Using RMS Images for Raspberry Pi
Using RMS Images for Raspberry Pi Trixie and Bullseye are the two supported RMS images for Raspberry Pi.
Trixie
Trixie RMS is the preferred RMS image for Pi4 and Pi5. On this image, the Pi5 built-in Real-Time Clock (RTC) is fully supported. The highly recommended OEM Pi5 heatsink+fan thermal control is fully supported, and the conky Desktop display shows fan speed on the Pi5. Cooling fan speed is not reported by conky for most fans used on Pi4. MultiCam only works on Pi5, and you can find documentation for it in “MultiCam on Pi5”.
Graphics and Remote Access
Like the earlier Bookworm OS, Wayland graphics are used in Trixie. GMN has dropped the earlier Bookworm image in favor of Trixie. Because of Wayland, most of the previously used Remote Connection software no longer work on Trixie. As of January of 2026 the non-working software includes AnyDesk, NoMachine, TeamViewer and RealVNC for connections from outside your local area network (LAN). We suspect these vendors will support Wayland soon, or they will lose market share.
Remote Connection Options
Remote connections to Trixie RMS are available from Raspberry Pi Connect or RustDesk; and connections from inside the Local Area Network (LAN) can be done with VNC connected to the IP address of the Pi. For most people, Raspberry Pi Connect will be the preferred remote connection method, but RustDesk may be more appropriate in some cases. RustDesk instructions can be found in the 'shared' directory under user rms (~/shared).
Bullseye
Bullseye is not the preferred RMS image for Pi4, instead please use the Trixie RMS Image. We have kept the Bullseye RMS image available for those who require using older remote control software including AnyDesk, RealVNC Server, NoMachine, TeamViewer, and possibly a few others.
The Bullseye RMS image has been updated with OS and RMS updates and swap memory increased to 2GB. It can be used on Pi4, but not Pi5.
The Bullseye software repository has been frozen, and is not being updated to include newer versions of software like gimp for graphic file editing.
gimp v2.10.22
When saving mask.bmp after editing in gimp, you need to use a workaround to prevent generating a bad bmp file header. The workaround is is click on compatibility option during export to bmp and select
Do not write color space information
Raspberry Pi Connect
The new remote connection software from Raspberry Pi organization is Raspberry Pi Connect, which requires Wayland graphics, so it is not supported on Bullseye.
Topics for Bullseye and Trixie
A number of topics are common to both images.
File Manager
If you have problems with copy and paste with the GUI File Manager, open a second or third File Manager window and use copy/paste between two windows. The second work-around for this problem is to change the view mode in pcmanfm File Manager to icon view. This has been a common problem in the pcmanfm file manager, and has been an issue since the Bullseye image was released.
Multiple Cameras
Running more than one camera is only supported on Pi5. Documentation on how to run more than one camera on Pi5 can be found in “MultiCam on Pi5.pdf”.
RustDesk
RustDesk remote connection software is fully supported on Bullseye and Trixie RMS. Please see the notes in ~/shared. This directory is located under user rms.
Swap memory
Swap memory is a disk allocation that supplements RAM, and can be used to page content in and out of RAM. Both images have swap memory increased to 2GB.
The directories ~/shared and ~/RMS_data are defined as Samba shares and can be accessed inside the LAN by mapping Samba shares on the PC running Windows, Linux or Mac OS.
Samba directories Read access is enabled for /home/rms/RMS_data. Both read and write are enabled for /home/rms/shared. You can map each directory for easy access from another device. For Windows PC, follow these steps:
- Start Windows File Explorer
- right click on This PC
- Map Network Drive
- select drive designation
In the Folder window, enter the IP number of your Pi5, something like this \\192.168.1.23\shared
- click the box "Connect using different credentials"
- click Finish
- In the next window "Enter network credentials"
- enter rms for username
- enter rmsraspberry for the samba password
- click "Remember my credentials"
- click OK
If you want to delete this mapped network drive later, you can type this at a command prompt: net use /delete \\192.168.1.32\shared
If you would prefer, you can map to the Pi's hostname rms instead of IP number, so use \\rms\shared in the drive designation window for read/write access to /home/rms/shared. Likewise, you could use \\rms\RMS_data for read access to /home/rms/RMS_data
Configure Wi-Fi
To configure Wi-Fi, left-click on the blue Up/Down arrow icon toward the right-hand side of the taskbar, choose your Wi-Fi network, then supply your network passphrase. You can also use the Pi Ethernet port to connect to your local network wiring for an Internet connection and put your camera IP address on one of your local area network (LAN) addresses.
Network Configuration
In the Bullseye and Trixie RMS images, the Pi Ethernet interface (eth0) works for a connection to your LAN, or if no LAN, it will fall back to 192.168.42.1, which makes any camera at 192.168.42.xxx usable. There is no need to change any network settings for eth0, the fallback takes place automatically.
