Install TypixDeck OS

Strongly recommended: flash TypixDeck OS with Raspberry Pi Imager

Use the official Raspberry Pi Imager with the TypixDeck custom repository. TypixDeck OS is Raspberry Pi OS built by our pi-gen fork with every driver, overlay and fix on this site already in it: display, touch, backlight, USB audio kernel, battery gauge, fan curve, ESP32 telemetry, firmware tools.

Stock Raspberry Pi OS boots to a dark built-in screen on TypixDeck until you add all of that by hand. Only do that if you have a reason to - the manual guide is below.

Custom repository URL

https://github.com/TypixNode/pi-gen/releases/download/typixdeck-latest/os_list.json

This URL always points at the latest build. Source: github.com/TypixNode/pi-gen (branch typixdeck), every image is on its Releases page.

In mainland China?

GitHub Releases are painfully slow there - measured at 0.19 MB/s on a Raspberry Pi in Tianjin, which is over an hour for a single image. Use our mirror instead: https://dl.typixnode.com/repo.json (7.2 MB/s on the same machine, byte-identical images). It carries the newest build of each flavour; for historical betas or the Android image, stick to the GitHub URL above. Details on the Chinese page.

Steps

1. Install the latest Raspberry Pi Imager (2.x recommended; 1.7.3 is the minimum for custom devices).

2. Click App Options at the bottom left, then Edit next to Content Repository:

   

   Choose Use custom URL, paste the URL above and click Apply and restart:

   

   Or start Imager from a terminal with the repository already set:

   rpi-imager --repo https://github.com/TypixNode/pi-gen/releases/download/typixdeck-latest/os_list.json

3. TypixDeck is now the first device in the list and selected by default:

   

4. Choose the OS:

   Image	For
   Raspberry Pi OS Desktop (Trixie arm64) for TypixDeck	CM4 / CM5 - start here
   Raspberry Pi OS Slim Desktop for TypixDeck	Compute Module 3 (4 GB eMMC)
   … + Phosh (Beta)	Touch-first mobile shell, see Phosh
   … + KDE Plasma Mobile (Beta)	Touch-first, known rendering issues

   The Beta builds folders hold the most recent five builds of each variant.

5. Pick the storage. For an eMMC compute module, first expose the eMMC over USB with rpiboot as described in Flashing Firmware.

6. In Customisation set the user name and password, Wi-Fi and enable SSH - the images apply these through cloud-init, exactly like official Trixie images.

7. Write, eject, power on.

After the first boot, update the ESP32-S3 and the keyboard from the device itself with the tools the image ships in /opt/typixdeck/firmware/ - see Flashing Firmware.

Prefer stock Raspberry Pi OS?

The manual guide for stock Raspberry Pi OS lists every change TypixDeck OS makes, ordered by priority, with the reason for each and the commands to apply it yourself.