Less than two weeks after the November release, Raspberry Pi OS received its December update with a collection of usability improvements, desktop refinements, and important stability fixes.
The release introduces a safe-eject mechanism for USB-connected HDD and NVMe drives, allowing users to remove external storage without risking data corruption. The Labwc desktop also gains a new Alt+F2 shortcut to open the Run dialog, extending its keyboard-driven workflow.
Moreover, the update adjusts how the Screens control panel behaves by no longer generating a default kanshi configuration file on launch, ensuring that existing user configurations are not unintentionally overwritten.
Several user-reported crashes have also been resolved, including failures triggered by accessing mounted drives or the wastebasket from the Places view, unloading the system monitor plugin, or power-cycling audio devices.
Systems without Bluetooth hardware now correctly hide the Bluetooth plugin icon, addressing an interface inconsistency. A fix is also included for a crash in the file manager when switching to a TTY.
The release ships with updated firmware and Linux kernel 6.12.47, providing the latest low-level improvements for Raspberry Pi devices.
For more information, refer to the release notes. You can download the latest version of Raspberry Pi OS from the project’s website. It continues to support a wide range of devices, including the Raspberry Pi 3B, 3B+, 3A+, 4B, 400, 5, 500, 500+, CM3, CM3+, CM4, CM4S, CM5, and the Zero 2 W.
Finally, a quick reminder: Raspberry Pi released its completely redesigned Raspberry Pi Imager 2.0 tool today, making it much easier to write OS images to an SD card. If you’re planning a fresh installation, this is the way to go.
