What is DietPi?
DietPi is a type of computer operating system that’s based on Debian Linux. It’s designed to be very simple and uses as little resources as possible. Installing and using it is super easy. Normally, setting up a small computer like a Raspberry Pi or even a regular computer can be tricky and time-consuming. But with DietPi, it’s a breeze. You can quickly install and run all the software you want, whether it’s for everyday use or for setting up a server.
DietPi Softwares
You can easily install popular DietPi Software ! The list of available apps is very long , and for the full list checkout DietPi Optimised Software page.
- Desktops (MATE/Xfce)
- Remote Desktop (VNC/NoMachine)
- Media Systems/Players (Kodi/Plex/Murmur)
- Torrents/Downloading (Transmission/Sonarr/Radarr)
- Cloud/Backup (Nextcloud/Syncthing)
- Gaming (Amiberry/MineOS)
- Social, Surveillance, Hotspots, System Stats, Hardware Projects
- Stacks (LAMP/LEMP), Pi-hole, VPN, File Servers
- Home Automation and Printing and much more…
DietPi does everything for you that you want, It provide you more time to enjoy the software according you requirements.
Applications
There are lot of applications of DietPi such as Desktop environments, Remote Desktops, Media Systems/Players, Torrents/Downloading (Transmission), Cloud/Backup, Gaming, Social, Hotspots, System Stats, Hardware Projects, Webserver Stacks (LAMP/LEMP etc.), File Servers, Home Automation, Printing, and much more.
Features of DietPi
Efficient Operating System: DietPi is a super light and efficient operating system based on Debian. It’s designed to use as little processing power and memory as possible, so your single board computer (SBC) can work at its best.
User-Friendly Interface: It comes with an easy-to-use interface that uses simple menus, so you spend less time typing commands and more time enjoying your SBC.
Quick Software Installation: With DietPi-Software, you can quickly install popular programs that are optimized to work perfectly with your system. Plus, you only install what you really need, keeping things clean and fast.
Customizable Settings: DietPi-Config lets you easily tweak your SBC’s hardware and software settings to fit your needs, like setting up your network or language preferences.
Easy Backup and Logging: You can also back up and restore your DietPi system easily with DietPi-Backup, and choose how much logging you want with different logging system options.
Control and Updates: With DietPi-Services Control, you can control which programs get priority, and the DietPi-Update System ensures you’re always up to date without hassle.
Automation: And if you want to automate the installation process, DietPi-Automation lets you set everything up before even turning on your SBC.
What is supported?
DietPi has a long list of supported SBCs. Some are as follows:
- Raspberry Pi – ALL models: Single board computer (SBC) ,Compute Module (CM)
- Raspberry Pi – ARMv7: Single board computer (SBC), Compute Module (CM)
- Raspberry Pi – ARMv8: Single board computer (SBC), Compute Module (CM)
- ODROID single board computers: C1,C2,C4, and N2 etc.
- PINE64
- Radxa ROCKPI Boards
- Allo Sparky SBC
- ASUS Tinker Board
- NanoPi Series (FriendlyELEC
- many More….
Check Supported SBCs page for recently supported list.
How to install DietPi in Raspberry Pi and other SBCs
The installation of DietPi is very simple and easy. installation steps are as follows:
- Provide an installation media (e.g. SD card for single board computer or USB stick for PC)
- Get the DietPi image (and put it on the installation media)
- Boot up the DietPi device and go through one time installation steps
Following these steps you will be able to initially setup DietPi and install additional software packages you would like to use, using dietpi-software.
In recent years, single board computers (SBCs) using the popular Raspberry Pi ARM architecture have become increasingly popular. Their affordability, combined with their power and hardware flexibility, makes them perfect for embedded systems such as home automation or cloud applications.
To get started with this tutorial, make sure you have the following hardware:
– A Raspberry Pi, Odroid, or another supported single board computer (SBC). You can check the list of all supported SBCs.
– An SD card, USB flash drive, or eMMC with a minimum size of 4 GiB, and a way to write data onto it.
– Optional: An Ethernet (network) cable.
Note: You can follow this guide by running the installation directly from a console using a keyboard and screen, via an SSH client, or through a serial console.
Download and extract the DietPi disk image
Open dietpi.com, select your SBC and click on Download. The disk image will be downloaded locally.
Unzip the downloaded file to a local folder.
It is xz-compressed so you will need to install either 7zip for Windows or The Unarchiver (Macintosh). Both are free of charge and have been tested to decompress the image correctly.
Linux users will need to download and install xz-utils.
Flash the DietPi image
At first, download and install balenaEtcher. This application flashes OS images to SD cards and USB drives, safely and easily on Windows, macOS, Linux. On Windows you may also use Rufus to flash the image.
Prepare the first boot
Remove the drive resp. SD card from the PC and insert it into your SBC device, preparing to boot for the first time. Power on the SBC to login and execute the first boot procedure.
First logon on DietPi
The hostname of the system will be: DietPi.
You might change the name before the first boot within the configuration file dietpi.txt.
After the system has booted up, you can continue following the instructions on the screen, or connect via network:
- If you have a keyboard and a monitor connected to your system you login via this console.
- If you have a headless system without keyboard and monitor attached, you can use an SSH client like PuTTY to connect from a remote system. The SSH server Dropbear is installed and enabled by default on DietPi.
- Most SBCs alternatively allow to connect a serial console via UART, which is by default enabled on DietPi as well.
A login prompt will appear. Use the initial credentials:
- login:
root - password:
dietpi(resp. the one you set viadietpi.txt)
DietPi will then immediately begin to search for and install updated software packages, which will take some time to complete.
Once the packages have been updated, DietPi will ask you to confirm whether you would like to enable user analytics.
Further Steps
The base installation of DietPi is minimal by design, allowing you to choose what software you want to install and use: Just run dietpi-software and install DietPi Optimised Software.
You can return to the DietPi-Software tool to make further changes at any time by typing dietpi-software at the terminal, or enter dietpi-launcher and select DietPi-Software tool.
If you want to make further changes to your DietPi configuration, you can run dietpi-launcher at the terminal to view all the available DietPi tools, including DietPi-Update to update your device and DietPi-Backup to back up your device.
For more details, check DietPi Tools section.
Anshul Pal