The Raspberry Pi

Which Pi to choose?

• Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W - the sweet spot for e-ink frames. Four 64-bit cores, tiny, ~1 W of power, around $15-20. This is what most FrameOS frames run on.
• Raspberry Pi 5 / 4 - use these for fast HDMI/LCD output (up to 60 FPS) or when size doesn't matter.
• Raspberry Pi Zero W (v1) - works, but it has a single 32-bit core. Cheaper, slightly lower power draw, much slower to deploy to.

Not a Pi person, or dreaming of a battery-powered frame? FrameOS also runs on the ESP32-S3 microcontroller for supported Waveshare SPI e-paper panels.

Option 1: prebuilt FrameOS SD image (recommended)

For the Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W, FrameOS ships a purpose-built SD card image - a minimal Buildroot-based Linux that boots straight into FrameOS. No Raspberry Pi OS, no manual SSH setup.

You can get it two ways:

• Generate it in the backend: when you add a new frame, choose the SD card image option. The image comes out preconfigured with your WiFi credentials and frame settings - flash it, insert, done.
• Download a generic image from the latest release (look for frameos-*-raspberry-pi-zero-2-w-buildroot.img.gz). On first boot the frame starts a WiFi hotspot called FrameOS-Setup (password frame1234). Join it from your phone, enter your WiFi credentials, and the frame connects to your network.

Flash the image with Raspberry Pi Imager ("Use custom image"), balenaEtcher, or plain dd. The partitions expand to fill your SD card on first boot.

Option 2: stock Raspberry Pi OS Lite

For all other Pi models, or if you prefer a standard OS underneath:

1. Download the Raspberry Pi Imager and pick the Lite version of Raspberry Pi OS (no desktop needed).

   • 64-bit for Pi 3, 4, 5, Zero 2 W.
   • 32-bit for Pi 1, 2 and the original Zero W.

   

2. When prompted, edit the OS customisation settings: set a hostname, your WiFi credentials, and enable SSH. Use a password, or better, generate an SSH keypair and paste the public key.

   

3. Write the card, insert it into the Pi, connect the display, and power up.

4. Wait for the Pi to appear on your network, then verify you can reach it:

   ping frame.local        # or check your router's client list for the IP
   ssh [email protected]

5. Once connected, bring the OS up to date:

   sudo apt update -y && sudo apt upgrade -y

That's all. Given SSH access, the FrameOS backend does the rest - including installing dependencies and (for most targets) deploying precompiled binaries, so there's no slow on-device compilation.

Next step

Deploy your first scene.