DietPi is Lightweight, Easy to Use Debian Based Distribution for Raspberry Pi, ODROID, and Orange Pi Boards

DietPi_LogoRaspberry Pi, Hardkernel ODROID, and Orange Pi are some of the most popular and cost effective development boards on the market today, and one British developer, going under Fourdee nickname, has released a lightweight distribution called DietPi working for all Rasbperry Pi boards, ODROID-C1(+), ODROID-XU3/XU4, and Orange Pi PC, with Orange Pi 2 and Orange Pi Plus support coming soon, as well as a VMWare virtual machine also available for evaluation.

The compressed downloads are about 80 to 100MB depending on the target, the image that can be dump with dd or Win32DiskImager requires a 1GB or greater micro SD card as the image itself is about 500MB large, Internet access (Ethernet or Wifi), and optionally a USB Drive to allow installation on a USB drive for better performance, which of course does not apply if you have an eMMC module with your ODROID board.

The image also contains some scripts to easily configure the system (DietPi-Config), or  install programs (DietPi-Software) such as LXDE desktop environment, Kodi, Transmission bitTorrent server and so on. Some options will be specific to some boards, as for example Kodi won’t run properly on Orange Pi boards for now.
DietPi-Software

Other notable scripts include DietPi-Backup, DietPi-Sync to duplicate directories, DietPi-Nice to assign priority levels to programs, and DietPi-Update System that automatically checks for updates, and install them from the network. You can also customize the level of logging with DietPi-Rramlog in order to optimize performance, and WiFi support is built-in in the image, and configurable with DietPi-Config.

DietPi-ConfigThe operating system has its own website, but to get started quickly you’d better go to Download DietPi image | Getting started forum thread. You can also visit DietPi Github repository to check out the Bash scripts used in DietPi images. You may also be interested in seeing how it compares to Raspbian Lite.

Via Peter Scargill

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12 Replies to “DietPi is Lightweight, Easy to Use Debian Based Distribution for Raspberry Pi, ODROID, and Orange Pi Boards”

  1. @Tony
    I understand the distribution is headless, so there’s no program running by default, nor desktop environment, and you should simply be able to access the terminal on your TV or via ssg, and run the script to install whatever your need. If you install Kodi, then it will probably be similar to OpenELEC in some ways, but there are other program to install.

  2. I like it, seems to work fine on OrangePi PC, wifi (rt5370) and ethernet works fine (in contrast to most of other linux distros where wifi firmware issues exist).
    Also thermal management seems appropriate – idle runs below 50 C, under load it does not go above 70 and not stability issues.

  3. ok i tested out on orange pi one but its unusable at all lagging super bad this system overclocked super bad tested different power supplies otg n not working its just crap….

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