The 64-bit Raspberry Pi OS is now available for users of the Raspberry Pi 3 and Pi 4

In mid-2020, Raspberry Pi released a beta of its 64-bit version of its Debian-based operating system alongside the then-new 8GB Raspberry Pi 4.

According to Raspberry Pi, the Raspberry Pi OS 64-bit beta has officially achieved stable after one and a half years.

The Pi 3 was the first Raspberry Pi with a 64-bit CPU, therefore it's been feasible to run a 64-bit OS from its 2016 introduction, but Raspberry Pi has persisted with a 32-bit OS (previously known as Raspbian) for backward compatibility.

"We've been testing a beta of Raspberry Pi OS in beautiful 64-bit for the past year. It's now time to make it available to a larger audience "Gordon Hollingworth, the creator of the Raspberry Pi, said as much.

According to him, application compatibility is a "major consideration" in choosing a 64-bit OS over a 32-bit one.

Model	Processor	Arm Core	Debian / Raspbian ARM Port (Maximum)	Architecture Width
Raspberry Pi 1	BCM2835	ARM1176	arm6hf	32 bit
Raspberry Pi 2	BCM2836	Cortex-A7	arm6hf	32 bit
Raspberry Pi Zero	BCM2835	ARM1176	arm6hf	32 bit
Raspberry Pi Zero 2	BCM2710	Cortex-A53	arm64	64 bit
Raspberry Pi 3	BCM2710	Cortex-A53	arm64	64 bit
Raspberry Pi 4 / 400	BCM2711	Cortex-A72	arm64	64 bit

He goes on to say that the A64 Armv8 instruction set has certain "intrinsic" performance gains. These improvements are largely visible in benchmarks for now, but Hollingworth expects they will eventually become real-world application speed improvements.

Another "theoretical worry" was that 32-bit pointers could only target 4GB of memory, which wasn't ideal considering that the Raspberry Pi 4 may have up to 8GB of RAM. However, as Hollingworth points out, few applications today necessitate the utilization of all 8GB of accessible memory by a single process.

In actuality, the Pi 4 can access up to 8GB of RAM via the ARM Large Physical Address Extension (LPAE), but each process is limited to 3GB, with the top 1GB of the virtual address space reserved for the kernel.

The Raspberry Pi Imager now offers both a "full" 64-bit desktop OS with suggested programmes and a "light" OS version without such applications. While the 32-bit Raspberry Pi OS is still "preferred," the 64-bit versions may be found in Raspberry Pi OS's "other" section.

According to Hollingworth, the 64-bit version of Chromium lacks the WidevineCDM library, which means it can't play streaming video like Netflix or Disney+.

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