Raspberry Pi Desktop has finally caught up with Debian 13, according to The Register. The x86 edition of the company's custom Linux distribution had been stuck on Debian 11 since mid-2022, and it skipped Debian 12 entirely. The new release brings the same Wayland-based desktop used in Pi OS 6, which arrived for the Raspberry Pi single-board computers in October 2025.
The updated PC edition is aimed at reviving older machines with a simple, lightweight GUI. However, it now requires 64-bit x86 hardware, so it works on compatible PCs and Intel Macs but not Apple Silicon models. Existing users of the old 32-bit release will need to do a fresh installation rather than an in-place upgrade.
The Register notes that Raspberry Pi's main business remains its Arm boards, but the company continues to maintain this x86 variant for desktops. It also points out that the previous Debian 11-based version lost long-term support on August 31, making this update timely. The publication has not yet tested the new release but plans to follow up with a deeper review.