MINIBIAN 2016-03-12 is out!

I’m proud to announce a new Minbian version supporting the latest Raspberry Pi 3.
The features of this new releases are unchanged compared to the previous version.
You can check here for the new features list, while you can download the compressed image via sourceforge or via BitTorrent.
Please check the “Rpi3 HowTo” on how to enable wifi and bluetooth on Rpi3 as they are not enabled by default.

I woud like to thanx all people supporting  and using Minbian: we reached over 100.000 total downloads from 176 different countries! Thanx, thanx and again thanx!

I’m very happy that my work could help spreading this incredible piece of technology! I would also like to dedicate this work to the person who inspires me every day and that is the most important person in my life: my beloved daughter Satya – Yes, even nerds have feelings 🙂

Stay tuned!!!

MD5: 136CAC722A4F78F49B54971AE1CC03EE
SHA1: 7C83919698BD58A221A741495872021CAF6CEEF3

P.S.: Minbian is a voluntary project. Please consider to DONATE to contribute to this project. Thanx

MINIBIAN (JESSIE) 2015-11-12 is out!

Minibian “Jessie” release is finally here! This new release corrects many important bugs and is now based on the new official Raspbian “Jessie”.
Obviusly the image is compatibile (and tested) with the latest Rpi 2B as with the older B and B+.
You can check here for the new features list, while you can download the compressed image following this link: http://sourceforge.net/projects/minibian/files/2015-11-12-jessie-minibian.tar.gz/download
I would also like  to thank you for all the valuable suggestions you sent via blog comments!

MD5: b8546c547cdc8030c3d0bf03af707c1f
SHA1: 0ec01c74c5534101684c64346b393dc169ebd1af

New jessie release available soon!

I’m proud to announce that the a new version of MiniBian will be available soon: i’m working on it.
This version will include “jessie” with new features and many bugs corrections.
Stay tuned, and thanx all for your support and feedback!

MINIBIAN 2015-02-18 is out!

Minibian 4th release is out! This new release corrects some minor bugs and supports the new Raspbbery Pi 2 with updated firmware  (kernel 3.18.7+ #755) and system based on official Raspbian repositories.
The release is backward compatible with RPi B and RPi B+.
I did some benchmark tests on RPi B+ and RPi 2 and i can confirm that the CPU speed is 6x faster than older version.
You can check here for the features list, while you can download the compressed image following this link: http://sourceforge.net/projects/minibian/files/2015-02-18-wheezy-minibian.tar.gz/download

MD5: 6ac4eda21993204393a0e830762580d9
SHA1: 797bcee94f32b899654e018fcded6e49e5ab6c20

Testing RPi2 – New release available soon!

I’m proud to announce that the a new RPi2 compatible version of MiniBian will be available very soon: i’m testing it today with good results and i have just to finish debug and packaging. This version will include new kernel for ARMv7 compatibility and i can confirm that speed of new RPi2 with MiniBian is significantly higher than older versions. Stay tuned, and thanx all for your support and feedback!

MINIBIAN 2014-11-24 is out!

Minibian 3rd release is out! This new release comes with improved features and support for the new Raspberry Pi B+ with updated firmware (kernel 3.12.28+ #709) and system based on official Raspbian repositories. Take a loke here to discover all the new features of this release. This image was obtained using the new Raspbian unattended netinstaller with many post-install customizations in order to obtain a even smaller and more functional release. You can download the compressed image, following this link at sourceforge: http://sourceforge.net/projects/minibian/files/2014-11-24-wheezy-minibian.tar.gz/download

MD5: f50000ce9feab447c9928473e323be9f
SHA1: 25dd7eccee7649e586730e0fe1a62317696f6674

MINIBIAN 2013-10-13 is out!

Minibian 2nd release is out!
Basically it has the same features of the previous release with updated firmware (kernel 3.6.11+ #538) and system based on official Raspbian updates.
So if you are going to start with a new image, this is the the most recent.
You can download this image, following this link at sourceforge:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/minibian/files/2013-10-13-wheezy-minibian.tar.gz/download

MINIBIAN 2013-07-05 is out!

My first release is out.
The image was obtainted using Raspbian Installer with the following options:

• Language: English
• Country: United Kingdom
• Keyboard Layout: British English
• Mirror archive: mirrordirector.raspbian.org
• Directory: /raspbian/
• Partiton: removed swap partition and created new ext4 partition (850Mb size)
• Software to install: Standard system utilities and SSH Server

Then some other offline steps were taken on SD Card in order to optimize system:

• Added gpu_mem=16 options in /boot/config.txt for setting GPU memory size
• Added elevator=deadline option in /boot/cmdline.txt for setting right disk scheduler
• Corrected mount point in /boot/cmdline.txt (after swap partition removing the kernel couldn’t find mount point)
• Added noatime,nodiratime,commit=120 options in /etc/fstab for better SD Card performance and reliability
• Added –noclear option in /etc/inittab in order to avoid screen clean at boot
• Added ip address showing script in /etc/rc.local
• Removed MAC address in udev rules in order to work with different RPI hardware
• Added daily scheduled fstrim command for /
• Zeroed free space in /boot and in / for better image compressing
• Created and compressed image

The MINIBIAN main features are indicated here.

So, those are the steps i made for creating this release. As you can see basically this is the same kernel and binary of official image, but quite smaller and with better performance.
You can download this image, following this link at sourceforge: http://sourceforge.net/projects/minibian/files/2013-07-05-wheezy-minibian.tar.gz/download

MINIBIAN: MINImal raspBIAN image for Raspberry Pi

In the past few months, I’ve spent many time on Raspberry Pi. I was one of the first to own it when the distributions were still in its infancy.
Since that time, the world of embedded Linux has changed and the global demand for such solutions has grown exponentially.
The founders of the project Raspberry Pi did not expect all this success: in fact, the project was born primarily to provide a low cost computer in education and in the countries in the developing world.
They could not imagine at first, that such a product would become a must for many makers around the world, which they saw in the RPi a chance until now quite inaccessible: that of creating embedded systems which are powerful, flexible and low cost.
The project was born for another though, so the official images available on the site do not always fit these needs. So I started looking around to see if there was some other image or distribution fitting my needs.
Unfortunately the result of this research was a bit disappointing because what I was looking for was basically a system based on Raspbian (excellent widely known distribution), lighter than the official one, but 100% compatible.
Hence was born the idea of ​​making such image by myself.
So I started from the simple Raspbian installer and I only installed the core system,  basic utilities, and the sshd daemon.
In this way, we have an embedded system that can boot in 22 seconds, use 45MB RAM and 522MB of disk space.
I finally found my favorite distribution, and i thought it was nice to share it with the world!
BYE!!!