 issues with SSD’s yet?
MenhirMike 3y ago
What's the current status of 64-Bit on Raspberry Pi? My knowledge is pretty outdated, I remembered that initially, even the Raspberry Pi 4 was still running 32-Bit Raspbian and that 64-Bit was a hack/experimental. Is that all resolved and done and dusted now, and we have a full 64-Bit system? Or will that require Bookworm?
- thrtowaweauhe 3y ago
  [dead]
- celsoazevedo 3y ago
  The official 64-bit Raspberry Pi OS was released in February 2022: https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/raspberry-pi-os-64-bit/ https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/raspberry-pi-os-64-bit/ Since then it was up to the user to run the 32 or 64-bit OS. Still seems to be the case with this new version.
  - MenhirMike 3y ago
    Thanks!
- cillian64 3y ago
  Rpi-imager and the website don’t really make it clear but these days the 64-bit OS is the preferred one on Pis that support it
quyleanh 3y ago
Sorry, about wayland, I thought it still has some disadvantages and also still not widely supported such as VNC related things? Could anyone enlighten me?
mrpippy 3y ago
No mention of the kernel using 16K page sizes?
- nsteel 3y ago
  I don't know what sort of mention you are looking for but there is a blog comment that mentions it.
kiernanmcgowan 3y ago
> As you probably know, Debian releases are named after characters in Disney/Pixar’s Toy Story franchise… Huh, TIL this convention. https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/debian-faq/ftparchives.en.html#sourceforcodenames https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/debian-faq/ftparchives.en...
- zh3 3y ago
  Thanks for the link, plays into a thought about how far Disney's effect on copyright extends to open source.
zh3 3y ago
It just struck me that using Disney character names (given Disney's record on copyright) for Debian suddenly feels jarring? (saying that as a 20+ year linux verteran).
- layer8 3y ago
  The naming convention was established well before Disney acquired Pixar. Arguably those aren’t Disney character names. (Except for characters new in Toy Story 3 I guess.)
rldjbpin 3y ago
how does it look like for people on older models? also does the compatibility issues should not matter much if you use it in headless mode AIUI.

182 points by sohkamyung 3y ago

xd1936 3y ago

Wayland, PipeWire, and NetworkManager. Three huge changes in one release. Congrats, Pi software team!

MrBuddyCasino 3y ago
Will be interesting if configuring a Bluetooth sink using PipeWire is less of a hassle than Alsa, which was really unpleasant. Having all the codecs on a Pi Zero is nice!
- pianohacker 3y ago
  I've had a much more pleasant experience with Bluetooth under Pipewire, though fixing issues such as incorrect Bluetooth profiles requires understanding still-pretty-young projects like WirePlumber.
adql 3y ago
Those are upstream Debian changes. Well, not setting Wayland default or QAing it for rpi but still, most it's a Debian's team job
- sho_hn 3y ago
  If you read the article, they developed their own(?) lxpanel clone for Wayland apparently, so there's some custom work there. Of course I wonder why that wasn't done upstream (or maybe it was, and it's just not spelled out).

darkwater 3y ago

Just an en-passe mention (under "Documentation") to the new Bookworm way of handling Python modules which already pissed me off^W^W^W surprised me in Ubuntu 23.04. Basically you cannot install modules with `pip3 install module` (or `python3 -m pip install module`) without using a virtualenv or using the .deb packaged version in the repos. I've got used to it but it was a headache for a few days after the first upgrade I did.

extraduder_ire 3y ago
Can you use ensurepip to install pip, and then use pip from there? I recently had to deal with missing pip on the last ubuntu LTS version, and that's what I had to do. Makes some amount of sense to stop novices messing up their python install right off the bat, much like I have on most of my machines.
imp0cat 3y ago
I think `pip install --break-system-packages` will still work if you insist on mixing pip and deb.
josephcsible 3y ago
> you cannot install modules with `pip3 install module` (or `python3 -m pip install module`) without using a virtualenv or using the .deb packaged version in the repos. Wasn't that always a really bad idea to do, though, since it was so easy to break your system Python that way?
- darkwater 3y ago
  I'm not saying it was the best way but if you just ran some small 3rd party script or wrote some small Python script with non packaged deps, well, it was easy, fast and usually safe. But forcing this new behavior is surely a good decision.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- asddubs 3y ago
  I'm fairly ignorant of the python ecosystem beyond extremely casual use for a few scripts, how does it break your system to do this?
  - sjsdaiuasgdia 3y ago
    There's a few ways Python packages can be installed. They can be installed at the system level, making the package available to any Python program on the system. This can get problematic if not all of your Python usage can function with the same versions of all system-installed packages. They can be installed at the user level, sitting in your homedir instead of somewhere under /usr. This gives some isolation from the system defaults, but may just move the problem down a level - you still have the potential for version conflicts. They can also be installed at the virtualenv level, and now the package install is specific to Python programs launched from that virtualenv. Upgrading a package can only break stuff in that virtualenv, it can't spread beyond it. If you mostly use stuff from the standard library and stable packages that don't change their APIs much, you can go a long way without venvs before it actually bites you.

