The developers of the Raspberry Pi project have introduced a new version of the Raspberry Pi OS distribution 2025-05-06 (Raspbian), based on the Debian 12 package base and the Linux kernel 6.12. Approximately 35,000 packages are available in the repository. The desktop environment is based on the labwc compositing manager, which uses the wlroots library from the Sway project. Three builds have been prepared for download: a minimal one (494 MB) for server systems, one with a basic desktop (1.1 GB), and a full version with an additional set of applications (2.7 GB), available for both 32-bit and 64-bit architectures. Additionally, an update has been created for the old version of Raspberry Pi OS (Legacy), which is based on the Linux kernel 6.1 and the Debian 11 package base.
Key changes:
- The Linux kernel has been updated to version 6.12 (previously 6.6 was used).
- Included is a lock screen implementation for system login, based on a modified version of swaylock from the Sway project. The developers of Raspberry Pi OS have added a new frontend to swaylock that supports background image settings.
- The settings for automatic login for the graphical session and console (Ctrl-Alt-F1) have been separated. Automatic login is still enabled by default, but users can now selectively change its behavior via the Raspberry Pi Configuration configurator and the raspi-config utility.
- A new application for managing printers and printing has been added. The application is based on a plugin for the GNOME configurator.
- Improvements have been made for touchscreen functionality. Many issues that occurred when using Wayland, such as double-click handling, have been resolved. By default, mouse emulation is enabled on touchscreens (touching the screen generates a click, while double touching generates a double click). A new menu for selecting work mode—mouse emulation or gesture control—has been added to the Touchscreen section of the configurator. To simplify file manager controls while in gesture control mode, options for opening files with a single click and displaying the context menu by holding touch on the screen have been included.
- The labwc compositing manager has been updated to version 0.8.1.
- The Squeekboard on-screen keyboard has added support for multi-monitor configurations and primary screen settings for keyboard display.
- Due to the discontinuation of support in Chromium for the second manifest version, the uBlock Origin Lite extension is now preinstalled instead of the uBlock Origin ad-blocking extension. Chromium has been updated to version 135.0.7049.84, and Firefox to version 138.0.
- The wf-panel-pi utility, which creates the desktop panel, has been accelerated.
- Instead of the zenity utility for generating dialogs and informational messages from the command line, a faster alternative called zenoty is now used.
- A new application called rasputin has been added for configuring the keyboard and mouse, replacing lxinput.
- For password requests, the sudopwd application is now used instead of a script based on zenity.
Source: opennet.ru
