Tiny tweak for Pi OS, big makeover for the Imager
(2025/11/27)
- Reference: 1764238506
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2025/11/27/new_raspberry_pi_imager/
- Source link:
Raspberry Pi Ltd has shipped two updates for its single-board computers: a very small refresh to Pi OS 6, and a more substantial upgrade to the tool that writes your Pi's operating system to an SD card.
The [1]Raspberry Pi Imager 2.0 is a significant new version of the best and easiest tool for creating boot media for any Raspberry Pi from the Zero upward. Two years ago, when we [2]introduced Raspberry Pi OS 5 , we also showed you a couple of screenshots of the improved Pi Imager application. Now it's been streamlined and simplified.
[3]
What flavor of Pi would you like to start with?
The [4]Raspberry Pi Imager is the quickest way to create a fresh SD card. It's rather more capable than a generic image writer like the handy [5]Balena Etcher . The Imager also offers a menu letting you choose the OS you want, and it downloads the relevant OS for you, as well as writing it. Version 2.0 has been restructured as a step-by-step "wizard." A panel down the left identifies the steps: Device, OS, Storage, Customisation (yes, with an "s" because this is a British app), Writing, and finally Done. There are a few additional options for the Imager app itself, behind a button at the bottom. For each step, you need to pick an option before you can proceed.
There are a lot of OS choices in here now. As well as the standard small GUI-based options of Pi OS 6 (in both 64-bit and 32-bit editions) plus Pi OS 5, there's a sub-menu with various "Full," "Lite," and "Legacy" options, plus seven other OSes including [6]RISC OS Pi 5.30 and an Android variant called [7]Bass OS . Some of these have sub-menus – for instance, the Ubuntu option offers no fewer than 14 variants, including Server, LTS and latest interim desktops, Ubuntu Core, and the previous LTS releases. Fortunately, the window is resizable. There is a bewildering array of OS choices in here: five dedicated media player choices, 26 special-purpose OSes for things like digital signage or 3D printing, and so on.
[8]
You can resize the window of Pi Imager 2, which we've done to show 14 different Ubuntu variants
Pi OS 6 gets freshened up
The Raspberry Pi organization tends to be a little coy about administrivia like version numbers and release announcements, making it slightly tricky for us to link to anything very specific. However, it's also released a small update to the new Debian 13-based version of the Raspberry Pi OS, which [9]appeared last month . The company's own [10]October announcement of the Trixie-based release doesn't give it a version number or anything handy for your hardworking hack.
The splash screen on an actual device now says Raspberry Pi OS 6.0 — September 2025. After the latest update, flagged as 2025-11-24 in the [11]combined release notes file that's been updated for a dozen years now, the splash screen still says version 6.0, but now the /etc/debian_release file says that it's based on Debian 13.2. That is the latest update version, which [12]was released on November 15.
For Wayland users, this release adopts the latest [13]labwc compositor 0.9.2 and refines the HiDPI scaling options, with new hi-def icons, icons in the app switcher, and a new Scaling section in the Screens control panel. Since this aging vulture's eyes can't tell the difference between standard definition and high definition from a typical 60 cm or so away, we don't own any HD displays – why pay more for something you can't see? So we can't test it for you. However, we're sure that it looks absolutely lovely if you can see it. We have read that if you invest in a gold and silver-plated [14]premium HDMI cable to go with your 600 Hz specialist eSports monitor, the colors look richer and more vibrant. Do feel free to tell us we're a mole-person who ought to use sonar in the comments.
