Raspbian 2015-09-24 is released, Updated for Raspbery Pi 2
Raspbian is a free operating system based on Debian optimized for the Raspberry Pi hardware. An operating system is the set of basic programs and utilities that make your Raspberry Pi run. However, Raspbian provides more than a pure OS: it comes with over 35,000 packages, pre-compiled software bundled in a nice format for easy installation on your Raspberry Pi.
The initial build of over 35,000 Raspbian packages, optimized for best performance on the Raspberry Pi, was completed in June of 2012. However, Raspbian is still under active development with an emphasis on improving the stability and performance of as many Debian packages as possible.
Note: Raspbian is not affiliated with the Raspberry Pi Foundation. Raspbian was created by a small, dedicated team of developers that are fans of the Raspberry Pi hardware, the educational goals of the Raspberry Pi Foundation and, of course, the Debian Project.
What's new in this major update ?
Many of the changes between Wheezy and Jessie are invisible to the end-user. There are modifications to the underlying system to improve performance and flexibility, particularly as regards the control of system processes, and as with any update, there are numerous bug fixes and tweaks. And at the same time as the upgrade to Jessie, we've added a bunch of changes and improvements to the desktop user interface. The first thing anyone starting the new Jessie image from scratch will notice is that the default behaviour is to boot straight to the desktop GUI, not to the Linux command line. This was a decision taken because this is the expected behaviour for all modern computers; the default interface for a personal computer in 2015 is a desktop GUI, not just text on a screen.
Distributed as a Raspbian image
The Raspbian operating system is distributed as a Raspbian image, a binary file that users can download from Softpedia as deploy it onto a SD card, which can be booted on the Raspberry Pi computer. In addition, users can purchase high-quality, branded SDHC cards that contains the latest official stable release of the Raspbian operating system preinstalled on Pi Hut's Raspberry Pi Store. The distribution is compatible with ARMv6 CPUs and higher
Uses the LXDE desktop environment
Raspbian uses LXDE (Lightweight X11 Desktop Environment) for its default graphical session, which looks traditional and comprises of a single taskbar located on the bottom edge of the screen. The taskbar includes several applets that allow you to cycle between virtual workspaces, interact with running programs, access essential system functions, as well as to launch your favorite applications.
Features more than 35,000 packages
Raspbian features more than 35,000 packages, pre-compiled software, bundled in a handy format that will allow anyone to easily install it on your Raspberry Pi. Among some of the most popular applications pre-loaded on Raspbian, we can mention the Midori web browser, Scratch offline editor for programmers, LXTerminal terminal emulator, Leafpad text editor, and many others.
Read the rest of the release announcement for more details and screenshots. Download: 2015-09-24-raspbian-jessie.zip (1,271MB, SHA1,pkglist, torrent).
