Lubuntu 25.04 Installation on Raspberry Pi 5

Flavors Lubuntu
1

Hello Community,

I can confirm that the installation on Raspberry PI is now working again. The issues that I reported for 24.10 are not existent any more.
Installation Instruction of Lubuntu on Raspberry Pi 5

Here is how to install it:

Install Ubuntu Server 24.04 via Pi Imager

  • maintain user data, wifi, etc. in advanced options

Now it also makes sense to increase the partition size of the data partition to make use of the full size of the sd card just in case it is not automatically assigned completely.

Start Pi and Log In

Update System:

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade

Disable Cloud Init:

sudo dpkg-reconfigure cloud-init

Disable all services (uncheck everything except “None”)

Restart the computer:

sudo reboot

Install Lubuntu

sudo apt install lubuntu-desktop
sudo reboot

Boot seems to be stuck, display manager is not starting
Switch to console 2

ALT-F2

login

Enable the display manager:

sudo systemctl set-default graphical.target
sudo reboot

Activate SDDM in Lubuntu:

sudo dpkg-reconfigure sddm

X11 not running, there must have been graphics compatibility issues

sudo apt install xserver-xorg-video-fbdev

create the following file (or dir if needed), and add the following lines

sudo nano /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/99-fbdev.conf

Section “Device”
Identifier “Raspberry Pi FBDEV”
Driver “fbdev”
Option “fbdev” “/dev/fb0”
EndSection

Restart SDDM:

sudo systemctl restart sddm

I just noticed that the Network time server is not working:

sudo apt install chrony

Dominik

This was tested on Pi5 with 8MB but should also work for other models.

6 Likes
2

Our old DIscourse instance is going to go away at some point, at which point that link will become stale. I urge you to edit your message above, copying and pasting the content from the Lubuntu Discourse. And maybe edit it to make it clear that it works for the Pi 5 as well as other models (perhaps elaborating on which).

2 Likes
3

For what it’s worth, I was working on an official Rapberry Pi image for Lubuntu this past cycle, but life got in the way. Hopefully we’ll be able to get it going.

Furthermore, I don’t see this as asking for “Support and help” so I’m moving it to the Lubuntu category.

3 Likes
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I’m under embargo as to why, but please…

Keep up this exact work, please. It’s going to be extremely helpful coming up. :thinking:

Also, if you find anything else, I really want to hear about it, please.

Thanks!

1 Like
5

I realized that the NetworkManager also needs attention. Ubuntu Server uses systemd-networkd to manage the network.

To switch to NetworkManager it is required to add a netplan config file:

sudo nano /etc/netplan/01-netcfg.yaml

Add this content to the file:

# Set and change netplan renderer to NetworkManager GUI tool
network:
version: 2
renderer: NetworkManager

sudo netplan apply

6

The network-manager package ships that file, so if you install network-manager on a server the file will be put in place for you…

1 Like
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That file is probably standard on a direct desktop install. Wasn’t there on my install, but of course it’s even better if anybody else will not have that issue

8

OOPS !
You are actually correct, it gets put in place by the ubuntu-settings package (which is part of the ubuntu and edubuntu desktop tasks), not by NM itself:

ogra@styx:~$ grep 01-network-manager-all.yaml /var/lib/dpkg/info/*
/var/lib/dpkg/info/ubuntu-settings.postinst:        NM_CONF="/etc/netplan/01-network-manager-all.yaml"
ogra@styx:~$

Sorry for the mis-info …