PiDP-8/I Software

# The Situation

Although the core software underlying the PiDP-8/I software distribution is broadly portable, the dominance of Raspbian in the Raspberry Pi space means it gets the most attention when it comes to testing and development. This article documents what it known to work, where, today.
Although the core software underlying the PiDP-8/I software distribution is broadly portable, the dominance of Raspberry Pi OS on Pi hardware means it gets the most attention when it comes to testing and development. This article documents what it known to work, where, today.

If you need the software to work on some platform where it currently doesn't, [we accept patches!][patch] You can also send problem reports [to our development forum](/forum), file a [bug report](/bugs), or [discuss it on the users' mailing list][ml].

[patch]: /doc/trunk/HACKERS.md


# Debian & Derivatives: Raspberry Pi OS, Ubuntu...

All instructions given for the PiDP-8/I software assume that you're running a Debian derivative where not otherwise stated. This is because the software is primarily designed to run on [Raspbian](https://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads/raspberry-pi-os/), the official OS for the Raspberry Pi.
All instructions given for the PiDP-8/I software assume that you're running a Debian derivative where not otherwise stated. This is because the software is primarily designed to run on [Raspberry Pi OS](https://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads/raspberry-pi-os/), the official OS for the Raspberry Pi.

The trunk version of this software successfully runs on Raspbian Buster (v10), released in early July 2019. It should also run on its renamed successor, Raspberry Pi OS, though that is not currently tested. We haven't made a release atop these OSes yet, so consider this a "beta" configuration for now.
The trunk version of this software successfully runs on the stable release of Raspberry Pi OS, currently v10 — a.k.a. Buster — released in early July 2019.

The current stable release of this software was built for and tested with the [Raspbian Stretch Lite](https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/raspbian-stretch/) (v9) distribution. The software should also work well on the non-Lite version.
We have not yet made a stable release of the PiDP-8/I software atop that version. Raspberry Pi OS v9 (Stretch) was current when the stable binary OS images were built.

Prior releases were built atop the [Raspbian Jessie Lite](https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/raspbian-jessie-is-here/) (v8) distribution, but somewhere along the line, we broke compatibility with Jessie. If you need to keep running on Jessie, which is now out of support, we recommend that you run version 2017.04.04 of the PiDP-8/I software, the last version specifically tested atop Jessie.

Raspbian-based OSes like [pipaOS](http://pipaos.mitako.eu/) should also work, but this is not tested by the project's current developers.
Related OSes like [pipaOS](http://pipaos.mitako.eu/) should also work, but the project's current developers don't test this.

The project's primary maintainer occasionally builds the software on x86 Debian derivatives, which works fine, since Raspbian is a Debian derivative. On such systems, the software detects the absence of the PiDP-8/I front panel hardware and works without it.
The project's primary maintainer occasionally builds the software on x86 Debian derivatives, which works fine, since Raspberry Pi OS is a Debian derivative. On such systems, the software detects the absence of the PiDP-8/I front panel hardware and works without it.



# Devuan

There is one major exception to the rule that the software works on Debian derivatives. After Debian (and thus Raspbian) moved to `systemd` many years ago, we transitioned to it as well. Thus, the current software does not run out of the box on [Devuan](https://devuan.org/), a Debian derivative that purposefully removes systemd. You can recover the old SysVInit script from the software repo with: