At first I was disappointed with not being able to adjust my mouse speed out of the box (there are touchpad options but no mouse pointer speed options as far as I can tell). Also the Conky clock wouldn't update when I adjusted the time in the taskbar clock. After getting over these few annoyances I really appreciate all the different persistence options present at startup. MX works great as a live disc. This distro let me accomplish a few things I've never done before such as challenging myself to connecting to wifi via bash.
After several attempts to find the right Linux for me, I have the number one
Installed Distrowatch and I have to say: I'm thrilled!! Everything runs “out of the box” as the saying goes
Even World of Warcraft runs almost better on Lutris than on Windoh! :-)) In 2004 I started with Ubuntu and over the years I tested many distros like Fedora, Linux Mint, Manjaro, etc. and now I have it for the very first time! Installed a Linux in these years that runs from the installation process to playing AAA titles without a single error!
Many thanks to the developers and please make many more versions!
By the way: I have it running on an 11 year old Acer notebook and on a one year old gaming PC!! :-)
I have tried so many Distro's, Variants and Versions of Linux i cannot begin to remember. All just to find a perfect Desktop to my needs.
Ms Linux has a fantastic Desktop with XFce. I can now configure my desktop exactly like i have my windows System with 3 screens.
On top of that the list of Settings and extras are just awesome. Most distro's i have tried usually crash within the first few hours in some or other way with me trying to customize my Linux experience.
Even the Install part works for me and this must be the fastest a Linux distro i have used excluding the puppies of the world
WiFi working OOTB now that they have updated NetworkManager.
Android phones seen directly in File Manager just like Windows without needs to start gmtp and better cause you can see every kind of file stored.
Clean interface noobs proof.
The only complaints are about applications menu, faster sometimes to open a terminal and to start the application from there instead of wasting time searching the menu and the increased memory usage probably due to kernel (kernel.org has behind big corps interested to sell new hardware).
No systemd complexity, easy to administer and rock solid.
Really suitable both for noobs and experienced users which want the ability to administrate the system in an easy way but for everyday tasks like the ability do them "point & click".
I have installed MX-Linux just for trying another distribution.
With my surprise I found that it works very very well on my old laptop (Toshiba L735 with second generation i3 and 4 GB RAM, Crucial 240GB SSD).
I like the main use of Synaptic for update/upgrade the software and the system, but also the MX program installer is very useful.
MX tools is a great feature that make simple to do many maintaince and ordinary jobs.
And, by the way, also the graphical aspect is very fine.
I think that I will change the Xubuntu LTS distro on my office desktop ...
The sysvinit boot option was the main reason why I tried MX, besides being Debian-based with the apt package manager. I have been using MX since version 19. I use it as a daily driver, both at work and for personal use, and do not think I will switch.
That said, I have read great reviews of nixOs being an unbreakable system, but I am not sure I want to spend another twenty years learning the ins and outs of the nix language. Besides, using linux is no fun if you can not break the system once in a while.
I do not use the MX tools much, relying instead on the command line tools. I did try mx-boot-repair once, and I managed to wipe my /boot partition because of an oversensitive touch pad - that, however, gave me the chance of a clean install.
I do recommend MX to both beginners and advanced users alike. Thank you Distrowatch for showcasing it!
After having tried the first 15 Distro's on DistroWatch & after weighing all the checks & balances i have decided on using MX OS XFCE 64 bit as my daily driver, the combination or flexibility & ease of use with arranging the setup & customization of the OS as well as the security features make MX OS a real Windows/IOS beater.
Though the installation of software apps on MX OS are a more laborious task compared to Windows, once this skill are mastered it is a very clean sailing experience for the average user like myself, with over 12 mths of using MX OS i have had no failures or Blue Screens of Death etc, the reliability of this Distro are outstanding.
With the ever encroaching risk of personal freedom online with Windows, IOS, Android etc using invasive tech to monitor citizens more closely than ever a person must look @ Linux Distro's as a means of interaction with the Internet for a more safer & better experience.
There is a very good reason why MX OS is listed as #1 on DistroWatch & I can only recommend it!
Very stable ,updates almoust daily .Working well on my notebook thinkpad carbon x1 gen 3 .Light distro .Using XFCE version MX-23.1ahs enviroment with compiz and emerald themes .Versatile and with a stong support (forums),it is a worm ,simple ,gorgeous and moust of all stable debian distro .If your main goal is -browsing on internet and multimedia freak ,this is it !It has a ton of software -MX repositories .It s adapt on every user . You can customize it ,has a nice interface .It is perfect ?Not yet ,it has issues too but on average ,is the best
Version: 23.1 Rating: 5 Date: 2023-10-24 Votes: 0
I used the XFCE version "MX-23.1_ahs_x64" for a week.
Everything worked flawlessly: the system was ultra fast and yet I have an old PC more than 11 years old...the printer which installs itself but the scanner which does not work..."Steam" which worked flawlessly .
I had the most recent stable kernel available and the latest drivers for my GPU...
Unfortunately and despite my monitoring of file residues to be deleted after uninstalling software...the system started to bug after a week my printer no longer wants to work even by reinstalling the drivers and "Steam" starts to bug and becomes completely unusable...
I am running MX since over 2 years now, and distro-hopping (which was fun) has actually come to and end. So fast, so practical, so stable, running it on 8 computers. Additions: taskbar down (from left), added sensor viewer, added xsct for color temperature, put back the featherpad editor from MX-21. Truly nothing is missing for - what else is there to say.
MX-21 sometimes did not find the wifi during installation (5 year old computer !), back then MX-21_ahs did the trick, also Linux Mint back then. This is now no longer needed with MX-23.
What is still a bit problematic: Installer issues a) once it 'ate up' my good old Win10 from eMMC which I didn´t bother to reinstate, b) it doesn't like to sit together with Windows on the same SSD - better have a separate drive. Then you are good.
Plus point also: the cpu governor which is set to 'ondemand´, which is what you need. Linux Mint Debian_6 for example seems to be setting the cpus to full performance all the time, otherwise LMDE_6 would be my second best candidate.
Using Debian as it's base has made this distro rock solid, The addition of the MX tools as well as tons of documentation really make this distro a winner. Just the addition of MX snapshot is a game changer in my opinion, the ability to backup your whole OS, settings, passwords accounts into an installable ISO to restore your system without having to do anything post install is so great that I don't know why this isn't a standard practice in all distros.
What a nice distro and hopefully it continues like that. Now Im trying to use MX Linux to gaming so I hope to dont find any problem with this. Using this distro for 3 years now and I cant be more happy.
The community looks nice and most of the problems I had are solved quickly.
The performance is fast, the apps and options are good and is very easy to use, complete and robust.
Installation is intuitive and not a headache. I recommend this distro with no doubt.
The only thing is just the nvidia drivers installation, which is still not easy for me. Things like that would be easy in a future.
Version: 23 Rating: 10 Date: 2023-10-11 Votes: 39
I switched to MX from Fedora because, like so many Fedora users, I had a lot of difficulty getting sound to work properly. With MXLinux at the top of the DistroWatch chart, I had to try it, and it's fabulous.
PROS: Everything works. It contains MX Tools, which is a suite of commonly-used apps we all use to control sound, brightness, etc., all conveniently gathered into one app; it is very useful. The wireless printer, WIFI, sound, USB...everything worked perfectly with no tweaking. Oh yeah, there's MX Tweak (and many other setting apps) to customize everything possible thing I can think of.
CONS: None yet.
To the dev team I would say....it ain't broke guys, so don't fix it. I love this distro!
Version: 23 Rating: 2 Date: 2023-10-07 Votes: 0
I have been a long user of MX linux and was happy with the transition from other Debian distros. However while the appearance is improved from the previous version, the issues have not stopped. I continue to have a problem with audio and video problem across various computers and hardware. Specifically, websites containing videos including, YouTube, news sites, etc. continue to experience a problem and refuse to play. Admitting, MX Linux, both KDE and XFCE, when they work, they are great. Unfortunately, I have experienced countless problems causing me along with my peers to have to seek other distros.
Version: 23 Rating: 10 Date: 2023-10-07 Votes: 24
A great strength of MX Linux is its community.Assistance is always forthcoming even about the most mundane queries. The OS itself is very easy to install and customization is straightforward. You have a choice of desktops including KDE, Fluxbox and Xfce.
It's very flexible and light on resources. It has some very useful utilities, for example MX Tools that gathers the most important tools under the same roof. You can easily create a live-USB, make it encrypted and portable so that you can use MX Linux and optionally your documents too on another computer.
Version: 23 Rating: 9 Date: 2023-10-03 Votes: 9
This replaced Windows 10 on a Acer Extensa 2540 laptop with Intel i3 6006U CPU,240 GB SSD & 8 GB RAM.
Easy installation via DVD-R disc containing MX-23 x64 Xfce iso from SourceForge.
Wi-fi was enabled by default which allowed the customary updates to be quickly installed.
Bluetooth was also enabled by default granting me use of a Logitech cordless mouse thereby sparing me using the awful scrollpad!
Firefox and Thunderbird were a doddle to set up to my specifications as I already use them on my Windows 10 desktop.
A highly customisable distro well worth trying for anyone seeking a alternative to Microsoft's offerings - it isn't perfect,but there again,nothing is! Highly recommended!
Version: 21.3 Rating: 8 Date: 2023-10-02 Votes: 1
Good looking distro, heavier than other Debian based ones (Xubuntu, Sparky Devuan). It seems faster, like ram based live usb distros do, but they are always heavier (scripts vs binaries).
Good looking distro with too much bloat. Overlapping mx apps: mx disk tool vs Gparted. MX brightness vs XFCE power manager plugin (which has brightness adjustment capability).
Good looking distro that can be installed with no problem on different hardware, which cannot be said about many popular distros.
Good looking distro with nontheless some bad user experience. Why binding Super L key to whisker menu in session & startup apps? What was wrong with keyboard shortcuts that user can reset to Xfce defaults with one click?
Why circular scrolling? Who on earth uses circular scrolling on a laptop with touchpad? Abnormally fast pointer, + circular scrolling, + horizontal srolling enabled, + tiny window scrollbars and borders = recipe for distaster. Windows disappear out of sight or you need 5 attempts to minimize window or find something in whisker menu. It looks good, but first of all it has to be functional!
Pros
Apps that many can find useful, ie nvidia driver installer. Good looking.
Cons
annoying default settings, bloatware, no minimal installation.
Version: 23 Rating: 9 Date: 2023-09-28 Votes: 5
I'm sure it's confirmation bias, but I still feel compelled to share.
MX Linux 23 seems more responsive than 21 on a small, old ProBook 4540s with a i3-3110M CPU. This kitchen utility computer isn't fast, but it's responsive, and never generates errors. Writing is fine, browsing and vertical applications work well, streaming video is smooth.
More so, the MX interface is easily readable, and re-configurable. Lord knows why, but I like a top vertical menu, with my utilities ordered in a particular manner. I can change the default interface to my specifications in an initial, brief bit of time measured in minutes.
Setting up access to varied repositories through the MX Package Installer is easy, allowing for support of a wider variety of applications.
Lastly, the packaging of common computer operations in the MX Tools collection is clutch. The grouped apps provide GUI support for many computer management operations. They are described and presented in a manner that facilitates learning basic computer management.
Version: 23 Rating: 10 Date: 2023-09-26 Votes: 20
it is stable, fast, it works in almost any computer, it is user friendly and excellent for first time linux users, no problems with the installation, because is based on debian it is super easy to install any package, it has a lot of good tools within the os that will help to the normal use to feel more in control.
One of the things that sets MX Linux apart from other Linux distributions is its focus on stability and performance. The developers of MX Linux carefully test all of the software that is included in the distribution, and they also make a number of optimizations to the system to improve performance. As a result, MX Linux runs very smoothly on a wide range of hardware, including older or less powerful computers.
In addition to its stability, performance, and ease of use, MX Linux is also notable for its wide range of pre-installed software. MX Linux comes with a variety of productivity, multimedia, and development tools pre-installed, so users can start using the distribution right away without having to install any additional software. MX Linux also includes a number of unique tools that are developed by the MX Linux team, such as the MX Package Installer and the MX Tools.
Overall, MX Linux is a great choice for users who are looking for a stable, performant, and easy-to-use Linux distribution. It is also a great choice for users who want a distribution with a wide range of pre-installed software.
Version: 23 Rating: 9 Date: 2023-09-26 Votes: 2
A significant improvement over previous MX versions, IMHO.
Pros:
* KDE looks polished and fairly clean.
* NVIDIA integration works, just choose the tool and "follow your nose"
* Office is there (Libre)
* VLC is there
* GIMP is there
* Fairly intuitive/logical layout.
* Most Windows users could easily use this distro and be productive.
* For native apps, the response is snappy (for KDE that's a plus)
* Debian. It's stable.
Cons:
* Greeter flashes and redraws on this system (and you lose your early input - better to wait if this happens)
* Activations (like firefox) can be slow
* "Fiddlers" need to remember: no systemd. This can be a good thing, or not.
* Wayland offered. Not for Windows users just yet. It's improving.
Version: 23 Rating: 10 Date: 2023-09-25 Votes: 3
As both Canonical and RedHat have made some controversial choices recently, I had to investigate the Debian-Universe (former Fedora User).
After some searching MX LInux is now my favorite distribution, hits the sweet-spot for me between ease-of-use and compatibility with power user modifications.
Especially the SysV-Variant follows the UNIX Philosophy and I found everything to be easily adjustable via both the terminal and the user interface, without any sort of interference. I.e. the MX Boot Options adjusts /etc/default/grub directly (including nice and helpful comments) and their is no intermediate sort of database of sorts, which I appreciate very much.
This allows an easy back-and-forth switching in case one wants to adjust the boot parameters (in my case I had to disable the nouveau-drivers for an nvidia-machine and on another machine it was related to some cgroups parameters related to minikube).
As part of the user-friendly tools we have multiple mx tools in addition to the aforementioned "mx boot options", the highlight are the ones related to the live distribution, including remastering and persistence. Those are a real game changer and one of the unique selling points, that are not offered within other distributions.
The XFCE Desktop Environment (which I use exclusively) works like a charm as always
It is the first distribution where I have no compromises or regrets.
The only downside is perhaps the security aspect, where Fedora / RedHat have a very slim lead, due to SELinux and Wayland, which are in my opinion slightly more secure. The main issue is related to the outdated x-server protocol which does not enforce application isolation. So be careful with foreign software (outside the debian repos). Therefore I recommend to disable flatpaks and snaps and would rather build from source directly. Unless you would spin up a VM for that.
Besides that MX Linux provides nevertheless a secure overall experience, as you get access to the latest kernels and the recent CPU-bugs were alle fixed (Try the spectre-meltdown-checker). Also the firewall preconfiguration and update policies (using the mx-updater-widget) was reasonable for end-users.
Please note that the distribution sticks to the debian-way and also includes the latest non-free firmware drivers, which adds to the security but violates the free software foundations principles. For me this is a reasonable tradeoff as I prefer Intel WIFI/Bluetooth.
Overall a 9,5/10, generously rounded up to 10, due to the subjective excitement.
Thank you MX LInux developers for your tremendous work!
Version: 23 Rating: 4 Date: 2023-09-24 Votes: 0
MX Linux 21 was my first daily-driver Linux distro, by that I mean I tried a couple of score of distros before deciding to make MX Linux my daily driver while learning more about Linux as a whole.
As I learned more about MX Linux and its antecedent platform AntiX I became more uncomfortable using it for sensitive transactions and started using more trustworthy distros for sensitive transactions. As my Linux journey continued I noted performance differences between MX and several other, lighter distros; fair enough as MX LInux is a middleweight distro, but the performance was not appreciably better than several heavyweight distros.
Then MX Linux 23 came along, and what a buggy, bloated RAM pig it is. MX Linux 23 sent me shopping for another full desktop distro to use. I was shocked to see the newest Linux Mint is lighter, more stable,and simply, now, faster. Interestingly Mint XFCE weighs in at almost half of what MX Linux 23 now comes in at! That sent me down the road of comparing MX Linux with a plethora of other distros and MX Linux did not compare favorably any longer.
I will say MX Linux as good support forum, great folks who are always willing to help and that is worth a lot.
IMO, MX Linux is running on its once stellar reputation and a helpful support form cannot out weigh the inherent deficiencies. At this point given MX Linux association with what I consider a sketchy distro, given the new instability introduced in MX Linux 23, given its new RAM bloat and deteriorating responsiveness and freezes I am leaving MX Linux. In all fairness I never explored used MX Linux much vaunted MXTools, they may well be worth the price of admission for some, but I don't use them. What remains to me is a buggy, RAM hungry, slow system with integrity issues.
As a distro, given its slower response, instability, and RAM use I would rate MX Linux 23 in the lower end of average now but dock it even further for its reliance on antiX, where as I considered MX Linux 21 an above average distro overall.
Version: 23 Rating: 8 Date: 2023-09-24 Votes: 0
Like its companion distro, Antix, I found this not ideal for a beginner.
I tried three times to install, with a message simply telling me installation failed.
I went back with the live version and used Gparted to delete all partitions.
This worked fine and it installed without a problem.
I do think that this might be a bit intimidating for a complete beginner.
I like the distro which still bears some resemblance to Mepis in some of its features. Mepis was my first successful foray into the world of Linux.
Version: 23 Rating: 1 Date: 2023-09-22 Votes: 0
MX (21.3) was good distro, but since version 23 its quality declined. Bluetooth, pipewire problems. (With debian 12 xfce there wasn't problems). It's appearance also was buggy. I think devs released this version way too soon.
Devs also not responding to problem request.. its sad this really was a good distro. I thinks devs are really busy,since its dev team are too small. I used xfce version.
I really hope devs will fix these problems since i really like their mindset,but currently its unusable since i can't use my bluetooth earphones.
Version: 23 Rating: 10 Date: 2023-09-19 Votes: 17
Loaded the KDE Plasma version of this today and I knew right away this was going to be my OS for the foreseeable future.
What a wonderful job, gents. Smooth, sleek and just enough packages and tweaks to make it look and feel clean and modern and still stay nimble and fast which is what drew a lot of use old Linux users here in the first place.
I had been using an old version of Mint that didn't even have support any more but was still serving me well. Then I went and got a 6g network adapter to joint the 21st century and it wouldn't pick up a driver due to the old Kernel so it was time for a change,. I downloaded Debian which i love but it didn't pick it up either and quite frankly this day and age if it isn't plug and play out of the box then why waste time with it. I could do it but I have a Job, Kid's, wife, and a stinkin yard to mow and i don't have time to find out how to get it going like I used to.
Then I tried Garuda, yes it recognized the card but like everything Arch to me, it just felt obtuse, not to mention gawdy and loud and a little buggy. Not trying to hurt your Arch guys feewings as I know how tender you are, It is just the route I took to get here is all.
Then I plugged this in and snap crackle pop , it was like an old friend, I didn't even realize how much I missed a simple conky.
Great Job Gentlemen, I hope everyone who tries it likes it as much as I do because if I could build one myself this is probably pretty close to what I would try to accomplish.
Great Job Gentlemen. Dandy little OS.
Version: 23 Rating: 10 Date: 2023-09-13 Votes: 11
This is a follow up to my previous review about MX Linux which i rate 1/10 because MX Tools did not work properly after upgrading from version 21 to version 23 using the Debian way which is mentioned in the MX Linux blog, but after couple of updates every thing works properly, and it is my daily driver right now, it has every thing any usual user will need from operating system, even Linux Mint not close to the perfection of MX Linux right now, it is really a great system and it add new features faster than any other distribution in the Linux world.
Version: 23 Rating: 10 Date: 2023-09-11 Votes: 12
MX 23 KDE is a notable improvement over Debian 12 with KDE.
They both have the same version of Plasma and the same kernel but MX has clearly applied some love to their version and it shows.
If you like KDE, if you like debian, then by all means give this version a go. I can't really fault it for anything. What I expected is what I got and frankly I am a bit surprised at that as I usually find something that gets me in a knot.
But tomorrow is another day I suppose, but until then I am looking at my work laptop running Ubuntu and am thinking its days are numbered, lol.
Version: 23 Rating: 9 Date: 2023-09-06 Votes: 3
Tested all the flavours (KDE, XFCE and Fluxbox) for a few days: this release follows the solid path of previous releases, so no problems at all. It is the good Mx as usual.
The new release permittes to work better with an ASUS T103H (now audio is available, a thing not possible with previous versions).
One suggestion for the developpers? Clean and give a better order to the menuses: in my opinion they are a little bit confusing and some items appear in more than one location, so that, sometimes, you need to much time to search for an item.
At the moment , but I did not go deep into that, the only annopying thing is the version of Thunderbird that does not allow to have shared data and configs with other latest versions of it (yes I use multiple linuxes and using a shared thunderbird data is useful while changing environment).
Wish they could fix the sound adjustment for when you are turning on the bluetooth speaker. Should be able to set the sound levels before switching from pc speaker to bluetooth. I don't like it blasting me because I was watching a video with little or no sound and have to turn it up. It remembers the sound setting so it won't default to a low level where you can increase it to your liking. Shouldn't be to hard to fix.
I'm using MX-21.3 Debian ver. 11.7 and xfce 4.18.1
Thanks alot MX team. I'm a 16yr Linux user as my primary OS and MX Linux is best. Stability, looks, configurablility, adding and removing programs, its number one in my book and I've tried many of them.
Version: 23 Rating: 9 Date: 2023-08-31 Votes: 4
(M)agic E(X)cellence, that is what this distro is. Easy to install, easy to use, and hard to break. I have been using the final every day on many computers, and it is as solid as ever, better looking and smoother than ever if that is possible. It is like the people who created MX created it just for the ease of the user in mind(especially the KDE, XFCE is good too). I no longer have any wishes for features, just make the software selection as large as possible for this amazing distro, there is none better than MX, even Mint is not close anymore.
Version: 23 Rating: 9 Date: 2023-08-31 Votes: 8
As a new comer to Linux,i find MX Linux (with KDE Plasma) a real joy to use.I find it easy to navigate,easy to understand;and the helpful guides that are supplied with this distro are really helpful (they have got me out of sticky situations more than once!)
But as with the majority of Linux distros,it does fall short on the gaming and emulation front,so just for that reason i have to use a windows o/s (i have a emulation setup on win 11,which would be near to impossible to achieve in any Linux distro).
So i will slowly, but surely be transferring my folders fron win to MX linux.
Well done MX Linux team,i never thought,that just a month ago Mx Linux would be my main O/S.
P.S i am a "normal" pc user;no advanced knowledge os o/s etc.
Version: 23 Rating: 10 Date: 2023-08-31 Votes: 12
I am in early stage of trying out MX but so far it runs way better then either Windows 10 or 11 on this very low end Mini PC with a Celeron N5095 and 8Gb RAM. I did try Debian but honestly I don't like Gnome UI at all and even Ubuntu leaves me asking many questions about its desktop environment. Cinnamon in Mint is good but it also seems rather heavy UI for this quad Celeron. I was looking for something that looks relatively modern and yet doesn't complain about the crappy hardware. Microsoft of course claims this hardware is fine with Windows 11 but it certainly does not feel like it using it. I definitely think its worth a test install even on older hardware because MX has done a good job creating a lower impact distro that actually does not look really ugly.
Version: 23 Rating: 10 Date: 2023-08-25 Votes: 11
MX takes Debian, which continues to be a poor solution for me personally, and turns it into something that could be my own daily driver. 3 other Bookworm derivatives that I looked at were flawed in important ways, given my limited capability to fix issues. All these try-outs were on a generic PC with no uncommon hardware, no raid, a standard FHD monitor, etc. MX23 XFCE now has a permanent spot on that PC.
MX XFCE is not my favorite distro. This XFCE/Debian OS works just like the developers designed it to work. But for those of us who have different biases to satisfy, there are better solutions. For me personally, the rating would be 9/10. Except how can I penalize a system that Just Works?
Plus, it's supported for almost 5 years.
This post is a simple opinion statement more than a review, but then it's more than an opinion. The fact is that the MX/antiX people have done something special. Their stuff works.
This review is based on the desire for a solid and stable daily use OS. One that will not need to be replaced and the need to reload all you additional applications often.
If you are looking for a solid and stable daily use OS, MX does the job.
It comes with a good set of applications to cover most needs.
It has a 5 year supported life.
When you needs require other applications, you can usually find it.
I have not had any issues with other applications that I have installed.
I do not have to spend time managing my daily use system.
Updates can be done when you have time or desire. Best of all they just work.
Version: 23 Rating: 9 Date: 2023-08-24 Votes: 4
It works really well on older hardware. I have an old core2duo powered ThinkPad and installed MXLinux on it. MXLinux with Fluxbox flies on this machine. The distro looks a bit barebones with Fluxbox on it, but it is very easy to find and install apps using apt anyways.
I used to run AntiX on this machine, but decided that ICEWM is a bit too "different" for my liking, so I got MXLinux instead. It is definitely not for everyone but for my use case, I'd say it's about as perfect as they come. I surf the web, take online seminars and to a bit of coding on this machine and it's been good and serves its purpose well.
Version: 23 Rating: 10 Date: 2023-08-20 Votes: 4
This amd64 distribution gave new life to all my Apple Macintosh computers from 2009 (Mac Mini and iMac) where poor Apple with macOS could no longer support with security updates. With this Debian based distribution, I can stay up-to-date with security updates and even manage my fans with Bash scripts that run "sensors" from lm-sensors and enumerate fans, get their maximum rated speeds, and adjust them accordingly to a percentage based on temperature. THAT is something that Apple still can not handle well, and requires third-party software to do properly. The nvidia drivers are even available and work for OpenGL applications, and the MX themes are clean and fast. Install some nerd-fonts, "bpytop", Visual Studio Code, and maybe a SATA SSD and I was good to go for another few years. MX is awesome for old Intel Macintosh that Apple no longer deems worthy of life.
Version: 23 Rating: 2 Date: 2023-08-19 Votes: 0
I have been a long user of MX Linux and was happy with the transition from other Debian distros. However, while the appearance is improved from the previous version, the issues have not stopped. I continue to have a problem with audio and video problem across various computers and hardware. Specifically, websites containing videos including, YouTube, news sites, etc. continue to experience a problem and refuse to play. Admitting, MX Linux, both KDE and XFCE, when they work, they are great. Unfortunately, I have experienced countless problems causing me along with my peers to have to seek other distros.
Version: 23 Rating: 10 Date: 2023-08-18 Votes: 3
The latest iteration of desktop perfection. I am using the xfce 64 bit version, a fast, easy install. Has all the software from Debian, with many upgraded versions available, or if not, someone on the forum will usually package it in a few days if it is possible. For the chess fan, they have stockfish 15, a 130 ELO point gain, the worlds strongest chess engine in the repo !
Debian stable, polished with great tools, like the UIP tool, user installed programs tool that lets you reinstall all your installed favorites with one easy click. Lots of tweaking tools, gives great flexibility to configure as you think best. Totally stable, current uptime 16 days.
Version: 23 Rating: 3 Date: 2023-08-18 Votes: 0
I have been using MX since version 18. The reason I used it until this day is that once you've configured your desktop to your liking, it'll just work. However, every time they release a major upgrade you're forced to reinstall. Some workarounds do exist, but it's cumbersome and not officially supported. This is such a bad user experience and I just dread having to spend half a day on making backups of files and configs etc. My old laptop is still on 18.3 for that reason, despite no update being released for that version anymore. It's just too much of a hassle and shouldn't be required. Other distros manage to deliver version upgrades, why not MX? I won't be updating my current PC (on MX 21.3) to version 23. I might as well install debian out of the box. I don't care about the whole anti-systemd nonsense anyway.
From 1995 I had various Linux systems, after Z80 computers could not prevail and x86 systems spread.
Professionally I have been using various MX-linux (now V21.3) on more than 20 computers for data processing since MX 19.
I mainly use the following programs:
Industry software based on Jawa
Double and Midnight Commander
LibreOffice Base and Calc
MySQL (MariaDB) on localhost
with your own scripts
Firefox and Chromium with Keepass
FreeFilesync and Rclone
Many clouds can be easily integrated.
Very quickly you can duplicate the system with dd or a snapshot for new devices.
Version: 23 Rating: 9 Date: 2023-08-18 Votes: 0
I am writing on 23 KDE Plasma right now and this is silky smooth. I was not happy about losing a few pieces of software, but I understand it has to do with the switch to pipewire so its OK. This Distro is solid as ever, with the bonus of being prettier. It does use more ram, but not a lot more. It seems more polished to me, but that may just be perception. In any event MX is going in the right direction no doubt. People who are new to linux won't need a lot of hand-holding after the machine is set up as the user requires. I have never had a problem with updates though on MX. Kudos to the devs.
Version: 23 Rating: 10 Date: 2023-08-17 Votes: 1
Per definition I hate upgrading Operating systems.
Kind of bad dream. It demands a a lote of work to a certain extend.
And also time most of us don't have. Some distro's also give al lot of problems, in cases (almost) unresolvable. Practice.
This install was the smoothest for me in a little more than a decade
(distributions of all sorts). This in spite of some hurdles which could be overcome and which were almost always caused by applications which behave
in cases a little different than might be expected.
MX is very responsive and fast and it almost never crashes. (It is Debian
and some Ubuntu). The OS stays out of the way, great!
I have seen only one crash and probably this was my fault.
I used until now MMX19 which was a hero for me and earlier MX alike.
MX23 is at least as perfect until now.
Surprise: many apps from the repo work, that was a problem in Ubuntu for years.
I don't quite understand the setting of user/root passwords,
system and/or terminal, but it's right what I have now; it works fine.
I have a user passwd and a root passwd for some actions.
But in the terminal it has to be the user passwd at the moment. (??)
Sound and all concerned is perfectly configured. Simple. Also recording and reproduction.
It was already very good in MX, but for me it always has been a difficult story in Linux-history.
Pulse-audio works fine now. Veromix, very handy, is not needed anymore.
Tiny:
Please move the pop-up open-app-butons away from panel one.
Or release that. It sucks a little. It looks they are locked when they appear; I can' t remove them.
But maybe I'm not aware of a simple solution?!
All in all I'm very relieved and very happy with MX23 until now.
Ten out of ten.
But your logo at boot could be smaller. :smile:
Version: 23 Rating: 8 Date: 2023-08-16 Votes: 1
I have tried MX Linux because Mepis was the first distro I could get to work- that was a long time ago. Much as I like MX, it did have one flaw for me. Unlike other distros, it won't install unless I delete all partitions first.
MX tools are excellent, though, and I think it's an excellent distro, especially if you have older hardware.
Personally, I prefer to have the taskbar at the top, but of course that's down to individual preference. I acquired that preference when using Linux Mint with Cairo Dock.
Version: 23 Rating: 10 Date: 2023-08-16 Votes: 6
Awesome....great OS..fast and easy and versatile as well..I use this version with AHS in my Imacs desktop and macbook pros and air laptops..also macminis .2010 - 2015 models with 4GB to 32 GB RAMs..It ran best on all of them,,,whether dual nvidia , intel, or amd gpus -No problem.. I acquired macserver model 2012 and at this time I am testing its character so far no hazzle. By the way, I can not boot on my 2017 macbook pro.It was installed but on restart after installing, no booting, only apple logo appears on retina screen. this model has amd gpu with 4GB video RAM. Its my hobby to acquire, buy dead apple macs repair and install Linux on them instead of costly apple OS...with cairo-dock panel of course.. .Thanx..
Version: 23 Rating: 10 Date: 2023-08-16 Votes: 1
I downloaded the MX 23 64 bit Fluxbox edition. I had no problems downloading, and like that when the USB boots it has an option to check its integrity. I tested it on a 2008 Dell M2400 laptop, and it had no issues booting up with default settings. I like that it it setup to automatically start and connect Wifi on a single click. I also see it monitors for available updates, and updated them without any issues. It was easy to find the set time and date option, and all I had to do was click a city in my timezone for it to get corrected. I tried out the package installer and it had no problems adding one of the listed packages, I also tried adding packages via the Synaptic GUI package manager, and that worked fine as well. After adding them and trying them, I remastered the USB to include ak=ll the updates and programs added. It took a few minutes to run but was successful as well.
I have to say it is the friendliest Fluxbox system I've seen, and running Fluxbox, it was very responsive, even running on an old Laptop from a slow USB port.
No bugs were found. I'd say its definitely worth taking for a test drive, and probably something newer users would be able to manage.
Version: 23 Rating: 1 Date: 2023-08-15 Votes: 0
I created my installation media on USB key for "MX Linux":
first boot:
I choose the installation with the NVIDIA driver knowing that my graphics card is too old and obsolete it does not work...
second boot:
I choose this time the installation with the free graphics driver after 5 minutes I think bingo! the installation finally starts ... but if "MX Linux" recognizes my ultra recent card in wifi 6 on the other hand "MX Linux" does not recognize my ultra recent card also in ethernet! while all other Linux systems even "Ubuntu" recognize and install my peripherals without wincing... bye bye "MX Linux" finished for me...
Version: 23 Rating: 10 Date: 2023-08-15 Votes: 6
Using MX Linux 23 KDE for last two weeks as my daily driver. In my work I use .net ecosystem (with Rider, Docker, etc).
Whole setup was much faster and easier then Fedora 37 (much less issues) and most of quirks was related to my actions.
One of things I need to mention for KDE is to always look on MX tools before KDE settings.
I tried to enable automatic login in KDE (using full disk encryption) and keyboard and it has issues.
Always check in MX tools first for a settings (possibly not an issue with XFCE edition).
Also described on mx forum how to get L2TM VPN working.
In general whole setup was only a bit more complex then Kubunutu, but output is so much better.
Plasma 5,27 is amazing and much better then version in Kubuntu LTS.
MX tools are great, no issue with drivers, Nvidia, etc.
Very useful defaults.
And one thing that is truly amazing is MX Snapshot. This tool can snapshot your whole system (apps and data) into live iso image (writeable) so backup system you can burn to Pendrive and work from. And you can install it later on any machine using standard installer. All settings, configs app and your data are preserved.
Without this tool would give distro 9/10 but absolutely love it.
Distro comes with AHS - so will get recent kernel quite fast, not many updates (Stable and slowly changing system) but apps are updated (no Firefox ESR nonsense). And yes Flatpack is enabled and ready to be used.
Version: 23 Rating: 9 Date: 2023-08-14 Votes: 1
This is my favorite release of any version of Linux I have used.
What I like most is the ease in installation/configuration of my setup onto a new computer. As in the previous release of MXLinux, you can take a snapshot of your system, with or without user accounts, and make a bootable USB flash drive to reinstall if things get messed-up or a fresh install on another system. An added feature is you can create a list of applications the user has added beyond the original distribution applications. This list allows you to do an original distribution install, then load the list of programs from an installation, then pick and choose which of those applications you wish to install on this new system. Sometimes, the install of an application can't be done from this list, but the application tells you which was the problem so you can install from Synaptic or the Package Installer.
In early releases MXLinux 21, when a new user was added using the User Manager, the UID was put into the system UID range of under 1000. If you have been avoiding using MXLinux because of that little bug, that was corrected in later releases of MXLinux 21 and also works correctly is release 23.
MXLinux makes it easy to setup Samba shares - sort of. To share a directory, create the user in User Manager so they have an account on the local MXLinux machine 'serving' the share, then add the user/password in the Samba Config tool. You then create the share while in the Samba Config tool and assign the permissions. I was not able to access any of the shares without modifying the '/etc/samba/smb.conf' file first by (as sudo):
cd /etc/samba
cp smb.conf smb.conf.orig
testparm > smb.conf.new
featherpad smb.conf
and adding the following lines to the Global section (substitute myadmin with your normal login):
force user = myadmin
force group = myadmin
create mask = 0770
directory mask = 0770
and save the file. Ensure that the directories shared have the proper owner:group ownership. Note that MXLinux now uses the syntax (substitute your proper user:group):
chown myadmin:myadmin /my/directory/path/filename
where a ':' is used instead of '.'.
