At the end of May 2020, the Raspberry Pi Foundation announced Raspberry Pi OS, the blue raspberry official operating system for the mini-computer that is replacing Raspbian. The announcement also came with the news that Raspberry Pi OS is now available in a 64-bit variant, compatible with Raspberry Pi 3 and 4.
This is in addition to the 32-bit variant that has been maintained since the early days. For the first time, users of the Raspberry Pi boards can enjoy a 64-bit operating system that is officially developed and supported by the Foundation itself. This is particularly great news especially for developers, people who are self-hosting services, and just tinkerers. The good news is that Raspberry Pi OS does support Docker, in both the 32-bit and 64-bit variants! Read below on how to install it as well as Docker Compose. Note: This article is written for Raspberry Pi boards version 2, 3, and 4 running Rasperry Pi OS, as well Raspberry Pi Zero 2 and the Raspberry Pi 400 units. Older models of the board and the first-generation Raspberry Pi Zero are not supported.
Additionally, if you are using a different distribution for your board besides the official Raspberry Pi OS, the instructions below are not guaranteed to work for you. Choosing the right version of Raspberry Pi OS You can download the images for Raspberry Pi OS from the official website. As of writing, images for the 64-bit variant are still in beta and can be found here. Raspberry Pi Imager to write the operating system in a SD card. As for which image to choose, Docker works on all variants and editions of Raspberry Pi OS.
32-bit vs 64-bit The 32-bit edition of Raspberry Pi OS will run on every board, including Raspberry Pi 2. If you have a Raspberry Pi 3, 4, or 400, as well as the Raspberry Pi Zero 2, you have the opportunity to pick the 64-bit variant too. Using a 64-bit operating system will give you better performance and it’s required to take advantage of the full amount of memory of the 8GB Raspberry Pi 4 board. The variant you pick will affect the Docker images you’ll be able to run. Desktop vs Lite As the names suggest, the Desktop edition comes with a graphical user interface and the ability to run desktop apps. The Lite edition is headless, offering only access to the command line.