[15]
The version number hasn't changed, but Raspberry Pi OS 6 is now based on Debian 13.2 – complete with new labwc for Wayland fans
You also get new releases of both Firefox and Chromium, which will be handy. This is only a modest update, and there's no need to write new media, reinstall, or anything. Just do a normal update however you choose to do such things, and you'll get it. We use the command line, partly because it works whether you've got a GUI or not, including over an SSH connection – for example, [16]to this vulture's home Pi-hole , which is still serving very well. The simple way is three commands: sudo -s
apt update ; apt full-upgrade -y
In the PiOS standard config, the sudo command doesn't ask for your password. If you're impatient, or do this a lot, the [17]Nala package manager is a little quicker . Just once, type: sudo apt install -y nala
From then on, you can update with a single command instead of two, and it might go a little bit faster as well: sudo -s
nala upgrade -y
Periodically, though, especially if you have a fairly small microSD card, you should empty the cache: sudo apt clean
Pi OS longevity – and breadth of OS support
This long-term Linux support is one of the key differentiators about the Raspberry Pi. The Register covered the [18]prototype Pi way back in 2011, and when it went into [19]full production in January 2012 . That's 13 years ago, but you can [20]still download three versions of the Raspberry Pi OS that works on all models of Pi, complete with Debian 13 base and kernel 6.12.
Alongside Raspberry Pi Ltd's very impressive commitment to long-term OS support, there's also a very long list of other OSes for the Pi. The Imager app offers RISC OS, which is nearly as unlike Unix as any OS that has ever existed. Missing from the Imager, though, are some other members of the wider Unix-like family. You can get the latest [21]FreeBSD , [22]NetBSD , and [23]OpenBSD .
[24]Raspberry Pi OS, LMDE, Peppermint OS join the Debian 13 club
[25]Struggling to heat your home? How about 500 Raspberry Pi units?
[26]Raspberry Pi prices hiked as AI gobbles all the memory
[27]AI can spew code, but kids should still suffer like we did, says Raspberry Pi
And it doesn't stop there. There's a port of [28]Plan 9 from Bell Labs , and we are impressed that it was ported by Richard Miller – the same genius who in 1976 did the [29]first ever port of Unix outside AT&T [PDF] – to the Interdata 7/32. And since Plan 9 exists, there's a [30]version of 9front too.
Plan 9 is what [31]Unix grew up into . It's a cluster-native OS that provides all the important functionality of Linux, complete with Kubernetes – and it does it in a 5 MB kernel with 38 system calls. It's about the same age as Linux and the x86 flavors of BSD, and in this vulture's humble opinion, it's an epic mistake that once Plan 9 went FOSS at the turn of the century, the industry didn't adopt it instead of Linux.
[32]
The development of Unix didn't end with Plan 9. Plan 9 code is written in an exceptionally small and quick-compiling dialect of C, and that means that processes in a Plan 9 cluster can only move between machines with the same CPU type. So Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson went on and fixed that to create the [33]Inferno OS , which replaces C with the cleaner safer Limbo language, meaning that processes can run natively on any CPU that Inferno supports. And, yes, the Raspberry Pi has its own native [34]port of Inferno OS too.
