I use rasberry's since 2012 and debian on it since it is available.
Here are ready to use debian images, https://raspi.debian.net/
You can also try to use the debian netinstall iso, with some manual work
(copy installer kernel to sd card and boot this) but keep in mind that
in my case the keyboard is not working with debian installer kernel but
with the installed debian kernel, so you need a serial console for
installation.
All my systems are headless.
root@rpi-ks:~# uname -a
Linux rpi-ks 6.12.63+deb13-arm64 #1 SMP Debian 6.12.63-1 (2025-12-30)
aarch64 GNU/Linux
root@rpi-ks:~# cat /proc/device-tree/model
Raspberry Pi 3 Model B Plus Rev 1.3
One other note, I use the sd card only for the /boot/firmware partition
to boot, all other is on a external (usb) drive.
So it's possible to run it, but i never try to switch from rasbian to
debian on the fly.
Best regards
Am 14.02.26 um 18:17 schrieb Stefan Monnier:
You really don't want to do that. All of the Pi-like SBCs, including
the Raspberry Pis themselves need "special" board-specific kernel
builds and many (esp. the Raspberry Pis) have non-"standard" boot
processes (The RPi's need a VFAT partition to boot from). This means
the kernels and the boot infrastructure and firmware needs to be
pulled from the board-specific Raspberry Pi repos. This means it
still needs to be a RPi OS (Rasbian) system and not a "pure" Debian
13. A "pure" Debian 13 aarch64 install is not going to boot and run
on a Raspberry Pi. The necessary boot infrastructure will
be missing.
AFAIK, the kernels can be plain old Debian kernels and AFAIK the
`u-boot-rpi` package provides a working boot loader, so it's not
as hopeless as you make it sound.
Have you checked https://sd-card-images.johang.se/ to see if their
images work on your device? I can vouch for them working on a NanoPi R5S.
=== Stefan
