Yes, I had it booting with the Lite but it failed on anything with a desktop. So I guess the answer is no desktop is possible.
Since I have a rare 256 MB version it must be worth a lot!![😉]()
The memory shows as 190036 kb in the original pi OS I had but shows a little different in an updated OS version with 182923 as what it sees. So it’s definitely the original variant with virtually no memory.
This all started as I wanted to control some LED strips. Everything I could find suggested the WS2812B LED strips had certain things that needed to be loaded and trying to load those was forcing me to update things.
Since I have a rare 256 MB version it must be worth a lot!
The memory shows as 190036 kb in the original pi OS I had but shows a little different in an updated OS version with 182923 as what it sees. So it’s definitely the original variant with virtually no memory.
This all started as I wanted to control some LED strips. Everything I could find suggested the WS2812B LED strips had certain things that needed to be loaded and trying to load those was forcing me to update things.
Bookworm supports all Pi models. Pi0, Pi1 and early Pi2 need to use the 32-bit version.
In general the desktop image isn't recommended for models with less than 1GB of RAM.
It will boot on a 512M device, but some uses, like browsing a modern web site are not really possible.
The very first Pi1 boards had 256M (but these are pretty rare these days). I suspect they will not even boot to desktop.
The Bookwork Lite image should be fine on 512M, and functional on 256M (but it depends on what you try to run).
Testing if the Lite image works and produces a usable console would be a useful test.
If it doesn't then it may be the system is booting but hdmi is failing (likely due to a faulty hdmi cable, which the older images were more tolerant of).
Statistics: Posted by davesk — Mon Jul 14, 2025 7:08 pm