[35]
There are lots of inexpensive Arm boards out there, many with specs exceeding those of the Raspberry Pi. With some of them, you might even get an OS update or two after you buy it, if you're lucky. The original 2013 Raspberry Pi can still run Debian 13, though, and half a dozen totally different OSes as well. There's nothing else quite like it in the 21st century. Long may it thrive. ®
Get our [36]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/a-new-raspberry-pi-imager/
[2] https://www.theregister.com/2023/11/03/raspberry_pi_os_5/
[3] https://regmedia.co.uk/2025/11/26/pi-imager-2.jpg
[4] https://www.raspberrypi.com/software/
[5] https://etcher.balena.io/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2024/05/02/rool_530_is_here/
[7] https://bassos.navotpala.tech/
[8] https://regmedia.co.uk/2025/11/26/pi-imager-ubuntu.jpg
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/15/raspberry_pi_os_lmde_debian_13/
[10] https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/trixie-the-new-version-of-raspberry-pi-os/
[11] https://downloads.raspberrypi.com/raspios_arm64/release_notes.txt
[12] https://www.debian.org/News/2025/20251115
[13] https://github.com/labwc/labwc/releases/tag/0.9.2
[14] https://www.amazon.co.uk/LeTkingok-Audiophile-Silver-Plated-Gold-Plated-Diameter/dp/B0CN6KCPGY?th=1
[15] https://regmedia.co.uk/2025/11/26/pios6-version.jpg
[16] https://www.theregister.com/2025/03/08/pi_hole_6_flyby/
[17] https://www.theregister.com/2022/10/13/canonical_ubuntu_ad/
[18] https://www.theregister.com/2011/05/06/david_braben_raspberry_pi/
[19] https://www.theregister.com/2012/01/13/raspberry_pi_foundation_rolls_out_linux_based_pcs/
[20] https://www.raspberrypi.com/software/operating-systems/
[21] https://wiki.freebsd.org/arm/Raspberry%20Pi
[22] https://wiki.netbsd.org/ports/evbarm/raspberry_pi/
[23] https://www.openbsd.org/arm64.html
[24] https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/15/raspberry_pi_os_lmde_debian_13/
[25] https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/03/thermify_heathub_raspberry_pi/
[26] https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/01/raspberry_pi_price_hikes/
[27] https://www.theregister.com/2025/06/05/vibe_coding_raspberry_pi/
[28] https://raspi.tv/2012/plan-9-operating-system-for-the-raspberry-pi-demonstration-by-richard-miller
[29] http://bitsavers.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/bits/Interdata/32bit/unix/univWollongong_v6/miller.pdf
[30] https://9front.org/releases/
[31] https://www.theregister.com/2024/02/21/successor_to_unix_plan_9/
[32] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2aSgvSvXfVVPzBb30tLxSDgAAAJA&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[33] https://www.inferno-os.org/inferno/
[34] https://github.com/tmendoza/inferno-rpi
[35] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aSgvSvXfVVPzBb30tLxSDgAAAJA&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[36] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
The [1]Raspberry Pi Imager 2.0 is a significant new version of the best and easiest tool for creating boot media for any Raspberry Pi from the Zero upward. Two years ago, when we [2]introduced Raspberry Pi OS 5 , we also showed you a couple of screenshots of the improved Pi Imager application. Now it's been streamlined and simplified.
[3]
What flavor of Pi would you like to start with?
The [4]Raspberry Pi Imager is the quickest way to create a fresh SD card. It's rather more capable than a generic image writer like the handy [5]Balena Etcher . The Imager also offers a menu letting you choose the OS you want, and it downloads the relevant OS for you, as well as writing it. Version 2.0 has been restructured as a step-by-step "wizard." A panel down the left identifies the steps: Device, OS, Storage, Customisation (yes, with an "s" because this is a British app), Writing, and finally Done. There are a few additional options for the Imager app itself, behind a button at the bottom. For each step, you need to pick an option before you can proceed.
There are a lot of OS choices in here now. As well as the standard small GUI-based options of Pi OS 6 (in both 64-bit and 32-bit editions) plus Pi OS 5, there's a sub-menu with various "Full," "Lite," and "Legacy" options, plus seven other OSes including [6]RISC OS Pi 5.30 and an Android variant called [7]Bass OS . Some of these have sub-menus – for instance, the Ubuntu option offers no fewer than 14 variants, including Server, LTS and latest interim desktops, Ubuntu Core, and the previous LTS releases. Fortunately, the window is resizable. There is a bewildering array of OS choices in here: five dedicated media player choices, 26 special-purpose OSes for things like digital signage or 3D printing, and so on.
[8]
You can resize the window of Pi Imager 2, which we've done to show 14 different Ubuntu variants
Pi OS 6 gets freshened up
The Raspberry Pi organization tends to be a little coy about administrivia like version numbers and release announcements, making it slightly tricky for us to link to anything very specific. However, it's also released a small update to the new Debian 13-based version of the Raspberry Pi OS, which [9]appeared last month . The company's own [10]October announcement of the Trixie-based release doesn't give it a version number or anything handy for your hardworking hack.