However, the above steps are correct, but you first have to get through the firewall. I had to use the ‘gufw’ utility to apply the ‘Samba’ preconfigured rules to access the shares. That is something that should have been automatically configured during setup if the ‘Samba’ sharing was selected during the initial install.
The one thing I don't like is the large number of applications in the start menu. However, if you can remember at least part of the name of a program (perhaps you don't use it very often), you can start typing it in the menu search box and it is likely to show-up.
I do use VPNs regularly to do remote administration of networks. As long as you have loaded the programs to support those VPNs, setup is easy and connections reliable. I have used the old PPTP, OpenVPN and L2TP.
Version: 23 Rating: 9 Date: 2023-08-13 Votes: 1
I moved over to MX Linux (KDE) From the ever increasingly buggy Kubuntu after some research, Seeing that it was a collab between AnitX and the Former Mepis Linux distro Devs I decided to take the plunge, and I have to say, I am quite impressed. I used to run Mepis back in the day and it was nice to see that they were still alive and kicking.. Basing it on Debian assures a nice stable foundation to build upon and having access to AntiX tools and utilities integrated into the distro gives users the ability to leverage some very useful tools to keep your system running excellent and creating a path to easily backup your system without too much difficulty. Installation is relatively problem free with a link to start the install from the Live desktop, KDE is implemented cleanly with minimal modifications (just the way I like) that leaves you with a simple, attractive desktop after install. I ran version 21.3 for a few months before moving over the version 23 with very little issues. Both, versions have been rock solid and I am quite happy with the upgrade, especially with the addition of Pipewire in 23.x Finally, a stable sound server that connects to BT devices properly in Linux. overall, A well developed, stable distro that is worth checking out.
Version: 23 Rating: 9 Date: 2023-08-13 Votes: 1
I have spent a week of hard work with the new MX, and it is impressive to say the least. Solid stable and secure as MX has always been. I have lost a few applications(which have been replaced) but it remains "top of the list" by a significant margin. I am in the process of putting this new MX on all computers, but the good news is MX installs very quickly so it will not take long. MX is using a bit more memory, but it is also improving in responsiveness, so that is a big win. Browsers just use a ton of memory these days, and that won't change.
Solid 10
Checks all the boxes of a professional distro and more.
I have tried many distros Fedora, Arch, Manjaro, Ubuntu, Alpine
but MX takes the cake!
MX is the most "batteries included" and "just works" distro, I tried it loved it, now its my goto linux distro for any desktop.
I was first impressed by the dual init system, I am not a systemd fan.
Then the installer, its better than any other and still supports main features like FDE.
I tried fedora for a few years and it was unstable, some updates would result in an unusable system.
The default theme and XFCE config is not my favorite, in fact it might actually be my least favorite, but
the thing is with XFCE you can do SO MUCH customizing from GUIs, I can get the Desktop configured how I like in just a couple minutes.
The MX Tools, Excellent, I use the MX Package installer over synaptic or gdebi because it actually uses my theme.
You can also go into the "MX Boot Options" and change the GRUB theme as well as the bootup splash screen which is a cool tool that other distros should have.
Stability, amazingly even with the dual init system, this is one of the most stable distros, I don't think I have had a single issue and so far everything is fairly foolproof.
OVERALL Give MX Linux a chance, dont be put off by the theme or layout as that can be changed and most do change it, but the underlying system is very well made and I haven't used anything for desktop linux since.
Version: 23 Rating: 10 Date: 2023-08-11 Votes: 8
MXLinux 21 was amazing, but MXLinux 23 is even better. MX tools are very useful and well designed. I use XFCE and it just uses 700MB, so it works perfectly on both my modern PC with AHS version and on my older PC with just 4GB of RAM. I'm amazed to see that the old PC doesn't even fill the 4GB of RAM with some tabs open in two different browsers and Libreoffice.
MXLinux is now definitely my favorite OS of all time even better than Mint. When I was installing MX23, my daughter who recently had to use windows told me : "Linux is good but it's too easy". She was right. Installing and using MX is way easier and faster than any other OS that I know.
Version: 23 Rating: 10 Date: 2023-08-11 Votes: 3
I installed this system on my laptop and it's all functional, the interface isn't the prettiest but it's good enough, the software updates are faster than debian, the system runs very stable and it's perfectly adequate for an office system. It provides a very detailed manual and a dedicated set of MX tools that are more than enough to deal with day to day problems. My favorite is snapshot system backup tool, you can make an iso file of the current system state, if the system is unrecoverable, you can burn this iso file to a USB flash drive or CD-ROM and other media, and then directly use it to boot the system, and then want to install a new system like installing it again, so that the system can be restored to the previous state of integrity, which is very important for the restoration of the This is very useful for recovering the entire system.
Version: 23 Rating: 10 Date: 2023-08-10 Votes: 7
I've been anxiously awaiting the release of MX-23 KDE and I can honestly say it's every bit as nice as I hoped it would be. It's reasonably fast, has lots of applications installed, is rock stable in use, has a wonderfully instructive 197 page user manual with tons of links and many instructive videos, has a forum with knowledgeable users and developers, has a Debian repository with over 64,000 applications, has access to flatpaks, has a KDE desktop that can be customized to the nth degree and, best of all, has MX Tools where all sorts of useful things can be accessed from. These tools are well-designed and easy to use. Really nice!
Is this distribution perfect? Of course not, there is always something wrong with every distribution. This one is no different. My big complaint is that it's based on Debian and that there won't be the updates that are available in other distributions and desktops. Sadly, that's just the Debian way. The KDE Plasma version of the release is 5.27.5, and it will not change until the next major release of Debian. That could be years from now. KDE Plasma is already up to 5.27.7. It sure would be nice if MX-23 KDE was a rolling release, but if that was the case it probably wouldn't be as stable as it is. It's six of one and half a dozen of another.
Over the years I've tried a whole slew of KDE distributions and this one is pretty darn nice in comparison to others. A number of applications that don't work or are prone to problems in other distros magically seem to work in this one. You have to love that. Even though the distro may not update as fast as others it's still one that's worthy of a look. I heartily recommend it.
Version: 23 Rating: 10 Date: 2023-08-09 Votes: 0
After 20+ years of distro hopping and only finally settling on a handful which unfortunately got discontinued (Libranet, Conectiva, Blag)
I eventually came to MX Linux (around version 19) and have been using it as my daily driver on my main PC ever since.
I also decided many years ago that I prefer the lighter desktops such as XFCE and Mate, so I'm talking about the 'flagship' XFCE version here.
So what's new in version 23? Thankfully not much visually, unlike a lot of distros which feel the need to revamp the look and feel with every new version, this has minimal changes with a slightly deeper taskbar the only one I noticed immediately - and changed back to the normal size.
And speaking of taskbars, the default side position, while quickly fixed with MX Tweak, is my only minor gripe. Where first impressions count, this is an odd default and I doubt if more than a few percent actually leave or prefer it that way. The Windows style bottom taskbar or the top MAC style taskbar are surely the most common for the vast majority of users.
Minor nitpicking aside, this is the same reliable MX Linux and took 5 minutes to install - less than two minutes to make the bootable USB stick and just over 3 minutes to install on my 9th generation i3 with M.2 SSD PC. Read it and weep Windows people!
Uses a bit more RAM than the previous version (currently 1.5 GB with Chrome running) so I wouldn't recommend trying to run this on less than 4 GB of RAM.
Version: 23 Rating: 10 Date: 2023-08-08 Votes: 1
I have been using this distro for many years in one form or another from the Mepis days to MX23. I have nothing but admiration for the dedication of the dev's as this has always been one of my favourite distro's. The number of useful MX tools and the general feel is great.The only thing that I have to change on installing MX is the panel,which I prefer at the bottom but that is just my preference and no reflection on the distro itself.Rock solid,smooth and with a quick easy installer installer and package set-up is better than most too.
Version: 23 Rating: 1 Date: 2023-08-08 Votes: 0
MX is in my opinion just a bad rendition of Debian.
Reminds me of openSUSE with its bundled garbage apps to "make things easier". If you have to include your own distribution tools, then something is wrong.
No LXQt desktop environment. XFCE is no longer lightweight and struggles with app theme consistency.
It's heavily cluttered with applications and resource intensive. Maybe it works for others but it won't be my distro and the one I will advise to others. I don't buy into this view of things and philosophy. The result is a really over bloated, ancient software, and heavy ergonomy and it will be difficult for beginners to modify this into their own way of thinking.
Version: 23 Rating: 9 Date: 2023-08-08 Votes: 1
MX is number one in stability, ease of use , ruggedness, intuitive layout(KDE plasma)Speed(fluxbox). Only Mint is fairly close in usability, but MX has tools that cannot be matched. The software selection is great, there are really no glaring weaknesses in this distro. With every new version, it just gets that much more user oriented and more polished. I was lucky to have found MX and Mint early on when I first started using Linux or I might have given up on Linux completely. Thanks to the devs for all that they do to make MX possible, the world is better off for it.
