The Pi Wire

Things move quickly in the Raspberry Pi ecosystem. This regular column rounds up the best Raspberry Pi and open hardware news to keep you up to date on the latest projects, products, and events.

Things move quickly in the Raspberry Pi ecosystem. This regular column rounds up the best Raspberry Pi and open hardware news to keep you up to date on the latest projects, products, and events.

Raspberry Pi Model B+ upgrade

The biggest piece of news over the last couple of months is the release of a new and improved version of the Raspberry Pi Model B, which has been very aptly named the Raspberry Pi Model B+. The B+ model was redesigned from the ground up with an improved layout, more efficient power consumption, and four squarely placed mounting holes for ease of use in embedded projects.

You will find more information about the new Raspberry Pi hardware by visiting the Raspberry Pi Foundation website [1]. Or, see the interview with Eben Upton or the "Exploring the B+" elsewhere in this issue for an update on the new Model B+ and the motivations behind the change.

New Version of NOOBS and All Major OS Alternatives

The Raspberry Pi hardware would be nothing without the incredibly stable and polished software that truly makes it shine. Almost immediately after we went to press with the last issue, a new version of the wonderfully easy and useful NOOBS (New Out Of the Box Software) package was released. NOOBS was originally released in June 2013 and was developed to make the operating system installation easier for beginners, regardless of what they wanted to use their Pi for (general purpose, media center etc.). However, even experienced Raspberry Pi users discovered that NOOBS often saves a significant amount of time and effort over the "traditional" SD card imaging methods.

The recent NOOBS update not only readied the NOOBS software for the new and improved version of the Raspberry Pi, but it has also brought updates of all the major operating systems that are endorsed by the Raspberry Pi Foundation: Raspbian, Pidora, OpenELEC, Raspbmc, Arch Linux, and RISC OS.

You can download the new version of NOOBS (currently 1.3.9) and all of the operating systems contained within it, on the Raspberry Pi Foundation website [2]. You will also find NOOBS 1.3.9 on the DVD enclosed with the print edition of this issue.

If you are already up and running with your Raspberry Pi with any of the operating systems mentioned above, you can update the system with the usual method: open a terminal session and run the following code:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

If you are installing NOOBS for the first time, you might want to consider an SD card with NOOBS preinstalled, or alternatively, you can take a look at the useful setup guide provided by the Raspberry Pi Foundation [3].

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