Please note that the Pi will need an Internet connection before you can complete the RMS_FirstRun configuration steps that you see in the terminal window at startup. You can use WiFi or a wired connection for your Internet connection. You can use RealVNC or TigerVNC viewer for remote connections inside your local network.
The eth0 (Ethernet port on the Pi) IP number can be set automatically by your DHCP server (router), if one is present. In this case, the Pi needs to be physically connected to the router directly or through a wired switch. There is no need to attach the screen, keyboard and a mouse (the Pi can run as 'headless')
Run “headless”
- connect via VNC (see below) to the Pi (you need to find out the Pi IP address from the router)
- if needed, change the camera IP with CamManager - open another terminal session and type 'python ~/source/RMS/Utils/CamManager.py'. All cameras attached to the local network will appear. Select the correct camera and change the IP address.
- finish the RMS configuration with the instructions on the RMS terminal.
If the Pi is connected via eth0 directly to the camera, the IP address of the eth0 interface is automatically set to 192.168.42.1, and the camera IP needs to be set to 192.168.42.10, instead of the default new camera IP of 192.168.1.10:
- attach the screen, keyboard and a mouse
- if needed, change the camera IP with CamManager - open another terminal session and type 'python ~/source/RMS/Utils/CamManager.py'. The camera attached to the Pi will appear. Select the correct camera and change the IP address.
- finish the RMS configuration with the instructions on the RMS terminal.
Configure camera parameters
This script uses the Python CameraControl module to configure camera parameters:
Scripts/SetCameraParams.sh
If you want to run CameraControl manually type:
python -m Utils.CameraControl
to see a list of options for CameraControl. If you open the source code in a text editor, the top of the Python file has a bit more documentation: /home/rms/source/RMS/Utils/CameraControl.py
Migrate a camera
If you migrate a camera from a Pi4, it is best to manually merge your old .config into the new default .config file (rewrite your config settings into the new file manually, do not copy the .config). We recommend merged settings because the most recent .config version often has new parameters that are not present in an older .config file.
If you want a fresh copy of the default .config file, you can run these commands in a terminal session in ~/shared (~/ equals /home/rms/)
cd ~/shared
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/CroatianMeteorNetwork/RMS/master/.config
Use a text editor to transfer your camera settings Camera_ID, latitude, longitude, elevation, camera IP number and any other camera specific settings, then copy the new .config to ~/source/RMS. You probably want to also copy over the mask.bmp and platepar_cmn2010.cal files.
To migrate a camera, copy your old SSH keys to the new image. When copying old ssh keys, be sure to change the attributes on id_rsa (the private key) to read by owner only. Another option is to create new SSH keys and then send the id_rsa.pub (public key) to Denis.
Enable SSH
For security reasons, we do not enable SSH in this image for Pi. If you want to enable SSH access to your Pi5, go to Preferences on the main menu:
Preferences
Raspberry Pi Configuration
Interfaces
move the slider on SSH to enable this interface
click OK
You may have to reboot for the change to take effect.
Images past and present
Over the years, a number of RMS images for Pi have been released. Some of the older images are no longer supported. As Raspberry Pi organization has released newer operating systems, these systems have moved to newer Python versions and have incorporated newer applications.
Trixie RMS is the preferred RMS image for Pi4 and Pi5. The Bullseye RMS image has been updated with OS and RMS updates and can be used on Pi4 if you prefer. Both new images have swap memory increased to 2GB.
Trixie RMS
Trixie RMS is the recommended image for Pi4 and Pi5. More information on Trixie can be found here.
Bookworm RMS
Bookworm RMS was our first version to support Pi5. Now that Trixie OS is released, Bookworm has been pushed to Legacy status. Because Trixie RMS offers significant advantages, we no longer offer Bookworm RMS for download or recommend using this RMS image.
Bullseye RMS
Bullseye OS has now been pushed back to unsupported status and the repository for software updates has been frozen. Bullseye was moved to 'unsupported' when Trixie OS was released, which pushed Bookworm to Legacy status, and deprecated Bullseye.
We will try to keep Bullseye RMS running, however, it is best to move to Trixie RMS for new or rebuilt Pi4 and Pi5. Additional details on using Bullseye RMS can be found here.
Buster RMS
Buster RMS was our original image for Pi4. We released a 32-bit version, which was used by a number of Pi4 systems. We no longer offer Buster RMS images for download because it has been superseded by Bullseye RMS
Jessie RMS
Jessie RMS is one of our earliest images and was only used on Pi3. In mid-2025 we stopped supporting RMS on Pi3, so limited help is available. This decision was based on the difficulty of supporting Python 2.7 which is now obsolete. It has become impossible to develop new RMS functionality while struggling to back-port it to an obsolete Python.