Official links to legacy Raspberry Pi OS Buster

IMPORTANT NOTE: We DO NOT suggest you use the legacy OS EXCEPT WHEN ABSOLUTELY REQUIRED. This release WILL NOT receive feature and compatibility updates.

On November 8th, 2021, the Raspberry Pi Foundation unveiled the newest incarnation of Raspberry Pi OS based on Debian 11 "Bullseye". See the official announcement here: Bullseye – the new version of Raspberry Pi OS. Unfortunately, this also means that the download links on the Official Operating system images download page now point to Raspberry Pi OS "Bullseye"! 

On 2021-12-02, Raspberry Pi OS "Buster" files reappeared in the Raspberry Pi OS (legacy) section of the site, see the official blog post for details and caveats. Notably missing with the 2021-12-02 website update is the image file "Raspberry Pi OS with desktop and recommended software" and some Pi-specific optimizations (now deprecated/obsoleted, see blog post). The good news is that Raspberry Pi OS (Legacy) is officially supported!

Raspberry Pi OS image files are also available on the lesser-known https://downloads.raspberrypi.org/ website. You can find a lot of downloads in this complex folder structure, including Raspberry Pi Imager downloads and the now obsolete NOOBS/NOOBS Lite. The "Buster"/Legacy files are now referred to as "raspios_oldstable" in this structure.

We searched the site for you and here are the Raspberry Pi OS 32-bit "Buster" (now Legacy) folders. Typically, you want the .xz or .zip file!
If you don't know which file to download, select the Raspberry Pi OS (Legacy) with desktop .xz file.

In addition, here is the folder to Raspberry Pi OS 64-bit "Buster":

Update your software

It is important to keep your software up to date for security and stability!

To update your software, type the following commands in Terminal: 

  1. sudo apt update
  2. sudo apt full-upgrade
  3. sudo reboot now

We hope this is helpful to you!

Updated 2023-05-02 with Oldstable limitations note

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