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I am planning to use my raspberry pi 2 in an image processing project. Is there an OS which would be particularly helpful in this purpose? I was thinking about RISC OS, because I have read that it focuses more on the processor although it has less features.

I am a newbie with raspberry but I have time to get used to any OS you would suggest.

And my other concern is that, is raspberry pi is too slow for real time image processing purposes? Is it possible for me to interpret a 30fps image?

ozgeneral
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On pretty much any modern system, and the different Raspberry models are no exception, the OS doesn't really get in the way of programs that just do their own thing. The OS does matter a whole lot if you're shuffling files in the file system - that's a shared resource - but your process memory is yours and the OS doesn't get involved as long as you stay in that area.

Technically this is made possible by the MMU (Memory Management Unit) in the CPU. The OS configures it for your program, and then this hardware component just watches over your program to ensure you stay withing your memory space. The OS is only woken up by the MMU if you stray outside (the famous SegFault).

By far the fastest solution is to use all 4 cores of a model 2, including its VFP (Vector Floating point) unit. You'll need a modern compiler for that. The most modern compiler I can find for Risc OS is an older GCC 4.7, not the more up to date GCC 4.9/5.0 versions.

You'd also want to use an existing image processing library so you don't have to reinvent the wheel. OpenCV is the usual choice for the Pi, and it runs on Linux. You'd be hard-pressed to write your own code as efficiently.

MSalters
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RiscOs was the original OS for the arm processor. This means, 27yrs on with faster processors that by far its the fastest, leanest OS for the pi.. If you buy the nutpi add on, this gets you (among other things) Photodesk, which is a highly capable photo editor, and much more responsive than gimp under raspbian.
Be prepared for a steepish learning curve with riscos, as the way it works can be very different to other os's but it has many things going for it.. a logical interface, screen use is cleverly maximised since menus only appear when you want them, the basic programming language is built in requiring no compiling, etc.. Good luck!

user35952
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