The Raspberry Pi Foundation has released a new version of the operating system Raspberry PiOS (formerly Raspbian). This GNU / Linux distribution is specially designed for these SBCs, and now comes with some notable improvements. For example, they have put a lot of work into their audio system and also improving the support for printing.
The version I am referring to is the Raspberry Pi OS on its version 1.4, what can you do now? download from the official website to be able to install it on your SD card and make it run on your Raspberry Pi board. But first of all, you should know all the details and news of this new release ...
Rasbperry Pi OS now comes with a major improvement in terms of its audio system. Before it used the ALSA audio server for its sound stack, instead it has now been changed to PressAudio. That change enables a number of additional features to be enabled, such as support for out-of-the-box devices with Bluetooth connectivity.
Support is also added for play sound from different sources at the same time, especially when using an HDMI output. You can even change the sound from the HDMI to a USB sound card while the video is playing, as well as offering a way to manage the input and output of audio devices more easily.
Also, it is now possible enable profiles for your Bluetooth devices, such as HSP (HeadSetProfile) to use microphone and headphones at the same time, as well as A2DP (Advanced Audio Distribution Profile) that restricts the mic.
But they have not only focused on Raspberry Pi OS improvements in sound, there are also in terms of support for printers. Now this distro comes with CUPS as the print serer and system-config-printer as the default configuration interface.
Other improvements in this new version of Raspberry Pi OS have to do with the pre-installed programsSuch as Orca screen reader, Chromium browser has been updated to v84, Thonny Python IDE to 3.3, Adobe Flash Player to 32.0.0.453, Linux kernel 5.4.79 LTS, etc. And without forgetting some other fixes, and improvements for the new SBC boards ...