The Raspberry Pi foundation has just made the 64 bit version of Raspberry Pi OS the recommended version for the Raspberry Pi 3B and newer. This includes recommending it for the Pi Zero 2 devices as well.
The 64 Bit version is not new and has been around for quite a while, the software has not been optimized for the Raspberry Pi and was more of a general version of Ubuntu in the past. Going forward, the Raspberry Foundation will be focusing on the 64 Bit version of their Ubuntu clone.
Raspberry Pi OS 64-Bit comes in a standard version as well as a Lite version. Although you can manually install them by downloading the correct image, the best way is to download the Raspberry Pi Imager which makes selecting an OS and installing to an SD device really easy. The main difference between the Lite version is the lack of a desktop interface. For headless installs, you are likely better off with the Lite edition.
You can find both options on the Raspberry Pi Software page.
Why 64-bit?
One of the big advantages of 64-bit is software compatibility. A lot of apps are no longer supporting 32-bit builds, making it more difficult to maintain compatibility.
If you are using the Raspberry Pi 4 8GB edition, you are using a hack to support more than 4GB of ram. This limitation comes in the limitation of any single process being limited to 4GB of ram. This typically isn't a problem for most people though. While running the 32-bit OS, Raspberry Foundation has implemented modifications to allow the Raspberry Pi to access more than 4GB of ram, with the limitation mentioned above.
In many cases you will see a performance gain using 64-bit os over 32-bit counterpart. This is most noticeable with the Pi 4 and IO performance, especially when using faster SSD devices over USB. There are some cases where 32-bit performs better and it is not always faster. In the cases where 32-bit is faster it is typically very minor and insignificant. The performance gains are mostly attributed to 64-bit allowing more data stored in the high speed portions of the processor.
That being said, there are a few known issues with the 64-bit version you should be aware of.
- No hardware accelleration for VLC or Chromium
- VNC server binary not available
- VLC binary not available
There are workarounds for these issues, and they will likely be resolved for you in future updates.
The 64-bit version of Raspberry Pi OS is a native Ubuntu installation allowing for more compatibility with software and workflows. In the past the Raspberry Pi foundation ran a modified version of Debian. Going forward, it looks like they are fullly committed to using Ubuntu.
If you want to give this a try, I recommend checking out this quick introduction video on how to use the Raspberry Pi Imager to update your Pi. Keep in mind, installing a new OS without doing an upgrade will overwrite all data. WIth high quality SD cards costing as little as $8, it may be worth just using a separate SD card.
Posted with STEMGeeks