apt sources list confusion

[Elliott B]

On Buster Lite, I noticed two different apt repos enabled. What is the difference between these two?
I was also surprised to see non-free enabled by default.

/etc/apt/sources.list

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deb http://raspbian.raspberrypi.org/raspbian/ buster main contrib non-free rpi

/etc/apt/sources.list.d/raspi.list

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deb http://archive.raspberrypi.org/debian/ buster main

[rpdom]

The raspbian repository is the majority of the software that is used on the Pi. It is basically the Debian armhf release recompiled to run on the ARMv6 that is used on the Pi 1 and 0. (with a few tweaks to improve performance). Debian armhf won't work on a Pi 1 or 0 as they only support ARMv7 and later.

The archive.raspberrypi.org repository contains code produced by or modified by Raspberry Pi Trading. It contains Pi specific code to take full advantage of the hardware of the Pi. In there you will find the Linux Kernel, the "firmware"/bootloader code, enhanced versions of VLC and Chromium Browser and more specifically for the Raspberry Pi.

[Elliott B]

Thanks, that also explains another question I asked in a different thread when I noticed the duplicate versions of VLC. What’s the difference between rpt2 and rpt3?

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$ apt-cache madison vlc 
       vlc | 3.0.11-0+deb10u1+rpt3 | http://archive.raspberrypi.org/debian buster/main armhf Packages
       vlc | 3.0.11-0+deb10u1 | http://raspbian.raspberrypi.org/raspbian buster/main armhf Packages

If everything is recompiled for armv6, does that have a performance impact on a Pi 4 for apps optimized for armv7 or 8?

[rpdom]

What’s the difference between rpt2 and rpt3?

The "rpt" designations are the Raspberry Pi Trading update version numbers. Just like the "debVuN" designations are the debian specific Version and Update numbers (Debian 10 Update 1 for example).

If everything is recompiled for armv6, does that have a performance impact on a Pi 4 for apps optimized for armv7 or 8?

A bit, but not much.

However the ARMv8 CPUs support 64-bit and there is a 64-bit version of Raspberry Pi OS in progress which should offer a some performance advantage on the Pis that support it. Of course there will also be code that works better in 32-bit, but you can't win them all.