Despite having a powerful desktop PC that we use every day, sometimes we look for a small secondary device. Well, a Raspberry Pi can perfectly meet the needs we have in this case. This is a device that has earned the respect of many and is popular almost all over the world.
We are talking about a small board that allows us to assemble our own mini PC based on components that we select and connect. In this way we will have a small computer to use in somewhat specific tasks, or even as the main computer. Of course, depending on the type of use we make of this equipment, we will have to choose one operating system or another. In this sense, we have several proposals to choose from, although the most popular for a long time is the Raspberry Pi OS system, previously known as Raspbian.
We could say that this is generic software specially designed for this type of hardware product. But at the same time we can find others to turn our Raspberry Pi device into a retro console , into our own cloud storage service . There are many uses that, as we told you, we can make of this equipment. Such is its popularity that the developers of the aforementioned operating system have recently released a 64-bit version of it.
What many users may now be wondering is to what extent it can be interesting for them to use a 64-bit system on their Raspberry Pi. It goes without saying that here we find some interesting advantages, but also some problems and drawbacks, as we will see below.
Why not use a 64-bit system on Raspberry Pi
Well, the first thing we should know in this regard is that to take advantage of the advantages offered by this 64-bit operating system, it is necessary to have specific hardware . We mean that our Raspberry Pi should have 4 or 8 gigabytes of RAM to take advantage of this software. This means that the older versions of the mini PC will not be able to take full advantage of this architecture. Therefore, migrating from a 32-bit to a 64-bit system in this case does not make much sense in most cases.
In addition, we must take into account that if we carry out this migration we could have some problem when executing certain applications. We tell you all this because the arrival of 64-bit architecture on Raspberry Pi is relatively new. This means that some developers have not yet shipped versions with that architecture to their users. In this way we will say that there are only 32-bit versions corresponding to certain programs, which could be a problem.
What’s more, if we use an Internet browser with a 32-bit architecture on a 64-bit system, we will have serious problems when playing content via streaming . This means that when watching our movies and series on platforms such as Netflix , Amazon or HBO , these videos may not play.