Introduction
A major upgrade of the Raspberry Pi Community Respin 21.02.20, “Ragout2” provides a stable, fast and fun OS for use with Raspberry Pi 3 and later devices. It unites the user-centered goodness of MX Linux with the educational flexibility of Raspberry Pi OS (=RPi), implementing the light-weight and elegant desktop MX’s unique implementations of Fluxbox and–for the first time ever in MX Linux–Openbox.
The first beta is now released for testing, with feedback sites on the MX Forum and the Raspberry Pi Forum. Give it a spin–and enjoy!
–Download: Sourceforge repo
–md5sum (extracted): 9e8e6dc8a55b13e440054682eadf4fe6 MXFBPi_22.02.01.img
–Feedback:
https://forum.mxlinux.org/viewtopic.php?t=68680
https://forums.raspberrypi.com/viewtopic.php?t=328866
Features
–Remains with i386 (32bit) and Debian 10 (Buster) for stability and touchscreen options.
–Many MX-21 traits incorporated, from new Tools to art and style.
–Now with two Window Managers: Fluxbox (default) and Openbox. Select from the Session Manager located in the center of the top panel on the login screen.
–New Settings Manager dashboard that includes commonly used System, User and Raspberry Pi apps.
–MX Tools with new apps (a few are excluded because they can not function on RPi OS).
–Fully compatible with Raspberry Pi OS.
–Optimized touchscreen setup, including right-click capability, dedicated panel and dock, virtual keyboard, etc.
–Documentation available in multiple languages: First Steps and MXFBPi Docs. Dedicated video channel linked from desktop.
Installation instructions for new users
–Download the image to a computer that has a microSD slot or a USB-microSD adapter attached. Confirm integrity if wished using the md5sum posted there.
–Extract it using the standard method of your OS.
–Slide a microSD card (at least 16GB recommended) into the computer or the adapter.
–Launch Raspberry Pi Imager
–Click “Operating System” and navigate to the image you downloaded.
–Click “SD Card” and select the microSD card. Be careful to select the right device!
Imager will format the card and install the OS on it; it will also verify the installation unless you cancel it.
———-
–Insert the microSD card into your Pi device and turn it on.
–The device will start to boot up. You will see a black screen or a scrolling system log for a short time, and then the Fluxbox desktop.
–The default user is named “Pi” and the password that must be entered is pi.”
–For help, consult “First Steps” on how to get started by clicking the “Setup” desktop icon. For further help, click on the “Help Docs” or “Help videos” desktop links.
–Right-click the desktop to see the rootMenu of either WM.
Software
–Browser: Firefox-esr 78.15*
–Email: none installed by default
–Media player: VLC 3.0.16
–Music player: DeaDBeeF 1.8.4
–File manager: Thunar 1.8.17
–IDEs: Geany , Thonny (for Python beginners)
*more recent versions available from MX Package Installer
———-
Maintenance: upgrades signaled by white/red box icon (MX Updater) in systray
Installation/Removal: MX Package Installer (MX Tools), Raspberry Pi Recommended Software
Advanced: Synaptic
Technical aspects
–RAM usage after login using default Tasks app: about 200 for both WMs, 350 after Firefox (without additional extensions) has settled down.
–Tested compatible with Pi 3, 4 and 400
–GPIO ports remain available to program through Scratch and Python
–Camera port works
–Also bootable from USB stick or USB-connected SSD
Known major issues
–Localization: OpenBox menu, some apps and system texts as well only in English for now.
–Network: occasionally may refuse to reconnect; click icon to see available APs and enter the password; if that still doesn’t work, open a terminal and enter “sudo dhcpcd”
–Raspberry Pi Configuration: when changing locale, some language-specific letters may not be rendered correctly (in the menu, for instance). Setting the character set to UTF-8 will usually correct that.
Resources
–Raspberry Pi Documentation: https://www.raspberrypi.com/documentation/
–“Ragout2” Documentation (link on desktop)
–MX Wiki: articles on topics such as the traditional panel (tint2), rofi and the MX Tools.
–Videos: Fluxbox (Jerry3904) and MX (Dolphin Oracle) channels.
–Forums: MX Linux for desktop, Raspberry Pi for technical.
22.02.01