Version: 23 Rating: 10 Date: 2023-08-07 Votes: 2
I have been Windows user for all my life (started with XP). I have used Win 7 for several years and due to lack of software support I was forced to switch to Windows 10, but after being fed up with Win 10 for consuming so much RAM and CPU (let alone Win 11) I decided to look for some lightweight and easy to use alternatives to be able to do basic things just like I was doing in Windows.
I started my Linux journey with Linux Mint (initially Cinnamon, later XFCE), but after buying a new SSD I decided to try something different and give MX a chance and I don't regret that decision. I am completely happy and satisfied. In my opinion, after spending time with both distros, I have to say that there is no better or worse choice between Mint and MX, both of them are incredible.
Pros:
- Easy and quick installation, it took ~10 minutes to install without any problems, I feel like the installation of MX 23 was faster than 21.3, but that's just my experience
- Lightweight
- Easy to use (the distro also contains helpful tools such as manual, FAQ, and MX Tour)
- Ready to use just after the installation, no additional drivers or extra configurations needed
- Stable (no freezes or update problems, everything works flawless and fast)
- Old hardware support. My 15+ years scanner works just after plugging in to PC, no drivers required. Win 10 doesn't recognise it and the drivers refuse to install because they are made for older Windows versions
Cons:
- Haven't found them so far
If you are a beginner and you want to step into the Linux world in an easy way, then MX is a great choice worth considering.
Thank you MX Team for creating, developing MX Linux & making older computers usable again.
Version: 23 Rating: 9 Date: 2023-08-06 Votes: 0
I have hopped when I left windows 7 years ago in my pursuit to find the best distro for me. I tried MX Linux and was immediately taken by its uniqueness.
These are my points to consider:
- Install intuitive & simple. Very fast as well, up and running in no time.
- Software was very stable(Debian base)Solid stable and hard to break.
- It was very responsive. MX actually runs rings around most other distros I have tried. Side by side the differences are very noticeable.
- found the forum helpful, especially in comparison to other linux forums. Correcting issues was made easy by MX intuitiveness.
- Long term reliability and performance has been terrific to this very day. This is why MX is the number 1 distro.
I am sticking with MX, it has served me well as a reliable partner and tool - can't argue with success, speed, stability and performance.
Version: 23 Rating: 4 Date: 2023-08-05 Votes: 0
I have been a long user of MX Linux and was happy with the transition from other Debian distros. However, while the appearance is improved from the previous version, the issues have not stopped. I continue to have a problem with audio and video problem across various computers and hardware. Specifically, websites containing videos including, YouTube, news sites, etc. continue to experience a problem and refuse to play. Admitting, MX Linux, both KDE and XFCE, when they work, they are great. Unfortunately, I have experienced countless problems causing me along with my peers to have to seek other distros.
Version: 23 Rating: 10 Date: 2023-08-05 Votes: 1
Very happy with this new release of MX linux, I did struggle with a few things with the RC series, however, once I installed 23 and did all the usual installs and deletions I normally do to make it mind (without any hassles I may add) I find that MX does what it does best.. runs without a hickup and gets out of the way so I can just do what I want to use my system to do. Audio and Video streaming, playback Youtube et al work flaulessly for me, Using Brave everything works. My favorite Online game was troublefree to install and launched immediately and is very playable running around an average 200fps, what more can you ask for :) definitely a "hit out of the park" again.
Version: 23 Rating: 9 Date: 2023-08-05 Votes: 0
MX keeps on keeping the user first, I came to Linux from windows 7 years ago, so I am not an expert by any means. I have found a home with MX(specifically KDE plasma) and it just bails me out of problems, because it is intuitive so you can actually figure out how to do tasks and solve problems. I was installing a secondary 8 TB drive and at first it did not want to copy files to it. I looked in the MX tweak menu and sure enough it allowed non root users access to drives, and I was good to go. MX has made my Linux journey very understandable and gives me the ability to cope. The superior security, speed, relative to windows has really made my life more productive. Thank you to all devs of all distros, especially MX.
Version: 23 Rating: 9 Date: 2023-08-04 Votes: 1
I'm reviewing this because I really appreciate the GNU/Linux kernel, Debian, and MX-Linux developers.
I've been exploring variation of BSD-Unix and all the flavors of Linux I can find for over a decade and my two favorites are MX-Linux and Manjaro. There reasons for this are:1) I like things to just work, 2) I'm lazy, but 3) I like to tinker until it's personally perfect.
MX-Linux -and more specifically, Debian- have a history of making very smart choices. I basically have faith they're not likely to break anything important. That's been my experience.
The feature I'm most dependent upon in MX-Linux, and the reason I would never consider leaving them, is the Snapshot tool. When I've installed and removed software to my liking, I can take a snapshot of the system and create a Live-USB ISO for that system- with or without my userspace/personal files. I have several computers and I like them to work exactly the same as much as possible. MX-Linux's Snapshot tool has made my life so much easier that I'm spoiled to stay with it.
I thought I'd break free from systemd when I switched to MX-Linux, but systemd it such as widely accepted disease that it has spread too much for me to easily avoid it.
Most of my distro-hopping was a want to find a greener pastures with few bugs and steaming piles... I'm happy with XFCE on MX-Linux, but I don't know what I'll do with Gnome GTK gets any less sane in that most predictable future.
Version: 23 Rating: 2 Date: 2023-08-04 Votes: 0
I was caught up in the hype, and was expecting better than Debian but NO. Easy and nice installer, but after that it was downhill.I was expecting fast but no it was pretty ordinary, "bookworm" is faster. It does have a large collection of programs, once you set it up correctly GUI(Debian is all set to go out of the box). I learned a valuable lesson about hype, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. It is not bad, it just does not rise to the level of the hype that had been surrounding it.
Version: 23 Rating: 10 Date: 2023-08-03 Votes: 6
I have been using MX from version 19 and have installed latest versions after release.
I found MX 23 even better than previous versions.
It was very simple and very quick to install, it seems it took less than 5 minutes !
OS is fast and responsive, better than 21 version.
Unwanted software are very limited, has only commonly used applications and hence had to remove only few this time.
Post installation I got OS setup to my needs and taste in less than 20 minutes.
Since it is based on Debian and uses SysV init by default, and has soem very useful MX tools, it is suitable to even beginiers and also to experienced users (I have been using only Linux OS from last 17 years). It does not come in the way and allow users to just get the work done.
Another benefits of being based on long term stable Debian base is comparativily lesser updates than Ubuntu based OS which goes through more frequent updates.
It is stable, simple, responsive and user friendly.
Version: 23 Rating: 9 Date: 2023-08-03 Votes: 1
Been using MX since version 19, upgrading to 21 and now 23 as well. So far MX has been Rock Solid, except for one glitch in 21: a 2nd DE is not worth the trouble for my use case. In any case, MX stability is especially solid compared to Ubuntu-based distros I had installed in the past. But this probably is the case for all Debian-based distros as well, I use LMDE too in other machine.
In-place upgrade in MX is on my wish list -Mint and Zorin have implemented this-, but so far upgrade has been smooth with /home partition in another drive.
Installation is fast, no hiccup. However, MX ISOs (I tried 21 and 23) do not work if run from Ventoy. Direct write to spare USB drive is (currently) a necessity.
Version: 23 Rating: 9 Date: 2023-08-02 Votes: 0
I was very pleased with 21 and upgraded to 23 as soon as it was available in final form.
Works well and fast, main reason to upgrade is to keep up with security fixes.
The transfer of old information is facilitated by the mx-tools utility that can generate a list of user installed packages. That and some discipline in user data storage location makes upgrade fairly easy.
Good experience all around, zero glitches.Also, most pupular packages that are not installed by default are available in the repositories, very quick to reinstall with no issues, just keep your customized config files around at need.
I have tried many distros but this is one that I think will be my favorite for a long time.
Regarding the need for reinstallation, this is very widespread now so we cannot realistically hold it against the distro. Pretty every distro is shortening or weakening long time support, so, fact there is little choice.
I use the KDE flavor which is really, really nice. If it full featured but yet still runs fast and is very sharp. With the default speed you get with MX, you do not need a lighter desktop to make do.
I really recommend it.
The forum content could be improved but that should come naturally given enough usage it should fill out like those of older popular distros.
Laurent
Version: 23 Rating: 4 Date: 2023-08-01 Votes: 0
I have been using MX since version 18. The reason I use it until this day is that once you've configured your desktop to your liking, it'll just work and remain rock solid. I haven't experienced any hiccup whatsoever. However, every time they release a major upgrade you're forced to reinstall. Some workarounds do exist, but it's cumbersome and not officially supported. This is such a bad user experience and I just dread having to spend half a day on making backups of files and configs etc. My old laptop is still on 18.3 for that reason, despite no update being released for that version anymore. It's just too much of a hassle and shouldn't be required. Other distros manage to deliver version upgrades, why not MX? I won't be updating my current PC (on MX21.3) to version 23. I might as well install debian out of the box. I don't care about the whole antisystemd nonsense anyway.
