Official Image VS Raspberry Pi OS With Script Installation

General Discussions
1

Hello Umbrel community! :open_umbrella:

I’m considering installing umbrelOS on my Raspberry Pi 5, but I wonder what the differences are between installing it using the official image, or first installing Raspberry Pi OS (Lite) and then installing umbrelOS using the script. At the moment, I know that the “script” installation is still in version 0.x.x, but I can wait for it to be updated to 1.x.x.

To be more precise, here are my questions:

  • Will the performances be better using the official image?
  • Are there features that are only accessible using the official image?
  • What Linux distribution is the official image using?
  • Will I still be able to install some programs in parallel on my Pi if I go for the official image?

Thanks in advance! :pray:

2

I can only speak to a portion of this having just installed PiOS and Umbrel via CURL to run a bitcoin node on a Pi5 with a 2TB NVMe drive.

The reason I went this route is because to my surprise, the current Umbrel OS does not yet support NVMe drives, and given the 500+GB blockchain download, it’s recommended to have at least 1TB for future expansion.

I can’t tell you how painful it was over the nearly two dozen failed attempts to get that to work out with version 1.x over four days. I finally just went to the previous version (0.5.4) and it’s been working like a charm. So far.

  • No, the performance is not ‘better’ than the Umbrel image, because if you’re planning on a Bitcoin node (or anything that requires storage), it doesn’t work at all with NVMe drives, you’ll need a USB SSD. /sarcasm
  • Pi OS is running a few versions of Debian, either 32 or 64, the 64 version offers a ‘lite’ and a ‘with desktop recommended apps’ flavors.
  • I haven’t tried to install any other apps on the Pi in parallel to Umbrel because I was relieved enough to just get this far. I guess the issue may become system resources and possible compatability confkicts. Perhaps someone else here can answer.

Hope this helps!

ETA: If you decide to go down the NVMe route, these two instructions are what got me to the point of booting off the 2TB drive directly. You’ll need to iinitially cofigure a MicroSD card with the OS, but it works.
Guides:

  1. Install PiOS on SD card
    How to Set Up a Raspberry Pi for the First Time | Tom's Hardware
  2. Configure NVMe for boot as below:
    How to turbo-charge your Raspberry Pi 5 with an NVMe boot drive (Updated) | Tom's Hardware