DietPi, a lightweight, performance-focused Debian-based Linux distro for SBCs (such as Raspberry Pi) and server systems (with an option to install desktop environments), has released version 10.5 as the fifth maintenance update to its 10.x series.
The main change is that KMS/DRM, a modern Linux graphics stack that handles display output through the kernel, is now enabled by default on Raspberry Pi systems whenever a GUI application or desktop environment is installed through dietpi-software. This effectively moves DietPi further from older firmware-based display handling toward the graphics stack used by current Linux systems.
DietPi says the old Raspberry Pi GPU firmware driver stack has mostly downsides because several legacy libraries were removed and applications relying on OpenMAX, DispmanX, or MMAL no longer work on supported Raspberry Pi repository versions.
DietPi 10.5 also updates the Raspberry Pi camera option in dietpi-config. Instead of toggling the old MMAL camera stack, the setting now controls the modern camera stack based on the libcamera API. The recent Linux kernel 6.18 update removed support for the legacy MMAL camera stack, which never worked with Raspberry Pi Camera Module 3.
Moreover, DietPi now uses dietpi-display as the standard tool for configuring display resolution, mode, and rotation. As part of that change, the project removed device-specific resolution menus for Raspberry Pi and Odroid systems, along with several legacy or non-working options, including Raspberry Pi headless mode, HDMI rotation as a separate option, and PSU noise reduction.
In addition, DietPi 10.5 extends early boot display configuration. Previously available only on virtual machines, systems using the GRUB bootloader can now configure the GRUB terminal and early boot console resolution before the KMS video mode set by dietpi-display takes over.
On the software side, RustDesk Client has been enabled for ARMv7 after the latest RustDesk release fixed package compatibility with Debian’s time64-transitioned packages. This makes the remote desktop client available on more ARM-based DietPi systems.
The release also includes several fixes. On NanoPi K2, DietPi resolved an issue where setting a static Ethernet MAC address through the ethaddr variable in /boot/dietpiEnv.txt did not work because U-Boot assigned a random MAC address earlier in the boot process. Existing systems need to flash U-Boot, for example via dietpi-config Advanced Options, for the change to take effect.
Another fix restores the RTC mode option in dietpi-config Advanced Options, which was not shown because the check for /dev/rtc* devices was incorrect. Finally, DietPi 10.5 fixes an ownCloud Infinite Scale regression introduced in version 10.4 where fresh installs failed to accept the intended login password due to an incorrectly added command argument.
For additional details, see the changelog. Existing users can update through the standard mechanism, and new images, including the Orange Pi 5B build, are available on the project’s download page.
