Start

The fastest way to understand Pantavisor is to run it — flash a real device, boot it, and ship your first update.

Paths

• Download and flash on a Raspberry Pi — flash a pre-built starter image and boot real hardware in about 30 minutes. No Yocto or container background needed for this path.
• No hardware? Run Pantavisor in Docker (AppEngine) on your workstation — see the glossary for what "AppEngine" means here (not a PaaS). Note: there's no pre-built AppEngine image to download, so this path still needs the Yocto/BitBake toolchain to build one — it's a no-hardware alternative, not a no-build one.
• Install pvr — the client used to inspect and change device state. Every change is an explicit, one-shot pvr post — there's no background agent continuously reconciling drift the way a Kubernetes controller would. See the pvr installation guide.

Prerequisites

• A Raspberry Pi 3B/3B+/4 with a microSD card (8 GB or more), or Docker for the no-hardware path.
• A laptop or desktop to download and flash the image.
• Optional but recommended: a USB-to-TTL serial adapter for console access — check its logic-level voltage matches the board (see Serial Console).

Next steps

• Install your first application with pvr.
• Access your device over serial, the local network, or Pantahub.

📝 Note

Pantavisor manages the entire device update itself. There is no separate A/B image updater to install or configure underneath it.