NOOBS

NOOBS (New Out Of the Box Software) is a cool open-source program that's super handy for anyone wanting to install different operating systems on their Raspberry Pi. It’s designed to give you both offline and online installers, making it easy-peasy to get started with various GNU/Linux systems.

What Can You Install with NOOBS?

With the NOOBS installer, you can pick from a bunch of Linux-based operating systems that are specially made for ARM devices like the Raspberry Pi. You’ve got options like Raspbian (which is based on Debian), Arch Linux, Pidora (that one’s from Fedora), OpenELEC (it’s Debian with Kodi), RaspBMC (Debian with XBMC), and even RISC OS!

Two Versions Available

The awesome thing about NOOBS is that it comes in two versions: NOOBS and NOOBS Lite. The regular version is a bit bigger—over 700 MB—and includes offline installers, so you don’t need internet to set things up. On the flip side, NOOBS Lite is smaller and only gives you network installers for all those cool GNU/Linux systems.

How to Get Started

If you want to install something like Arch Linux or Raspbian using NOOBS, just download the latest version here. Save it wherever you want, then unzip the files from the ZIP archive.

Setting It Up on Your Raspberry Pi

You’ll need an empty SD card that’s FAT formatted and at least 2GB in size. Plug that into your computer and copy just the extracted files onto the root directory of your SD card (not the whole folder). Once that’s done, eject your SD card and pop it into your Raspberry Pi. Connect the power supply, boot it up, and you'll see the NOOBS installer where you can choose which operating system to install!