The splash screen on an actual device now says Raspberry Pi OS 6.0 — September 2025. After the latest update, flagged as 2025-11-24 in the [11]combined release notes file that's been updated for a dozen years now, the splash screen still says version 6.0, but now the /etc/debian_release file says that it's based on Debian 13.2. That is the latest update version, which [12]was released on November 15.
For Wayland users, this release adopts the latest [13]labwc compositor 0.9.2 and refines the HiDPI scaling options, with new hi-def icons, icons in the app switcher, and a new Scaling section in the Screens control panel. Since this aging vulture's eyes can't tell the difference between standard definition and high definition from a typical 60 cm or so away, we don't own any HD displays – why pay more for something you can't see? So we can't test it for you. However, we're sure that it looks absolutely lovely if you can see it. We have read that if you invest in a gold and silver-plated [14]premium HDMI cable to go with your 600 Hz specialist eSports monitor, the colors look richer and more vibrant. Do feel free to tell us we're a mole-person who ought to use sonar in the comments.
[15]
The version number hasn't changed, but Raspberry Pi OS 6 is now based on Debian 13.2 – complete with new labwc for Wayland fans
You also get new releases of both Firefox and Chromium, which will be handy. This is only a modest update, and there's no need to write new media, reinstall, or anything. Just do a normal update however you choose to do such things, and you'll get it. We use the command line, partly because it works whether you've got a GUI or not, including over an SSH connection – for example, [16]to this vulture's home Pi-hole , which is still serving very well. The simple way is three commands: sudo -s
apt update ; apt full-upgrade -y
In the PiOS standard config, the sudo command doesn't ask for your password. If you're impatient, or do this a lot, the [17]Nala package manager is a little quicker . Just once, type: sudo apt install -y nala
From then on, you can update with a single command instead of two, and it might go a little bit faster as well: sudo -s
nala upgrade -y
Periodically, though, especially if you have a fairly small microSD card, you should empty the cache: sudo apt clean
Pi OS longevity – and breadth of OS support
This long-term Linux support is one of the key differentiators about the Raspberry Pi. The Register covered the [18]prototype Pi way back in 2011, and when it went into [19]full production in January 2012 . That's 13 years ago, but you can [20]still download three versions of the Raspberry Pi OS that works on all models of Pi, complete with Debian 13 base and kernel 6.12.
Alongside Raspberry Pi Ltd's very impressive commitment to long-term OS support, there's also a very long list of other OSes for the Pi. The Imager app offers RISC OS, which is nearly as unlike Unix as any OS that has ever existed. Missing from the Imager, though, are some other members of the wider Unix-like family. You can get the latest [21]FreeBSD , [22]NetBSD , and [23]OpenBSD .
[24]Raspberry Pi OS, LMDE, Peppermint OS join the Debian 13 club
[25]Struggling to heat your home? How about 500 Raspberry Pi units?
[26]Raspberry Pi prices hiked as AI gobbles all the memory
[27]AI can spew code, but kids should still suffer like we did, says Raspberry Pi
And it doesn't stop there. There's a port of [28]Plan 9 from Bell Labs , and we are impressed that it was ported by Richard Miller – the same genius who in 1976 did the [29]first ever port of Unix outside AT&T [PDF] – to the Interdata 7/32. And since Plan 9 exists, there's a [30]version of 9front too.
Plan 9 is what [31]Unix grew up into . It's a cluster-native OS that provides all the important functionality of Linux, complete with Kubernetes – and it does it in a 5 MB kernel with 38 system calls. It's about the same age as Linux and the x86 flavors of BSD, and in this vulture's humble opinion, it's an epic mistake that once Plan 9 went FOSS at the turn of the century, the industry didn't adopt it instead of Linux.
