Date: 2025/06/16 - Day X of Rpi config - Themes: Raspberry Pi, ricing, Emacs

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cue opening song

I own Raspberry single board computers.

1. Raspberry Pi 1 Model B
2. Raspberry Pi 2 Model B 1.1

I love those but i do not have a much of use of them which is make me quite sad. The only things i tend to hoard is books. When i need to use a computer elsewhere than home i got a laptop for that.

I watched a stream and the host was actually using Raspberry computer. Of course it wasn't on those old models. But still. The first model i owned, Raspberry (1) Model B, has tight specs and i used it for broaden my knowledge of CLI and later i atempted to use if with yunohost. That last part wasn't a success.

Then i got a Raspberry 2 Model B, at that time models 4 were a thing. I got it for free and its twice powerful than the first one.

Operating System

Because of this later model is better in every point so i took that one. I still hope i'll have the patience and dedication to do something out of my first model. It was a christmas gift.

At first i went with default:
Default is Raspberry OS with graphical environnement. It was super interesting. I updated my knowledge of it. What software it brings, how you should use it and many entry point questions and answers.

Raspberry OS is what i knew as Raspbian, Debian based OS using lxqt and a small set of software, i remember it had Midori as web browser.

So after the default install tour, i visited alternatives within Raspberry Pi Imager tool. For this model i got different flavors of Raspberry OS, RISC OS and Alpine Linux. I tried both and what a great time. I could have stayed on Alpine Linux but something was bit odd and i assumed it required the base knowledge of a default install on x86-64 which i don't have.

It comforted me on the init system discourse (see systemd). While i didnt understand all specific details, the only thing it changed is init time and significantly. I Really like it how fast it was.

But as said earlier Alpine Linux might need a real install to avoid the quirkalities of Raspberry Pi and ARM that i don't understand yet. I went back to Raspberry OS lite, no graphical environement and start cooking.

goal, expectation and choice making

It started with a simple list. I got in my notebooks a list of software required to have a simple desktop, running openbox, lightdm, obconf, pcmanfm. Y'know the classics. Small footprint. But this time i hit the point of "If your openbox setup is already too much?"

Then i had to set my criterias straight, what i wanted to do with that Raspberry computer. Will i try to run FreeCAD? Well maybe but First i just want a station with emacs and a web browser and i'll call that a day.

I tried numerous windows managers i thought at first they were ok but Raspberry pi Model 2 is not feeling it

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• - No CLI, i want to use GUI emacs (even if i enjoy Cli max)
• - basic keybinding that dont clutter emacs (*highly specific, i know*)
• - easy install (if its not in Raspberry pi bookworm repo that's a no)

Tests

I tried few options, like DWM, FVWM, Awesome, iceVM, i cannot remember the whole list as writing this.

And i ended using, [Ratpoison](https://www.nongnu.org/ratpoison/). which is surprisingly good. i think i like it.

I've listened reviews, and while i understand the critics, for now i think i'm gonna use it.

The rest of software

Well, Emacs because it replace a lot of software for me, like text editor, shell, irc client, and more. I took Luakit as web browser. I briefly tested Surf though.
Because i want this board to act as a sleeper when i need "my config" at the library. I might try to put my dailies such as Inkscape, Gimp, Arduino IDE and FreeCAD.
I managed to open it but i was stucked by a interesting visual error that hide the half interface diagonaly almost like a lightning strike.
Of course i could just use EXWM as window manager since i intend to use mostly emacs with that Raspberry Pi.
Also Emacs is not quite lightweight either but replacing it wouldn't be fun since its the fun part of fitting it in this config.

Usage

Of course i have a laptop and i was just curious if i was able to find some project to use those. Here's a nasty fact. Raspberry Pis are no longer cheap and Pre- Model 3-4 are basically hardware junk, which is truly a shame. Beside using them as Pi-hole https://pi-hole.net/ they're junk.
I would love to use them to do some cool cyberdeck but once again, if i'm not able to make a small footprint desktop, a cyberdeck is way over any expectation then.

I'll keep lookin' around!