Version: 23 Rating: 10 Date: 2023-08-01 Votes: 11
By far the easiest Linux system I have ever used. Easy to install, easy to update, easy to upgrade. And zero issues across different versions including the latest, 23. I have computers with all three Major OS at home, but find myself using the MX Linux laptop most often because it has the least amount of hassle allowing me to do what I want with minimum interruptions. It has allowed me to keep many an older computer longer than the Windows and even Mac OS worlds would let me by changing the OS to MX Linux and making it productive again without being overly complicated to do so.
I Loved MX Linux 18.3 until they cooked the MX Package installer ect.. with requirements not available in Stretch, and mysteriously cut access to the test repository, I am still fuming. Just put caps "No Support, on your own as of Date X - Rather than hide your boo-boos. AND LEAVE MX special packages at the last compatible version. Something like this never happened in previous versions!
Some of us are trapped by older version programs that get de-featured by newer offerings.
I tried MX19.3 live, found the last compatible software versions in external repositories, tested then installed. Installation odd changes, but being a long time user I knew what I was looking for.
All working just fine over the last four months, even on my weakest machine (Aspire One D255 with only 2GB RAM).. I even have a 6.1 kernel installed (2026 supported!!!!!) on the little netbook.
On my machines I multi boot various operating systems, each has it's own partition ( primary or extended).
TWO VERY IMPORTANT features of MXLinux that have been consistent over quite a few versions:
1. Pinned in synaptic.
You can lock down a program, so it can't be accidentally upgraded. Sometimes this is necessary.
2. Snapshots.
You can create an ISO of your installation. Either with home directory included or not. All the programs, tweaks, preferences, customization's you made will be there. It is easy and painless to use.
You can use this iso to install on other machines and skip reinventing the wheel.
You could use it as a crawl back, if they break things as they did when MX18 was reaching EOL Wish I had done more regularly, and race to lock down the MX Package manager etc..
While I have loved MXlinux for many years I am wary now. Sure I can install hungrier and newer versions in additional partitions, but older versions are dedicated to specific tasks whether or not they are EOF and they should not be shredder-ed into hamburger. If you boo boo you roll back from your mistake, PUT CAPS you are now on you own after fixing, not tip toe away. It's a bad precedent and potentially arrogant.
To all MX19ers out there who have special needs or are not yet satisfied with MX21 or MX23, SNAPSHOT before June 2024. Just in case....
Lifespans for Debian releases and Linux kernels seen to be decreasing, perhaps due to manpower issues or accelerating technological change . This affects the MXLinux team as well, being #1 on Distrowatch has it's challenges., but does not excuse un-elegant retirement of EOL versions.
My MXLinux future will be more cautious, careful and wary. There is much I like about this Distro and Debian in general. For the average user, to rehabilitate older machines, MXLinux is an Excellent choice.
Version: 23 Rating: 9 Date: 2023-07-31 Votes: 2
Still the king of the linux mountain after all these years, linux is the best, and MX leads the way, and a shout out to Mint as well. Getting more using focused as this distro is continually updated and refined. Just try it and it will convince users all on its own. MX does beginner duty, rescue duty, business duty, dependable and rock solid with as large a software selection as any in the Linux world. I can now say, through running in senior homes, MX just gets the job done, and it wont break easily.
Love it. Reiterating all others, I have also tried many other distros over the last few years out of curiosity, but always return directly to MX Linux. It always "just works", and I've never had an issue I couldn't resolve fairly easily..this coming from a novice Linux user.
MX23's updates are a treat..especially for me is Smb4k's new format. This makes it way easier to set up shares and is far more self explanatory with a friendlier GUI. Also a nice feature is that when in the terminal, asterisks show that you actually typed your password instead of dead air. Should also mention..no glitches at all with peripherals, printers or Bluetooth items..again, everything just works.
All in all, after a clean install, and all back to my liking..very happy with the new MX23-RC1 rollout. Oh..and the new installer is awesome..twice as fast as the previous.
Thanks to all involved!
Version: 21.3 Rating: 9 Date: 2023-07-27 Votes: 7
The KDE version. Almost perfect. Almost. The exception is the way it handles Bluetooth. The headphones keep on disconnecting, and almost every day the Bluetooth manager cannot find the adapter. And that's the biggest pain. From what I've gathered, the KDE is notorious for that. I had that problem, a year ago, then I solved it. It came back after reinstallation, and now the solution isn't working. Apart from that, the distro works good, and the extra tools come, truly, handy. I wish the KDE team would do something about the Bluetooth glitch.
I previously tested and used all the Buntus, Mint, Manjaro, Fedora, Debian, Sparky, PCLinuxOS, Rocky, CentOS, Spiral, and others before I settled on MX-Linux in 2020. Both MX Linux 17/18 performed very well and deserve a 10 rating. My wife is using Ver. 21.3 on her Thinkpad T450 laptop and has encountered a few problems.
I have MX 21.3 on another partition on my Thinkpad T490 and haven't been completely satisfied with it. Ver. 21.3 deserves an 8/9 rating. MX-23 even less than that, even though it hasn't been released yet. I have tested it and it has inherited bugs from Debian 12 which no one seems to want to fix (suspend and audio playback problems).
I decided to downgrade and move back to MX 19.4 even though support will end in June 2024. It runs as perfectly as MX 17/18 and deserves a 10 rating. All three (17/18/19) have received good testing kudos by online Linux reviewers.
The state of affairs with the Linux desktop continues to sadden me, especially considering what Red Hat/IBM, Microsoft, Canonical/Ubuntu and OpenSUSE have been doing lately. Instead of consistent improvement, I have like others been seeing regressions in the past several years all across the Linux distro landscape. Of course there are exceptions. MX Linux 19.4 is one of them!
Even this beta is good, I can't wait for the final. The new features are great, my favorite is the swap-files. I feel that this distro is one I would make myself if I had the ability. This distro is quick and yet tough to break and intuitive especially with KDE plasma. New users should not have many problems because all necessary functions are gui so people can relate and understand what is happening. Just can't say enough good things about this distro. Is it perfect no, but it is as good as you can get(even commercially).
I have been distro hopping for several years in my quest to find the distro best suited for me. I tried MX Linux and did not like it at all.
These are my reasons for my review:
- Install not intuitive or simple. I guess this is subjective but I just didn't like it or think it was simple.
- Software was buggy and I encountered several very annoying problems after install. Just should not happen.
- It did not feel responsive or solid. I have been using Manjaro cinnamon for several years and it actually runs rings around MX Linux in almost every regard. Side by side the differences are very noticeable.
- Did not find the forum helpful, especially in comparison to other linux forums. Correcting issues was time consuming.
- Long term reliability and performance was spotty at best. Not a good thing for a number 1 distro.
So my curiosity has been satisfied. I am sticking with Manjaro, it has served me well as a reliable partner and tool - can't argue with success, speed, stability and performance.
Consider number #1 for reason. All as mention per Good point and Pros as all feature works well. Solid hardware, less issues as any distro-set onto baremetal/SSD MX is well if not "perfect" fit. As Image to USB-Live on Flash media. Can be run as a Live state with updates supporting live state of user operation. Also installed full onto a 2nd USB-Flash media and run in Place of Baremetal/SSD media. Few offer this level of Diversity. Snapshot tools, use of ZSTD compression adopts full image of current user level state. Copies out .ISO with all user accounts and or without user accounts as if it was a customized installer creating fresh.iso as customized by user. Again few offer such. Updates are as any common, if not addressed immediately of issue. Support is 100 percent.
Pros: Full featured all integral Distro. As one shared found in the panorama of distro sel yet Retains Number One Position.
Other snapshot feature, install customized backup.iso image to VBox guest providing Full salt tester of ones own base OS.
way to easy to create perfect backup simple with confidence.
Con: As some all do, odd hiccup via sound in new kernel vbox updates, audio/keyboard connectivity appear to drop after a screen timeout. VBox reqs reboot to fix audio, keyboard issue easy fix tapping MS key couple time. Similar on Base where by keyboard drop after screen timeout has also shown fix as clicking on Keyboard Icon top right of hold screen open/close this only and keyboard is reconnected. easy quick fix and is also fixed as patching progress is in works.
my choice of prime base, Provides good user ride. Only feature untested is Raid by my own laptop and few older tower units also running 21.3. Simply a top end featured Distro. Code base on RC2 also fixed, extended ascii now displays correct.
I have been using MX for about 2 years, after using or trying many other distros (Ubuntu, Xubuntu, Mint, etc.) since about 15 years. Easy to write on live usb thumb with integration of all packages that I regularly, which can be used for restoration, if needed (not so far), or installing on other computers. Excellent for self-admin user. I run xfce, because it is fairly light and that I can personalize the desktop to what I want. I have not tried KDE with MX, but I use many KDE packages that I like (gwenview, dolphin, konqueror, etc.). Good and regular updates. Excellent distro.
if you upgrade to new release all mx tools will stop working or give you error if you use them, you need a clean install if you want everything to work properly, which is not all people want to do.
and they change too many apps in the new release, you have to install them manually, and remove previous alternative manually too, this is not a problem, you will do it once.
it is a good beginner distribution, but for advanced people I don't think they will like to use it.
if the mx tools will work after manual upgrade i will back to use it.
Version: 21.3 Rating: 9 Date: 2023-07-20 Votes: 3
A sensible, balanced, manageable and very useful distribution.
