The DietPi team announced over the weekend an update to its alternative to Raspberry Pi OS. DietPi 19.9 brings a new entry to the DietPi database of optimized software, plus upgrades for other software and some bug fixes.
Version 19.9 of DietPi introduces to the optimized software collection BirdNET-Go, a server designed to passively capture and analyze bird calls it picks up via the microphone. It's similar to BirdNET-Pi and BirdNET Analyzer, using the same lightweight BirdNET TensorFlow Lite model that allows for detecting birds through audio analysis without the need for heavy-duty, machine learning-grade hardware.
The difference between those tools and BirdNET-Go is that BirdNET-Go puts a special emphasis on ease of use. It calls itself an "easy-to-deploy alternative" while maintaining the same performance. The goal marries well with DietPi's own emphasis on deploying software on a Raspberry Pi with ease. Because it's officially part of DietPi's collection of optimized software, you can automate its setup on your SBC by just running the preconfigured install script from DietPi's software management tool.
The 19.9 update brings several more general improvements to the DietPi experience. For one, the DietPi banner (the text that appears when you log in) now has better text wrapping, improving the readability on small screens and terminal emulator windows. A fix is also here for DietPi instances running ZeroTier that stopped certainapt upgradecommands from succeeding.
The UrBackup tool can now be installed and updated using APT commands thanks to the addition of an official APT repository. Other specific software including NAA Daemon, Medusa, Mosquito, and the graphical user interface for Moonlight got new support on devices that have been updated to the Debian 13 "Trixie" package base.
More optimized software see bugs being squashed, including for Jellyfin, Medusa, SABnzbd, Lidarr, Prowlarr, Bazarr, and NodeJS. If you've been having issues with any of those software on your DietPi instance, you'll probably want to move to DietPi 9.19 as soon as you can.
When you're ready to upgrade, just log into your DietPi instance and look for the banner announcing its availability. While writing this article, I SSHed into my Raspberry Pi and saw the update waiting for me.
Make sure any of your running servers are ready to be restarted, and then run thedietpi-updatecommand to start the process of upgrading to DietPi 9.19.
While I'm not enough of a birding enthusiast to dedicate one of my SBCs to monitoring my backyard, I am excited to see continued development on DietPi. I personally run the OS on my Raspberry Pi operating most of my everyday services, like Nextcloud, ConvertX, and FreshRSS, and I plan to add more using DietPi's software deployment tools.
Source: DietPi
