Blog
Overview of the Raspbian Buster OS
- February 11, 2020
- Posted by: Naveen PS
- Category: Learn Technology in 5 minutes
In this blog, you will get a basic overview of the Raspbian Buster OS for the Raspberry Pi 4 and how it is different from the older version. Raspberry Pi’s official OS is based on the Debian Linux Distribution. Raspbian Buster OS was released along with Raspberry Pi 4.
Even though Raspberry Pi 4 can only work with Buster, the OS is still backward compatible with older Raspberry Pi Models.
There is no huge difference between Stretch & Buster. Most of the updates are security patches and minor cosmetic changes. While we take a general overview of buster OS, I will point out the different changes from the last iteration of the Raspbian OS.
I hope you are now in the desktop environment. The first main difference you will generally notice throughout the OS is the appearance of the GUI elements. They have gone for a flatter, and a cleaner, modern look.
It was achieved by reducing the curvature of corners and the shading gradients, which were used for the 3D effect to the elements like buttons. This is the full set of GUI elements for the Buster.
On the top left corner, you can see a Raspberry Pi logo. Click it to open the applications menu. This is where you will find the software that are already installed in Raspbian and anything else you may add later. Here comes another minor update. In this release, the Thonny Python Editor is made the default python editor. Previously IDLE was the default Python Editor.
The globe icon on the right of the pi icon gives you quick access to the Chromium web browser.
The folder icon opens the file manager. You can use it to find, move, copy, and delete files on your storage devices. The file manager uses a hierarchical browser on the left. Your files will be stored in the “pi” sub folder inside the “home” directory.
The next icon is the terminal icon. Even though Raspbian features a nice GUI that you can use for many day-to-day tasks, to get greater control of your Raspberry Pi, you will need to use the terminal. The terminal, also known as the shell or command-line interface, is a text-based interface that accepts and interprets your commands. You can use terminal commands in Raspbian to run a program, execute scripts, manipulate files, etc.
Now go to the top right corner just before the time icon. Here is a speaker icon, which is obviously for volume control. To the left of the volume control is the network icon. This can be used to monitor wired and wireless networks. You can also scan for WiFi networks and connect to it by left-clicking on the icon. You can right-click this icon to get access to more configuration settings for your network. Just hovering your mouse pointer over the Network icon will reveal quick information about the current network, like SSID, IP address, etc. The next icon is the Bluetooth icon. You can manage Bluetooth connections with this tool. Just like the network icon, left-clicking the icon reveals options to add, remove, and switch off the Bluetooth. You can use Bluetooth devices such as keyboards and mice to control your Raspberry Pi 4 wirelessly. If you are working remotely on the Pi, you will also see a VNC icon on the left of the Bluetooth icon. This icon signifies that the VNC Server is running, and if you left-click on it, you can see all the information about the specific VNC Server that is running on your Pi.
Do you need to adjust some settings? Then the Raspberry Pi Configuration GUI Tool is the best tool. The Raspberry Pi configuration tool is in the preferences section of the applications menu.
In its system tab, you can change your password, adjust the display options, and set the Raspberry Pi to boot to the command-line interface instead of the desktop.
In the Interfaces tab, you can enable connections, including remote GPIO access and the camera. To adjust the amount of memory or to set Raspberry Pi to run faster, click the performance tab. You can change the time zone, keyboard, and other geographic options in the localization tab.
The Screen Configuration Tool in the Buster OS is a new addition. You can also use the screen configuration tool inside the preferences section to easily configure the resolution, aspect ratio, and orientation of the screen. Furthermore, you can easily set up dual monitors for your Raspberry Pi 4 using this tool.
You can also configure how your desktop GUI looks like by right-clicking on the desktop and selecting desktop preferences option. It has options to change the layout, wallpaper, text color, the size and color of the menu bar, system colors, fonts, and much more.
Learn Technology in 5 Minutes is a unique video series aimed at demystifying cutting edge technologies in the field of AI, IoT & Embedded Systems. Invest just 5 minutes of your time every day and within a year you will have wide breadth and depth of knowledge on various topics.