screenshot of MX-23.1 Raspberry PI OS respin
A few days ago, quite exciting news was announced by the developers behind the distribution MX Linux and is that have presented a new version of the light MX Linux 23.1 distribution, Designed for Raspberry Pi boards.
In this way, the new version of the distribution officially arrives with the respin "MX Linux 23.1 Raspberry Pi OS", which seamlessly combines the robust MX tools and extensive MX repositories of major releases into a compact system image, designed for the latest Raspberry Pi models.
And MX Linux has positioned itself as an efficient distribution, easy to use and designed to work on both older computers and more modern hardware, offering a complete and versatile user experience. With this, MX Linux is an ideal option for SBCs and specifically for Raspberry.
About MX Linux 23.1 Raspberry Pi OS
MX-23.1_rpi_respin is tested and optimized for Raspberry Pi, RPi 4, RPi 400 and the new RPi 5, ensuring compatibility and performance of these popular models. To get started, users will need at least a 16GB memory card or USB stick, making this a very affordable upgrade.
As already mentioned at the beginning, This respin combines components from the Raspberry PI OS and MX Linux distributions, includes MX Tools and provides access to MX Linux repositories, con the Linux kernel 6.1 LTS and based on the latest stable branch of Debian 12.4 “Bookworm”. The user environment is based on Xfce and uses the sysVinit initialization system and its own tools to configure and deploy the system.
One notable change from the x86 versions, this respin, is that introduces Chromium as the default web browser, replacing Firefox. This decision is due to the faster boot speed of Chromium on Raspberry Pi hardware, providing a smoother browsing experience. Additionally, the respin initiates the user's setup on first start, simplifying the setup process.
However, noor is free of limitations, since the respin version removes live system and various MX tools that exploit it, like Snapshot. Additionally, the MX-23.1_rpi_respin comes with a reduced set of default applications such as LibreOffice 7.4.7, VLC 3.0.20, Geany 1.38, etc. Raspberry Pi Config and Pi Imager are also available by default.
As with any new release, There are some details to work out. User settings, for now, are only available in English. Although users can select their system language during installation, the installation process itself is still in English, so the entire configuration process will be done in English and the user could later change the system language.
Leaving those limitations aside, the included MX package installer is ready to fill any gaps, allowing users to customize and enhance their system to meet their needs with MX Linux 23.1 Raspberry Pi OS Respin
This respin will undoubtedly be another option to consider given the beloved features of MX Linux, plus it specifically addresses the needs and limitations of the hardware on the Raspberry Pi. This release is sure to excite long-time MX Linux fans and newcomers to the Raspberry Pi community.
Finally, if you are interested in knowing more about it, you can check the details In the following link.
Download and try MX-23.1 Raspberry PI OS respin
For those interested in trying out this MX Linux respin on your Raspberry Pi, as we mentioned above, you will need an SD card or booting from a USB drive with at least 16GB of free disk space.
The system image can be obtained from the following link. The size of the compressed system image is 2.2 GB.
To burn the system image, once the download is done you can use Etcher to burn the image to a flash drive and thus boot your system from your SDCard or USB.