# Raspberry Pi OS

11 Hacker News commenters recommended Raspberry Pi OS and 6 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 6 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** The official OS for Raspberry Pi, praised for polish, a light responsive desktop and maximum compatibility. Some find it bloated and tied to its imager.

## Why people recommend it

- Default choice for compatibility (3 comments): "Perhaps the fix for @Arainach would be to stick with the official OS." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47555907)) "I stick to RPi OS for maximum compatibility." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46582063)) "Just use the Raspberry Pi OS." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45867618))
- Lightweight, responsive graphical desktop (3 comments): "It's the single lightest least-fuss graphical desktop Debian there is." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50085136)) "The most responsive one, unexpectedly, was Raspberry Pi OS." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46176521)) "It's impressively hand crafted and pruned." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46190984))
- Polished and easy for newcomers (2 comments): "RaspianOS is polished enough for the average windows user to go "wow, neat."" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49922256)) "I was very impressed at being able to download a raspi image last year" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47775819))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Windows](https://hackerapproved.com/p/windows.md): 1287 recommend
- [macOS](https://hackerapproved.com/p/macos.md): 1041 recommend
- [Linux](https://hackerapproved.com/p/linux.md): 745 recommend
- [Haiku](https://hackerapproved.com/p/haiku-os.md): 115 recommend
- [NetBSD](https://hackerapproved.com/p/netbsd.md): 100 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Raspberry Pi OS", https://hackerapproved.com/p/raspberry-pi-os/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).