Raspberry Pi OS uses a modified LXDE desktop environment with the Openbox stacking window manager, along with a unique theme.

The default distribution is shipped with a copy of the computer algebra system Wolfram Mathematica,[4] VLC, and a lightweight version of the Chromium web browser.

[7] The Foundation's first release of Raspbian, which now referred both to the community project as well as the official operating system, was announced on September 10, 2013.

PCManFM is a file browser allowing quick access to all areas of the computer, and was redesigned in the first Raspberry Pi OS Buster release (2019-06-20).

Raspberry Pi OS originally distributed the web browser Epiphany, but switched to Chromium with the launch of its redesigned desktop.

The Pi does not have a great deal of processor speed or memory, but it does have enough resources to run LXDE and a handful of applications.

I probably would not run heavier programs such as LibreOffice or Firefox on the Pi, but Raspbian does provide the Epiphany web browser and a few other desktop programs.In late January 2021, the Raspberry Pi OS package raspberrypi-sys-mods added a trusted GPG key and configuration entry in the APT package manager.

This change initiated a query to Microsoft's package servers every time the system checked for updates.