What actually changed
Raspberry Pi's announcement says the PC and Mac image has been fully updated to Debian Trixie. It also includes a Raspberry Pi Connect client. Per that announcement, the new image is based on 64-bit Debian (the amd64 architecture) rather than the older 32-bit version, as Debian itself has stopped supporting 32-bit for PC architectures.
The gap was long. HowToGeek describes the wait as almost four years. The Register's account is that the PC edition missed both the Debian 12 and the Debian 13 generations of Raspberry Pi OS. It was only updated now.
Raspberry Pi's download page lists the PC and Mac image as dated 13 October 2026, with Debian 13 and kernel 6.12. The board images, by contrast, are listed at 6 October with kernel 6.18. Dates in the coverage vary: several outlets cite an announcement on 6 October. That is a reasonable reading, since the announcement and the download listing can differ by days. The version splash screen reads "PiOS 6.3", matching the Arm release.
The big caveat: 64-bit only
"Old PC" here means old but 64-bit. Debian's own release announcement says no official kernel and no installer exist for i386. Strictly, it says there is no official kernel and no Debian installer for i386 systems. Debian advises people on 32-bit-only systems not to upgrade to Trixie.
Raspberry Pi's view is that this shouldn't be a major problem, as most PCs made in the last 15 years or so will run the 64-bit version of Debian. It will not help with early Atom netbooks or Pentium 4-era machines that are 32-bit only.
Other points that affect upgrade planning:
- People already running the older 32-bit PC edition cannot upgrade in place. One report notes that people previously using the 32-bit version can't upgrade and need to replace it completely.
- Apple Silicon Macs are not supported. The current release supports x86-64 processors, including Intel-based Macs.
How to try it without touching Windows
Raspberry Pi describes the image as a downloadable live Debian image: flash the .iso file to a USB stick, insert it into your computer, and boot from the USB. That is the safe route for a Windows user who wants to try it first. A live session leaves the internal drive alone.
The official steps from the announcement, as far as the evidence supports them:
- Download the PC and Mac image from the "Raspberry Pi Desktop" section of the downloads page. It is listed separately from the board images.
- Verify the file against the published SHA-256 hash.
- Write the ISO to a USB stick and boot from it.
- Choose "run with persistence" at the prompt if you want changes saved to the stick.
- If you like it, install to the internal drive with the Calamares installer, from the desktop shortcut or the Install Raspberry Pi OS entry in the System Tools category of the menu.
Comments on the announcement flag one failure point. Booting the ISO read-only, for example through Ventoy, a VM or a DVD, can break startup because the persistence options need a writable device. One commenter's workaround is to press Tab at the boot menu and remove the persistence option. That is user advice, not official guidance.
Installing will overwrite whatever you choose to install over. Back up first if the machine still holds Windows data.
What The Register found
The test machines were all ThinkPads. They are individual systems, not a compatibility list.
| Machine | Notable specs | Reported result |
|---|---|---|
| ThinkPad X200s (2008) | 1.86 GHz Core 2 Duo SL9400, Intel GMA4500, 8 GB RAM, 128 GB SATA SSD | Wi-Fi (2.4 and 5 GHz), Bluetooth, Ethernet, USB 2, volume and brightness keys, DisplayPort output and network printer all worked. Web use was tolerable with patience. |
| ThinkPad X61 Tablet (2007) | 2 GB DDR2 RAM, SSD moved over from the X200s | Booted in under 30 seconds and ran Firefox and Chromium. Pages rendered slowly. The touchscreen did not work. |
| ThinkPad W500 (2008) | AMD GPU | Described as "positively snappy". No specs or benchmarks given. |
The reviewer measured idle memory use at a little under 450 MB. Switching to X.org with Openbox saves roughly 50 MB. These are the publication's own figures, not Raspberry Pi's. The reviewer also reports that PiOS used about half the memory of Lubuntu 26.04 in the same testing. The article gives no methodology, so treat that as an attributed comparison.
The comparison with other distros is the reviewer's opinion:
- Alpine with Xfce is similar on memory, but the reviewer says it is far harder to set up and has fewer packages unless you add Flatpak.
- antiX and Tiny Core Linux are lighter, but the reviewer calls antiX confusing for beginners and Tiny Core a specialist tool.
- Mint Xfce, Linux Lite, MX Linux and Lubuntu are described as significantly heavier.
- ChromeOS Flex is described as about as frugal, but without needing a Google account.
Desktop and software
The desktop is broadly Windows 95-like, with the taskbar at the top by default. You can move it, or switch to a dock. The Raspberry Pi announcement confirms the new release has the latest desktop changes, such as the Control Centre and the new dock in its own words. It says "all the latest desktop changes", and mentions the Control Centre and dock.
The Register says the raspi-config tool can switch between the Wayland-based labwc compositor and X.org. Preinstalled apps include Chromium, Firefox, a text editor and documentation. Some of that documentation is aimed at owners of real Pi hardware.
Because it is Debian underneath, the standard repositories are available. The reviewer got text-mode and GUI WordPerfect for Linux working. Microsoft Office 97 also installed and ran well under Wine 11 from WineHQ. That is a single data point, not an Office compatibility guarantee. Don't expect it to carry over to modern Microsoft 365 apps, which are not supported under Wine in any straightforward way.
Raspberry Pi Connect is a useful extra for mixed fleets. As the announcement explains, it lets you control a PC or Mac running the desktop alongside Raspberry Pis, with screen sharing or a remote terminal. On a PC you are asked to name the device.
Where the evidence is thin
- Disk space. The Register says the install uses about 8 GB. Raspberry Pi's download page lists a 2,637 MB download. Its "storage required" figure for the PC image is the same 2,637 MB, which does not match the review's figure. Plan on the reviewer's roughly 8 GB for an internal install, not the page's number.
- Hardware support is model-specific. The touchscreen on the X61 Tablet failed. Commenters on the announcement report Wi-Fi problems on some MacBooks and Mac minis. Broadcom Wi-Fi drivers are a recurring pain point. A USB Wi-Fi adapter is one commenter's suggested workaround.
- Live-image quirks. The persistence issue above, and one commenter's reported trouble with Raspberry Pi Connect remembering the device name in persistence mode.
- Maintenance is not guaranteed. Raspberry Pi's engineer says in the comments that the intention is to keep supporting and releasing it. He adds that this depends on how popular it proves. The company has said it does not charge for the software.
Why this matters to Windows users
With Windows XP and Vista long gone, and plenty of PCs ageing out of Microsoft's supported-hardware lists, the question is what to do with a machine that still works. A live USB costs nothing and does not touch the existing install. The 64-bit requirement is the first thing to check, since it is the line between a usable second life and a doorstop.
My read: the Register's enthusiasm is credible for the machines it tested. Its "go-to" claim rests on a small sample of similar ThinkPads and on comparisons without published methodology. If your PC is 64-bit, has at least 2 GB of RAM and ideally an SSD, a trial from USB is cheap and low-risk. If it is 32-bit-only, this release is not for you.