Raspberry Pi desktop distros
General desktop usage on a top-end Pi was the scenario that we imagined, and Pop!_OS has the most refined desktop. For that reason, we’ve decided to make it the overall winner. It’s also the heaviest distribution in use. However, the amount of memory consumed by the base operating system and desktop is of lesser importance once you have 4GB of memory or more to play with. That said, running them side by side, some of the other distros did feel a little bit snappier in use. However, that’s not to say that Pop!_OS is slow. Another thing to consider when it comes to speed is that Pop!_OS enables a fast workflow.
Manjaro offers a full desktop Linux experience on the Pi. The desktop environment is snappy and fully featured. Because this is basically KDE on top of an Arch Linux base, it’s a fairly standard Linux under the hood, which is important when it comes to expanding and troubleshooting the system. We liked the choices in terms of desktop aesthetics and workflow, and a top-end Pi can handle most typical KDE applications well. It’s a shame that the default application loadout isn’t more extensive, though.
Ubuntu is another distribution that sticks closely to the normal desktop edition in its Raspberry Pi offering, and once again our Pi 400 handled it extremely well. The performance was acceptable. The default application selection covered all of the usual bases for desktop usage.
Twister OS has the solid, if a little unexciting, Raspberry Pi OS as its base with an extensive software collection. We’d seriously consider handing this distro to a Linux newcomer who wanted to see what a Raspberry Pi desktop could offer, particularly if they were interested in gaming and running Windows PC applications on a Pi. On the downside, the desktop feels like it was cobbled together from various sources and lacks some of the polish that we’d expect for a desktop that was to be used for business tasks.
Raspberry Pi OS is a safe choice for a desktop OS on a Raspberry Pi, and we can see why it’s a popular choice for classroom usage, for example. It’s stripped down with fast performance. However, for day-to-day usage most users would probably want to spend quite a bit of time swapping out components, adding software and configuring the desktop.