acatton 3y ago

I'm always confused by Raspberry Pi OS. It feels like Debian with a pre-set of packages, and a few additional software to control the board and bootloader. Why not maintain these additional pieces of software packaged in debian, and provide a prebuilt image for the Raspberry Pi? Why maintain an entire different apt repository? Why publish new version months after the upstream debian is already released?

whalesalad 3y ago
Hard agree and I too am curious as to why it is not like this.
afavour 3y ago
The blog post offers some clues: e.g. they're using Wayland on the Pi 4 and 5 but still X11 on lower devices. It's a tight coupling of hardware and software that means they can best tailor the experience to specific devices. Not everyone needs it but it's nice for newbies (and the Pi is intended to be very approachable) to get sensible defaults out of the box.
- acatton 3y ago
  You can do this with pre-built images. They can just install different packages on the rbpi3.img and the rbpi4.img, one with wayland one with x11. If you don't want to use pre-built images you can also do this with metapackages.
simcop2387 3y ago
I believe one of the biggest reasons is that because the boot process is very different from the way debian does things, it ends up needing significant changes from the starting tasks to do things. Along with that I think the original 32bit RPIs didn't support some version of the compiled binaries in the debian arm repos which meant that they weren't necessarily compatible. These days on the 64bit version, I'm not sure why it needs that much either. I'd think that having a few new task-* metapackages that setup the boot and raspberry pi specific boot management stuff should be doable and then they could use the main debian packages I would think. There's probably something that's not obvious that makes things just incompatible enough that it isn't simpler to manage that way.

404mm 3y ago

Interesting, I’m curious how the OS is assembled together, since they discourage users from in-place upgrade. Debian 11 was just a regular Debian with their repos added on top. It feels like since the times of Raspbian they are trying to thin out their changes to Debian (which is a good thing). So to see the recommendation to re-image is quite unexpected.

peterhull90 3y ago

I've been using X to view graphical applications running on the Pi from my desktop - will this still be possible?

rkangel 3y ago
Do you mean X forwarding of a window over SSH? You've got a couple of options: Use waypipe (https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/mstoeckl/waypipe https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/mstoeckl/waypipe). I haven't tried it myself, but I gather it's not as "easy" as X forwarding. Use VNC instead (remote the whole desktop instead of just one app)

spandextwins 3y ago

Did they fix the USB 3 issues with SSD’s yet?

MenhirMike 3y ago

What's the current status of 64-Bit on Raspberry Pi? My knowledge is pretty outdated, I remembered that initially, even the Raspberry Pi 4 was still running 32-Bit Raspbian and that 64-Bit was a hack/experimental. Is that all resolved and done and dusted now, and we have a full 64-Bit system? Or will that require Bookworm?

thrtowaweauhe 3y ago
[dead]
celsoazevedo 3y ago
The official 64-bit Raspberry Pi OS was released in February 2022: https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/raspberry-pi-os-64-bit/ https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/raspberry-pi-os-64-bit/ Since then it was up to the user to run the 32 or 64-bit OS. Still seems to be the case with this new version.
- MenhirMike 3y ago
  Thanks!
cillian64 3y ago
Rpi-imager and the website don’t really make it clear but these days the 64-bit OS is the preferred one on Pis that support it

quyleanh 3y ago

Sorry, about wayland, I thought it still has some disadvantages and also still not widely supported such as VNC related things? Could anyone enlighten me?

mrpippy 3y ago

No mention of the kernel using 16K page sizes?

nsteel 3y ago
I don't know what sort of mention you are looking for but there is a blog comment that mentions it.

kiernanmcgowan 3y ago

> As you probably know, Debian releases are named after characters in Disney/Pixar’s Toy Story franchise… Huh, TIL this convention. https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/debian-faq/ftparchives.en.html#sourceforcodenames https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/debian-faq/ftparchives.en...

zh3 3y ago
Thanks for the link, plays into a thought about how far Disney's effect on copyright extends to open source.

zh3 3y ago

It just struck me that using Disney character names (given Disney's record on copyright) for Debian suddenly feels jarring? (saying that as a 20+ year linux verteran).

layer8 3y ago
The naming convention was established well before Disney acquired Pixar. Arguably those aren’t Disney character names. (Except for characters new in Toy Story 3 I guess.)

rldjbpin 3y ago

how does it look like for people on older models? also does the compatibility issues should not matter much if you use it in headless mode AIUI.