A Slice Of Ubuntu

The de facto standard for Raspberry Pi operating systems is Raspbian–a Debian based distribution specifically for the diminutive computer. Of course, you have multiple choices and there might not be one best choice for every situation. It did catch our eye, however, that the RaspEX project released a workable Ubunutu 16.10 release for the Raspberry Pi 2 and 3.

RaspEX is a full Linux Desktop system with LXDE (a lightweight desktop environment) and many other useful programs. Firefox, Samba, and VNC4Server are present. You can use the Ubuntu repositories to install anything else you want. The system uses kernel 4.4.21. You can see a review of a much older version of RaspEX  in the video below.

If you are used to using Ubuntu, this could be a great convenience. The project claims the system is much faster than the stock OS, although it doesn’t offer any explanation for why that should be so.

Then again, some Raspberry Pi boards don’t need an operating system at all. Or, you could always try Google’s entry.

24 thoughts on “A Slice Of Ubuntu

    1. Raspberry Pi 2 isn’t 64-bit, but RaspEx supports it, so it can’t be that. I think I read somewhere that Raspbian still sticks to ARMv6-binaries, but since RaspEx doesn’t support RPi1 they may be using ARMv7-binaries and that could explain it being more performant.

  1. I am running Ubuntu Mate on my kid’s Pi desktop computer. It is slow compared to my modern gaming grade laptop or even my wife’s non-3d accelerated one, but the biggest problem is unreliable sound. OTOH I am used to Ubuntu and have not tried Raspian, though for example the Raspian Minecraft .deb installed on Ubuntu.

    1. Try a i2s dac pcm board, works fine for me, either rpi 2 or rpi 3, also running ubuntu mate. I have no issues with rpi 1, 2 or 3 built-in sound, but the sound quality of a i2s pcm board is better.

      1. Yes! Exactly what I want too! But… I don’t expect it. The carriers will never allow it. We are stuck back in the days of Ma Bell again. There are a few Ma’s to chose from this time but they all pretty much act the same so competition isn’t really helping us any.

        Maybe you can hack up your own device. You could try to integrate an off the shelf USB cellular dongle which was meant for laptop use. I haven’t seen any of those with voice support in a long time though. I’ve seen ones with jacks for ear/microphones. Those were all 2G or maybe 1G devices though. Perhaps it’s still there on the un-used pins of some tiny surface mount chip… It won’t be easy.

        1. @You: Have a look: http://www.quectel.com/product/prodetail.aspx?id=83
          Those include WIFI, BLE and voice. I know one person that is connecting those modules to the PI. Not for the sake of voice calls but those are supported according to the specification.
          IMHO, the following components are required:

          . PI zero or its successor or Arducam coin module
          . Wireless module
          . antenna
          . camera module
          . touch display (cheap replacement part from other smartphone?)
          . microphone and speaker
          . battery (cheap replacement part from other smartphone)
          . charger circuit and step down converter
          . SD card
          . 3d printed case

  2. It’s faster because it’s compiled against ARM7 and not ARM6 (which is a slower, not as capable core). Note the Pi 1’s aren’t in the compatible list. The Pi 1’s are on an ARM6 core while the Pi 2 is ARM7 and Pi 3 is ARM8.

  3. “RasPlex” was (is?) a boot2plex media center OS. That’s Plex, the fork (of several years back) of XBMC/Kodi. That’s what you’ve linked to in the video (based on the title, and thumbnail).

    Is “RaspEX” a name change for “RasPlex” or a completely different project?

    Or has this article a) been written with some critical typos; b) missed the primary point of the distribution?

    Confusing.

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