[32]
The development of Unix didn't end with Plan 9. Plan 9 code is written in an exceptionally small and quick-compiling dialect of C, and that means that processes in a Plan 9 cluster can only move between machines with the same CPU type. So Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson went on and fixed that to create the [33]Inferno OS , which replaces C with the cleaner safer Limbo language, meaning that processes can run natively on any CPU that Inferno supports. And, yes, the Raspberry Pi has its own native [34]port of Inferno OS too.
[35]
There are lots of inexpensive Arm boards out there, many with specs exceeding those of the Raspberry Pi. With some of them, you might even get an OS update or two after you buy it, if you're lucky. The original 2013 Raspberry Pi can still run Debian 13, though, and half a dozen totally different OSes as well. There's nothing else quite like it in the 21st century. Long may it thrive. ®
Get our [36]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/a-new-raspberry-pi-imager/
[2] https://www.theregister.com/2023/11/03/raspberry_pi_os_5/
[3] https://regmedia.co.uk/2025/11/26/pi-imager-2.jpg
[4] https://www.raspberrypi.com/software/
[5] https://etcher.balena.io/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2024/05/02/rool_530_is_here/
[7] https://bassos.navotpala.tech/
[8] https://regmedia.co.uk/2025/11/26/pi-imager-ubuntu.jpg
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/15/raspberry_pi_os_lmde_debian_13/
[10] https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/trixie-the-new-version-of-raspberry-pi-os/
[11] https://downloads.raspberrypi.com/raspios_arm64/release_notes.txt
[12] https://www.debian.org/News/2025/20251115
[13] https://github.com/labwc/labwc/releases/tag/0.9.2
[14] https://www.amazon.co.uk/LeTkingok-Audiophile-Silver-Plated-Gold-Plated-Diameter/dp/B0CN6KCPGY?th=1
[15] https://regmedia.co.uk/2025/11/26/pios6-version.jpg
[16] https://www.theregister.com/2025/03/08/pi_hole_6_flyby/
[17] https://www.theregister.com/2022/10/13/canonical_ubuntu_ad/
[18] https://www.theregister.com/2011/05/06/david_braben_raspberry_pi/
[19] https://www.theregister.com/2012/01/13/raspberry_pi_foundation_rolls_out_linux_based_pcs/
[20] https://www.raspberrypi.com/software/operating-systems/
[21] https://wiki.freebsd.org/arm/Raspberry%20Pi
[22] https://wiki.netbsd.org/ports/evbarm/raspberry_pi/
[23] https://www.openbsd.org/arm64.html
[24] https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/15/raspberry_pi_os_lmde_debian_13/
[25] https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/03/thermify_heathub_raspberry_pi/
[26] https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/01/raspberry_pi_price_hikes/
[27] https://www.theregister.com/2025/06/05/vibe_coding_raspberry_pi/
[28] https://raspi.tv/2012/plan-9-operating-system-for-the-raspberry-pi-demonstration-by-richard-miller
[29] http://bitsavers.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/bits/Interdata/32bit/unix/univWollongong_v6/miller.pdf
[30] https://9front.org/releases/
[31] https://www.theregister.com/2024/02/21/successor_to_unix_plan_9/
[32] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2aSgvSvXfVVPzBb30tLxSDgAAAJA&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[33] https://www.inferno-os.org/inferno/
[34] https://github.com/tmendoza/inferno-rpi
[35] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aSgvSvXfVVPzBb30tLxSDgAAAJA&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[36] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Imager
Androgynous Cupboard
Worth noting that while a few years ago it was practical to image with dd , these days if you do that you'll wind up with a machine with no SSH access, making headless installations... problematic. This is the main reason I've had to suck it up and abandon the terminal for the imager.
I suspect when the author said "we don't own any HD displays", they meant "we don't own any UHD displays"...
Although it's entirely possible they don't own a TV?