How Upgrading Your Raspberry Pi 4 to Bullseye Will Make It Run FASTER

Upgrade your Raspberry Pi 4 to the new Bullseye edition and see its speed skyrocket.  

In late 2021, the Raspberry Pi operating system was upgraded to Debian version 11, a.k.a. Bullseye. 

One key upgrade that stands out is the increase of the default turbo-mode clock from 1.5 to 1.8GHz. This results in high-performance speeds for recent Raspberry Pi 4 devices.

Prerequisites for the Upgrade 

The recent upgrade applies to devices with 8GB Raspberry Pi 4. If you have a lesser board, say, 2GB or 4GB, you can use the switcher to receive the speed boost. The System-on-a-Chip (SoC) voltage rail relies on the dedicated switch-mode power supply. 

If you have an even older model that may not qualify for the new upgrade, the Bullseye update still supports overclocking after determining the best applicable voltage. 

Eben Upton, Raspberry Pi Trading CEO, disclosed that overclocking the launch-variant Raspberry models proved hassle-free. For that reason, the CEO has offered different ways that you can replicate the new OS in these older models. 

Simply add the line below to the “config.txt” file. 

“arm_freq=1800”

Major Changes in Raspberry Pi 4

The upgrade to Debian version 11 replaced Raspberry’s Pi camera support and display with Linux standards. 

Now, new Raspberry Pi 4 devices have a KMS video driver and Linux API libcamera drivers. The two improvements were experimented on prior Raspberry Pi OS releases. 

The changes are Raspberry Pi’s shift from its proprietary closed-source code, opening up to third parties. 

Another change is the upgrade from GTX+2 to GTK+3, which aligned the desktop environment with other Debian applications. 

The new upgrade also comes with simplified file manager options, a newer updater plugin, an integrated notification function, and a new windows manager called mutter. 

Upgrade to Bullseye for Faster Speed

Consider upgrading your Raspberry Pi 4 to Bullseye for quick performance. Luckily, the new upgrade supports overclocking, making it possible to update even the older model Pi 4 model by selecting the most suitable voltage. 

Once you upgrade to the Bullseye version on your Raspberry Pi OS, you should download a new OS image and reinstall any application.