Raspberry Pi
The Raspberry Pi is the easiest way to evaluate Pantavisor: pre-built images are published for every release and the board boots straight from an SD card — no recovery mode, jumpers, or vendor flashing tools.
Machines
| Machine | Covers | Pre-built images |
|---|---|---|
raspberrypi-armv8 | Raspberry Pi 3 / 4 (64-bit) | Yes (CI-built) |
rpi | All Raspberry Pi variants, including RPi 5 — multi-kernel config that bundles a kernel per SoC | Yes (CI-built) |
raspberrypi-armv7 | 32-bit builds for older boards | Build locally |
If unsure, pick raspberrypi-armv8 for a Pi 3 or 4.
Install
The Raspberry Pi flashes like any SD-card board:
- Download the
pantavisor-starter-<machine>*.wic.bz2image — or letpvflasher installpick a release interactively. - Flash it with
pvflasher copy <image> /dev/sdX.
The download and flash quickstart walks through the whole flow step by step; the SD card guide covers the flashing tools in more detail.
A/B boot
Raspberry Pi images use the firmware's tryboot mechanism
(PV_BOOTLOADER_TYPE=rpiab) for atomic A/B boot-partition updates with
automatic fallback. See the build system overview for
how the rpi-tryboot images are assembled.
Serial console
Connect a USB-to-TTL adapter to the GPIO header: GPIO14 (TX) → adapter RX, GPIO15 (RX) → adapter TX, GND → GND, at 115200 8N1. See serial port access for using the debug shell.
Next steps
- Access the device over serial or the local network
- Install your first application