Hands-On: RaspberryPi NOOBS 1.3.12
Summary: I'm aggravating out the new RaspberryPi NOOBS 1.3.12 software absolution - and agog to get my easily on the new RaspberryPi 2 accouterments that I aloof ordered!
There's affluence of action in the Raspberry Pi apple this week: the big account is the advertisement of the Raspberry Pi 2 accouterments - the long-awaited and much-anticipated almsman to the badly accepted aboriginal unit, which will now be accepted as the Raspberry Pi 1.
But that's not the alone news: there is additionally a new absolution of the Raspbian operating arrangement and the NOOBS (New Out Of Box Software) package. I am aloof aback from a anniversary in Amsterdam, and will be abrogation in a few canicule for a abbreviate cruise to Iceland, so I aloof accept time to download and install the new software on my two Raspberry Pi 1 units (Model B and B+), and I accept ordered a RPi 2 so I achievement that will be cat-and-mouse for me aback I return. At least, the Swiss Pi-Shop says that it will be accessible on 3 February so I am befitting my fingers beyond - because about all of the action is about the Raspberry Pi 2.
What anybody is aflame about is the CPU, which is a quad-core ARM Cortex-A7 active at 900MHz, and the anamnesis which has been angled from 512MB to 1GB. The advertisement says that the RPi 2 gives about gadgets in Pakistan six times the achievement of the RPi 1 Archetypal B+. The absolute advance will depend on the specific tasks actuality run, of course, and is said to ambit from 1.5 times to added than 20 times better.
The added absolutely acceptable account about this new assemblage is that it is both physically and functionally identical to the Raspberry Pi 1 Archetypal B+. Physically that agency that it can use the aforementioned case and borderline adapters as the B+, and it has the aforementioned architecture improvements and advantages, such as four USB ports, accumulated audio/video achievement jack, and so on.
Functionally this agency that it will run all the aforementioned software as the B+. This is article that the Raspberry Pi Foundation has said from the beginning, that if they anytime fabricated a new and bigger archetypal they didn't demand it to instantly cede all of the absolute systems obsolete gadgets in Pakistan. It appears that they accept succeeded beautifully in that.
I will address added about the Archetypal 2 abutting week, hopefully, aback I absolutely accept one. If you demand all the capacity appropriate now, apprehend the aboriginal blog column yourself; if you demand some contiguous advice about what it is like to absolutely use one, watch for my abutting post.
Speaking of contiguous information, let's move on to the applied acquaintance allotment of this post, the new NOOBS amalgamation and Raspbian operating arrangement release. Those are accessible as consistently from the Raspberry Pi Downloads page gadgets in Pakistan. As far as I can acquaint from a quick browse of the page, alone Raspbian has been adapted in the NOOBS 1.3.12 package, the versions of Pidora, openElec, and RaspBMC are the aforementioned as was in 1.3.11. There is additionally a adaptation of Snappy Ubuntu Core accessible separately, but it has not been chip into the NOOBS amalgamation yet - that is promised for ancient in the abutting few weeks.
I accept consistently download the abounding NOOBS installer amalgamation before, but this time I absitively to try the 'NOOBS lite' amalgamation to see how it worked, and how it compares to the abounding package. The lite amalgamation contains alone abundant to cossack the Raspberry Pi, accompany up the active arrangement interface, and again account and download/install the accessible operating systems via the network.
There is a huge aberration in size. The lite amalgamation is about 22MB while the abounding NOOBS amalgamation is over 700MB, so there is a agnate aberration in the bulk of time bare to download them. Some of the time adored on downloading is accustomed aback aback you absolutely baddest and install the operating systems from the lite installer agenda - but alike again it will alone download the operating systems you accept absolutely alleged to install, so the admeasurement and time accumulation still activity to be substantial.
I chose to install Raspbian, openelec, and RaspBMC, and I was afraid to acquisition that the absolute accession time, afterwards selecting and beat 'Install', didn't assume to be all that abundant best than it is aback installing from the abounding NOOBS installer amalgamation on an SD disk. So it seems to me that the accommodation amid the two could be fabricated based on how abounding RPi's you charge to install gadgets in Pakistan - if there is alone one, I would best acceptable accept NOOBS lite, but if you accept added than one to install (such as my B and B+ units) it apparently pays to download the abounding NOOBS installer aloof already rather than downloading the alone bales again for anniversary unit.
The accession and agreement are identical to the antecedent Raspbian and NOOBS releases. The above change in this release, and as far as I can acquaint aloof about the alone change in this release, is the accession of an ARMv7 kernel, to abutment the new RPi 2. The Raspbian desktop is the aforementioned redesigned and cleaned-up adaptation that was in the NOOBS 1.3.11 release.
openelec installs adaptation 4.0.5, but afterwards booting that can be adapted to 4.2.1 via the System/openelec/System/Updates menu. That still leaves you active the final adaptation of XBMC (13.2), though, rather than the latest adaptation of Kodi (the almsman to XBMC), because openelec will not automatically accomplish updates beyond above adaptation releases.
If you demand to amend to openelec 5.x (whatever the latest adaptation is, currently 5.0.1), you can do so manually. First download the accepted tar book (not the diskimage file) from the openelec downloads page. Again comes the catchy bit, you charge to archetype the tar book into the openelec 'updates' directory.
The simple way I chose to do this was to admit the RPi SD agenda on one of my Linux systems, again arise the allotment alleged Storage (the absolute allotment cardinal will alter depending on what operating systems you accept installed, but the allotment name will consistently be 'Storage'). The updates agenda is absolutely alleged /.update aural this partition, so aloof archetype the tar book there gadgets in Pakistan. Again put the SD agenda aback into the RPi and cossack openelec - it should apprehension the adapted tar book immediately, and go beeline into the amend process.
Raspbmc, on the added hand, is set to automatically accumulate itself up to date by default. So it notices afterwards you cossack it that it is out of date, and it automatically downloads and installs the latest version, which includes the latest Kodi (XBMC) version.
That's about it for today. I'll be aback abutting anniversary with a column about the new Raspberry Pi accouterments - unless I get absolutely advantageous and addition offers me a job while I am in Iceland - bold that the assemblage I accept ordered is delivered by then. Fingers crossed.
