How to run Ubuntu 18.04 or 18.10 on Raspberry Pi

Raspberry Pi and Ubuntu seem like an ideal combination, but there is no official standard Ubuntu image for single-board computers.When viewing the list of recommended Raspberry Pi Foundation operating systems, readers will see two Ubuntu MATE and Ubuntu Core names appear, but both are not the current standard versions of Ubuntu.Ubuntu MATE is great, but the only version available is 16.04.Ubuntu Core is an IoT distribution with a completely different set of tools.

If you want to have the current version of Ubuntu, in this case 18.04 or 18.10, installed on the Raspberry Pi, read the following article.There are a few other options but RaspEX is a complete package designed to work well on Raspberry Pi.That's why today's tutorial selects RaspEX.

Download and extract RaspEX

Open browser and download RaspEX from Sourceforge repository.It is compressed in a ZIP file.

Use your favorite storage manager to extract this ZIP file.The resulting file will have an extension of .img.

Download Etcher

Next, you'll need a program to flash image files to a MicroSD card for Raspberry Pi.Etcher from Balena is an extremely simple option, works on Windows, Mac and Linux platforms.Download Etcher for the operating system here.Windows users have two options for installing Etcher or using the standalone version, and both work well.

Flash image file

Open Etcher.You will see the interface is very simple.There are three columns.The first column allows users to select the image file.Locate the MicroSD card in the middle column.Next, after confirming the information in the first two columns is correct, press the button in the last column to flash the image file.

The flash process will take a few minutes, so be patient.Image files are quite large.When Etcher is complete, you can remove the card from the computer.

Boot Raspberry Pi

Start setting up Pi.Insert MicroSD card.Then connect Pi to the monitor, keyboard and mouse.Plug in an Ethernet cable (if used).After everything else is set up, plug in the Raspberry Pi.

Pi will do some basic setup work.When completed, Raspberry Pi will boot into RaspEX and the manager displays SLiM.The default user and password for RaspEX distribution is raspex.The root user password is root.Users should change both passwords when logging in.

The desktop environment that comes with RaspEX is LXDE.This is one of the lightest desktops for Linux, so it has become a great choice for Pi.Overall, RaspEX is very similar to Ubuntu.You can install packages with Apt.Most similar tools and programs are available.Updating everything on RaspEX is almost identical on Ubuntu.

Now, you're ready to use Ubuntu on Raspberry Pi.Follow the developer's website for future builds (http://raspex.exton.se/), but you can do everything through Ubuntu itself.

Good luck!

See more:

1. What's new in Ubuntu 18.04 LTS just released?
2. 7 great ideas using Raspberry Pi as a server
3. 10 operating systems you can run with Raspberry Pi