Raspberry Pi OS
Shares rank 47 of 87 operating systems by recommenders
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.
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.
17 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 11
- criticize it
- 6
- approval share
- 65%
Recommended in 6 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 11 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 1.8 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 6 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Default choice for compatibility
“Perhaps the fix for @Arainach would be to stick with the official OS.”
Comment from 28 Mar 2026 in “People inside Microsoft are fighting to drop mandatory Microsoft Account” “I stick to RPi OS for maximum compatibility.”
Comment from 12 Jan 2026 in “2026 is the Year of Self-hosting” “Just use the Raspberry Pi OS.”
Comment from 9 Nov 2025 in “Ask HN: How would you set up a child’s first Linux computer?” Lightweight, responsive graphical desktop
“It's the single lightest least-fuss graphical desktop Debian there is.”
Comment from 14 Oct 2026 on Hacker News “The most responsive one, unexpectedly, was Raspberry Pi OS.”
Comment from 6 Dec 2025 in “Tiny Core Linux: a 23 MB Linux distro with graphical desktop” “It's impressively hand crafted and pruned.”
Comment from 8 Dec 2025 in “Tiny Core Linux: a 23 MB Linux distro with graphical desktop” Polished and easy for newcomers
“RaspianOS is polished enough for the average windows user to go "wow, neat."”
Comment from 1 Oct 2026 in “Price Increases for 2GB Raspberry Pi 4 and Raspberry Pi 5” “I was very impressed at being able to download a raspi image last year”
Comment from 15 Apr 2026 in “The Orange Pi 6 Plus”
Other operating systems people recommend
The four most recommended other operating systems, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
See all 87 operating systems, rankedWhat people said
16 of the 19 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“Debian and Raspian both exhibit similar behavior”
“It's the single lightest least-fuss graphical desktop Debian there is.”
“RaspianOS is polished enough for the average windows user to go "wow, neat."”
“rpiOS is a pain to use, everything is bloated and janky”
“tied strictly to an imager, that gives me an allergic reaction”
“I was very impressed at being able to download a raspi image last year”
“unlike a lot of other manufacturers who only provide builds of Linux for their own hardware for a couple of years”
“Perhaps the fix for @Arainach would be to stick with the official OS.”
“Is this simple? I would contend that it is not.”
“I stick to RPi OS for maximum compatibility.”
“not designed to rollover like Debian and RasberryPi OS”
“It's impressively hand crafted and pruned.”
“You can run nodejs fine on a pi with”
“I find it much better even than Raspberry Pi OS Lite.”
“The most responsive one, unexpectedly, was Raspberry Pi OS.”
“Just use the Raspberry Pi OS.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.