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A new version of the official Raspberry Pi OS (formerly Raspbian) distribution for Raspberry Pi computers is now available to download, the first to switch to the Linux 5.4 LTS kernel series.
It’s been three months since the Raspberry Pi Foundation announced that their Debian-based Raspbian distribution for Raspberry Pi single-board computer has a new, more appropriate name, Raspberry Pi OS, also unveiling an upcoming 64-bit variant.
A new version (2020-08-20) of the Raspberry Pi OS distribution has been released, and while the changes aren’t all that big, it ships with a major kernel bump, namely Linux kernel 5.4 LTS, along with a new Raspberry Pi firmware.
Raspbian has been using the long-term supported Linux 4.19 kernel series since June 2019, when the distro was rebased for the first time on the latest Debian GNU/Linux 10 “Buster” operating system series.
But it’s time for a new kernel, and Raspberry Pi OS is now powered by Linux kernel 5.4 LTS, which is supported with maintenance updates until the end of year 2025.
While not the latest version, Linux kernel 5.4.51 is included in the new Raspberry Pi OS release, which also updates the raspi-config configuration tool to allow users to select the boot EEPROM version and change boot device order. Moreover, raspi-config now detects audio devices in non-English locales.
On top of that, Raspberry Pi OS updates the Recommended Software utility to allow multiple install and reinstall operations without forcing the user to close the program between each one and enables installation of both 32-bit and 64-bit packages on 64-bit images.
Among other noteworthy changes, the new Raspberry Pi OS updates the Adobe Flash Player plugin to the latest release, version 32.0.0.414, adds an Italian translation for the PIXEL desktop, and removes the user feedback survey from the Chromium web browser.
The SD Card Copier utility has been updated as well to immediately abort the copy operation when the user disconnects or connects drives during copying, and a few pesky bugs were squashed to improve the overall experience.
Image: Raspberry Fi Foundation
Last updated 4 years ago
