Raspberry Pi Launches Pixel OS for PC and MAC

2017-01-20 | By Maker.io Staff

Back in September 2016, the Raspberry Pi foundation released a new version of their operating system, Pixel. Pixel stands for “Pi Improved Xwindows Environment Lightweight” and is a desktop operating software that can be used by anyone with a Raspberry Pi. The Raspberry Pi foundation stated that PIXEL represents their best guess at what the majority of users are looking for in a desktop environment; a clean, modern user interface, a curated suite of productivity software and programming tools, both free and proprietary, but not open source as many users have wanted since the beginning. All of this is built on top of Debian, giving users access to thousands of free applications.

Only just a few days ago, Raspberry Pi founder Eben Upton and his team have now released a version of the operating system that can be installed directly on a PC or MAC, meaning you don’t need to go out and purchase a Raspberry Pi to use their software.

During the summer of 2016, the team at the Raspberry Pi HQ started to question themselves as to why PIXEL was only available to Raspberry Pi users when there are thousands of PCs and Laptops out there that can run Debian on a x86 machine. After a few months the team got working on an experimental version of PIXEL that can run on any x86 computer, which includes all the standard features that are also available on the Raspberry Pi.

PIXEL OS User Interface

Once the news that PIXEL was available for PC and MAC, users started digging out what would be their old dinosaur computers that would normally be collecting dust and started installing the PIXEL OS with great results.

PIXEL OS installed on an old IBM Laptop

If you have a subscription to the latest MagPi magazine, then you are one of the lucky ones that will receive a PIXEL OS DVD with the magazine to get started with. Other users can still download and install the OS by either burning it to a DVD or saving it to a USB thumb drive.

PIXEL OS Available in the MagPi Magazine

PIXEL FOR PC AND MAC by Raspberry Pi Foundation. Used under Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial ShareAlike 3.0 Unported licence (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0)