Raspberry Pi Flavour Lets Anyone Build an Ubuntu OS for ARM Devices

Running Ubuntu Linux on Raspberry Pi hardware — and, maybe, ARM-based devices in general — has become easier thanks to a new tool called Ubuntu Pi Flavour, which is developed by the team behind Ubuntu MATE.

The goal of the new tool is to “make as many Ubuntu flavours for the Raspberry Pi 2 we can,” according to its developers. That means releasing new Ubuntu-based GNU/Linux distributions that run on top of Raspberry Pi — the tiny, inexpensive devices that lend themselves to IoT-type applications, among other endeavors.

Ubuntu Pi Flavour is not a project sponsored by Canonical, the company that supports Ubuntu. It’s instead the work of the developers behind Ubuntu MATE, a derivative of Ubuntu that uses the MATE desktop interface in place of Canonical’s Unity.

The tool grew out of efforts to build an Ubuntu MATE release that supported Raspberry Pi, according to the programmers.

For now, this is news that is likely to interest only geeks. For the most part, Raspberry Pi devices are currently being used more for tinkering than for real-world applications.

Still, this development is notable because Ubuntu Pi Flavour significantly lowers the barriers for building customized Linux distributions that can run on Raspberry Pi hardware. Ubuntu is one of the most user-friendly GNU/Linux distributions in the first place, and the ability to make a custom Ubuntu for Raspberry Pi devices could be an attractive prospect for VARs and the like down the road.

More generally, because Ubuntu Pi Flavour uses the stock images of Ubuntu for ARM devices, the tool is another sign of Ubuntu activity in the ARM world.