W
hentheoriginalRaspberryPifirst
launched,it gavemanypeopletheir
firstexperienceofembedded
hardware.Steponewasgivingit anoperating
system,a processthatinvolvesloadinga series
ofpartitionsinformatsWindowscan’t
understand,ontowhatatthetimewasa full-
sizeSDcard.
Backthen,therewereonlyreallytwooptions.
TheLinuxandmacOScrowdcouldwritea
downloadeddiskimagetotheSDcardusingthe
ddutilityatthecommandline.Windowsusers,
meanwhile,couldusethewell-established
Win32DiskImager.
Neitheroftheseareparticularlywelcoming
tolesstechnicalfolks,however.Forthese
users,theRaspberryPiFoundationdeveloped
NOOBS,theNewOut-Of-BoxSoftware,
whichcanbeextractedfroma downloaded
ZIParchivedirectlyontoanyFAT32-formatted
microSDcard.Noimages,nocomplexity.
Somepeoplestillprefertoinstallan
operatingsystemdirectly,however,particularly
if theoperatingsystemchosenisn’tavailable
aspartofNOOBS.Here,therecommendation
hasbeentouseBalena’scross-platformEtcher
(balena.io/etcher), a relativelynewtoolfor
flashingoperatingsystemimagestoremovable
storage,andonewhichusesanattractiveand
easy-to-followgraphicaluserinterface.Foroperatingsystemsnotincludedinthe
list,there’sanoptiontowriteanylocaldisk
image,andevena toolforformattingexisting
storagedevicestoFAT32readyforNOOBS
installation.Whatthereisn’t,surprisingly,given
itsname,istheabilitytocloneanexisting
microSDcardorcreateanimage.Whileit’s
billedasan‘Imager,’inthepresentreleaseit’s
purelyanimagewriter.
There’soneextrafeaturethatthe
Foundationhas,thankfully,included.Once
animageis written,a processthatstallsat
the 99 percentmarkforsomeconsiderable
timebyfillinguptheoperatingsystem’swrite
cache,it verifiesthattheimagehasbeen
writtencorrectly.That’sa stepthatEtcheralso
performsbydefault,althoughatthecostof
extendingtherun timea little.
Despitesomeminorshortcomings,the
RaspberryPiImageris a handytooland,
technically,it’scompatiblewithanyother
single-boardcomputersif youusethewrite-
local-imageoption.It alsoremovesoneofthe
Foundation’slastdependenciesona third-
partytool,andgivesnewcomersa smoother
introductiontotheprocess.
TheRaspberryPiImageris availableto
downloadforWindows,macOSandLinuxnow
fromraspberrypi.org/downloads.A version
canalsobeinstalledinRaspbian,forusewitha
USBSDcardreader,usingthecommand
sudoapt installrpi-imager
intheterminal.CUSTOMISATION / HOBBY TECH
REVIEW
Raspberry Pi
Imager
Now,there’syetanotheroption,andit
comesfromtheRaspberryPiFoundation
itself.TheRaspberryPiImageris,effectively,
theFoundation’sanswertoBalenaEtcher.
LikeEtcher,it aimstoreducecomplexity.Like
Etcher,it’sa three-wayworkflowthatasksthe
usertochooseanoperatingsystemimage,
picka destinationstoragedeviceandhitWrite.
Also,againlikeEtcher,it sensiblyexcludes
largeandfixeddrivesfromthelistofpossible
destinations,toreducetheriskofaccidentally
overwritingyourharddrive.
TheRaspberryPiImagerisn’tanEtcher
clone,however.It takesa lotofitsinspiration
fromNOOBS,includingofferingtheabilityto
downloadthelatestversionsofa rangeof
operatingsystemimagesautomatically.This
listincludestherecommendedRaspbian
Linuxdistribution,
instandardformas
wellasthelargerFull
andsmallerLite,the
hometheatre-focused
LibreElec,UbuntuCore
andUbuntuServer,and
evenanimagedesigned
torepaira corruptboot
EEPROMona Raspberry
Pi4.Simplyselectthe
OS,it’sautomatically
downloaded,andthen
youcanflashasmany
copiesasdesired.Gareth Halfacree is a keen computer hobbyist, journalist, and author. His work can be found at freelance.halfacree.co.uk @ghalfacree
The Raspberry Pi Imager aims to make installing
an OS onto a microSD card as easy as possibleThe tool includes all the most popular
operating systems, not just Raspbian