Anyone with a Raspberry Pi computer can now download the new version of Raspberry Pi OS, which features a new lock screen, improved auto-login options, a new printer app, Linux 6.12 and a better touch screen control experience. Existing users can update by typing two very simple commands into the terminal, while those who want a clean install can use the Raspberry Pi Imager tool.
The most noteworthy new feature in this update is the addition of a modified version of Swaylock, a minimalist lock screen. Swaylock was not very useful in its default settings, displaying a white screen with no instructions, so the Raspberry Pi modified it for its operating system. It now has a custom front end that prompts that the screen is locked and requires a password to unlock it. Plus, it has an aesthetically pleasing background.
You can also lock your device by pressing Ctrl-Alt-L or pressing the Power Off button in the main menu, then Lock Screen. A box to enter your password will appear on the lock screen, and then you can simply press Enter to re-enter the system.
If you like to be automatically logged in when your system starts, the lock screen may pose some security concerns. If you lock the screen but enable automatic login, users may be able to access the system through the TTY switch. These switches allow you to switch to the console by pressing Ctrl-Alt-F1-7. In this update to Raspberry Pi OS, there is now an option to disable automatic console login from the Raspberry Pi configuration and raspi-config settings.
To give you a better printing experience, the legacy System Configuration Printer application (which was previously messy and quirky) has been modified into a standalone GNOME Printer application. The company has also changed some design elements of this app to make it better compared to the GNOME version.
Finally, touchscreen support has also been somewhat improved. Wayland's touchscreen support lacked double-click functionality, so the Rapsberry Pi added mouse emulation, making tapping act like a mouse click but with the gesture disabled. Some users noticed this and wanted to be able to use gestures, so a new menu was added to the "Touchscreen" section of the context-sensitive menu in Screen Configuration to switch between the two modes.
Raspberry Pi is hoping Wayland will improve touchscreen support in an upcoming release.
If you already have Raspberry Pi OS installed and want to upgrade, use the following two commands respectively:
sudo apt update
sudo apt full-upgrade
Likewise, if you want to do a clean installation, you can use the Raspberry Pi Imager tool to write the operating system to removable storage.