Getting a Raspberry Pi to work is not complicated. You download a Raspbian image, write it to a suitable SD card, and turn on the mini computer. However, adapting that image to our needs can take considerable time. The idea of customizing operating systems before their first run is not new, but good tools are needed to achieve something like that. PiBakery reduces Raspbian customization to a couple of clicks, thanks to its interface based on the Scratch language.
Unlike what happens on a conventional computer, installing Raspberry Pi operating systems requires writing complete images to an SD card. These images come with a “factory” configuration that does not necessarily adapt to the user's wishes. At that point we have to spend a significant amount of time altering every aspect of the operating system, from basic issues (appearance, fonts, wallpaper) to advanced parameters such as wireless network configuration and installing resources like VNC. It would be fabulous for the user to have the ability to create custom images that do all this and much more from the first boot. If you have no problem choosing Raspbian as your operating system, the answer is PiBakery.
Recently mentioned on the official Raspberry Pi website, PiBakery turns customizing Raspbian images into a direct and very simple process. PiBakery is a creation of David Ferguson, a 17-year-old who has already participated in several Raspberry Pi-related events. The idea behind PiBakery came from a classic problem for mini computer users: having to connect it to the “monitor-mouse-keyboard” combo every time they need to modify something that wasn't configured beforehand. PiBakery lets you prepare several images in advance with advanced parameters, and the rest is just swapping cards. If a preconfigured image already exists, PiBakery enables its later editing, whether to add or remove features.
PiBakery's interface is based on the Scratch language developed by MIT, which has inspired many other projects. PiBakery is compatible with Windows and OS X, though we expect the Linux version won't be long in coming. The only warning is that the downloads are large. PiBakery includes a copy of Raspbian, so the Windows build averages a gigabyte, and the OS X one is around 1.4 GB.