Excellent and well thought out tools and solutions that facilitate certain operations that are always critical for an average user.
Its appearance is not focused on the beautiful, but on the practical. Which I also think is a point in its favor.
Due to personal preferences, the KDE version seems to me to be one of the most productive in the panorama of linux distros.
----
Una distribución sensata, equilibrada, manejable y muy útil.
Excelentes y bien pensadas herramientas y soluciones que facilitan ciertas operaciones siempre críticas para un usuario medio.
Su aspecto no se centra en lo bonito, sino en lo práctico. Lo cual creo también un punto a su favor.
Por preferencias personales, la versión KDE me parece de lo más productivo del panorama de distribuciones linux.
This is my favorite linux so far. I have tried Arch, Manjaro, Debian, Mint, Pop OS, Unbuntu, Fedora and Solus. Arch and Manjaro just break too often. Manjaro isn't near as often as Arch but it has issues it feels very janky to use at times at least to me. Mint and Pop OS I tried a few years ago and they are probably better now from what I heard. Unbuntu seems to be kinda of bad now. Solus was abandoned but they might be coming back I don't know it was good for a short time. Debian I just tried a few days ago for the first time and I had several errors just trying to install steam and update packages. Fedora sigh I'm kinda of stuck with for now. So MX linux has been very stable and just seems to work. Its easy to install packages. I personally use KDE desktop and I no issues with the installer and I think the installer worked better than any of the other distros I tried, MX isn't perfect but I'm rating it a 10 because its the best one I have tried.
Version: 21.3 Rating: 4 Date: 2023-07-19 Votes: 0
Nice live desktop, but the installation failed twice; startup got stuck on initramfs, and I discovered that at least one file was empty, that being fstab, so I gave in; gave a rating of four just for the desktop, it would jave been lower.
Nice live desktop, but the installation failed twice; startup got stuck on initramfs, and I discovered that at least one file was empty, that being fstab, so I gave in; gave a rating of four just for the desktop, it would jave been lower.
Nice live desktop, but the installation failed twice; startup got stuck on initramfs, and I discovered that at least one file was empty, that being fstab, so I gave in; gave a rating of four just for the desktop, it would jave been lower.
Entered above three times to make up required characters.
Mx linux is a really good distro! All programs started, there were no freezes. It's based on Debian and that's good because there are most programs for it. It is easy to manage and set up, and is user-friendly.
It supports many languages and keyboard layouts.
This linux, and linux in general, is much more supported than bsd systems. Errors occurred on Arch and Suse systems, but not on mx. Such as. install jdownloader.
The only downside was that it copies data to the usb memstick quite slowly. I don't know why because it didn't happen in other systems.
Version: 21.3 Rating: 9 Date: 2023-07-16 Votes: 3
I'm glad I tried out MXLinux with Xfce on x64, I'm still using it for over 2 years now. I was wondering why it was always on the top of the chart of user interest. After installing and using it for a while I see now that it is very easy to like, for beginners as well as for advanced. I never had an issue of any kind on my laptop, I installed the vesion for newer hardware. I just works all the time very reliable. I'm on a dual boot laptop with win11 x64 but I rearly boot windows recently, I may even delete it soon. I think I'll stick to MXLinux for some more years at least.
I became a distro hopper since the Windows 7 end of support, I have tried many flavours, the fastest I found to boot and install were AntiX and now this MX Linux.
I'm surprised how MX Linux is the fastest compared to Mint, Lubuntu and everything I tried on this machine. The installation process took less than 5 minutes on a mechanical HDD. Installation is so easy.
Looks much better in terms of visuals, the black and minimalist desktop gives a professional look to it, I am a fan of the Xfce style, it looks different here than others, I enjoy the conky Hour and CPU usage HDD and RAM panel info widget.
The best out-of-box experience I had, I see people complaining how bloated MXLinux is, I didn't find it to be that bloated, it has a good amount of software compared to other distros but it is actually a good thing for me.
Boot time is faster on this machine..
CONS
I didn't find any major negative aspect yet besides the resolution problem but this problem occurs with Linux in general , every time I install any Linux distribution I have to manually set my monitor using xrandr, which is kind of annoying.
Version MX-23_KDE_RC1_x64. Downloaded the (RC1) iso file, then using a custom grub menuentry to boot it toram. Now issues whatsoever in firing up this distro. I've been using MX, antiX for many years, always been very satisfied, it is the perfect mix of apps for my requirements.
Would give it a 10 if mariadb-server would run. Wanted to test Kmail but it cannot be configured if akonadi is not running cuz it (akonadi) wants a working mariadb-server. However a quick workaround is to configure akonadi (in akonadiseriverrc file) to use sqlite3 in place of mariadb aka mysql in [GENERAL] section for a driver. Hopefully this bug will be fixed in the final release.
I've been using mx-linux xfce x64 for 3 years on an old hp, a perfect system thanks to the absence of the damn systemd and the utilities written by the developers
kde version is quite good, but it duplicates the utilities of kde developers and mx-linux developers
***
3 роки користуюся mx-linux xfce x64 на старенькому hp, ідеальна система завдяки відсутності проклятого systemd та утилітам, які написали розробники. kde версія доволі непогана, але в ній дублюються утиліти він розробників kde та розробників mx-linux
This is about the newest RC_1. The beta 1 & 2 worked really good (10) and I was looking forward to the upcoming RC_1 but I downloaded it three times and each time it loads, it cheks but soon after I get the "green screen" and can see nothing. Again I made the USB on an MX Beta 2 and it will not work for me. Disappointed actually. I do not want to give it any real rating as I can't get to it. MX has always been a good distro and has made me happy in the past and I was wanting to get back on it. But not working for me as of yet.
Actually this is a review for MX-23 KDE RC1, not the beta 2 version. It just came out. The wait for this version was painful but it's actually here. If the developers don't find any release-stopping bugs the RC candidate should soon become the final release. I downloaded and installed it yesterday. Through the night I insalled applications and tweaked the KDE Plasma desktop to my liking. It's now what I envisioned it would be, and more. Is it the latest Plasma version (5.27.6)? No, it's 5.27.5. That's no big deal for me but users should know that being a Debian based disro this MX-23 KDE version will not update for a long time. Even though the desktop won't update quickly you can keep applications current using the MX test Repo and Flatpacks. I've done this in the past and it's proved to be quite effective. There are so many things to like about any MX release but I think the star of the show are the MX Tools. What's in it? Well, there are Nvidia and codec installers, a Live USB maker, a boot repairer, a tool to format USB, a package installer, a disk manager and the star of stars, Snapshots. There are also many more tools than these. While I haven't had MX-23 RC1 KDE on my machine very long it nevertheless is running smooth as silk with no problems. I've been looking for that "special" KDE distro for some time and I think I may have found it. This distro is not for Linux user who want one that's bare-bones. MX-23 KDE is called a midweight distro for good reason. It has quite a number of applications included. With the addition of a few more I will have it punching way above it's weight class and ready to take the belt.
MX just stays solid and dependable, like Debian with extra magic added on. This MX distro is my go-to for everyday, for emergency use, for elderly who have migrated from windows and want dependability and security. I have installed MX on many computers, and I don't get many calls for service, that's how good this distro is. If I had one minor complaint it would be that MX could be more lightweight. I would think that only if KDE Plasma could be made modular this could happen. Nevertheless, MX is the best distro out there, only Mint KDE was on par with it. This distro is so well thought out, that people can actually figure it out without too much help(KDE Plasma version). I am moving my extended family away from windows, and into MX Linux, and they are thrilled. Kudos to the Devs, you are the best.
i gave 9, 'cause i believe that 10 is divine, that is far away from contemporary (western?) humans.
But for me, the killer feature of mx - aside the condition, that it must be a direct debian dist derivate - is the snapshot feature.
The great advantages of the iso snapshot feature are:
1) they can be mounted as it were block devices everywhere (except win i guess)
2) you can boot the clone from USB/CD/DVD on any hardware where the BIOS allows this (almost all). I suggest ventoy vers. >= 1.0.93 as multiboot-device-creator
3) you can reinstall the original os/data everywhere directly from the booted clone (minstall command)
4) this can be used as a fantastic simple backup system. A remote server wakes the mx-desktop-system up, let make an iso snapshot locally, copy (not move) to a remote server (Nas or so). Voilà, perfect and simpliest backup system.
You know when someone says "they thought of everything", well that's true of MX Linux. From the get go this distro makes it easy to do most basic things, from installing codecs, popular software, changing kernels, installing a range of window managers and more using a range of GUI based tools that are woven into its start up screen. This approach thoughtfully takes a lot of the manual leg work out of setting up your laptop or desktop Linux environment, in a way that suits you.
Better still, its very reliable being based on Debian stable and reasonably fast. I had it running with ease on 10+ year old hardware without a glitch. I would suggest you do an sudo apt update and sudo apt upgrade from konsole as soon as you get things installed. It makes using the GUI toos which come with MX, so much easier.
Are there any downsides? As a minimalist, I tend to use Arch a lot as I can build bare bones based on my needs. I would like to see this offered in MX too, as opposed to the standard software load out. I do use some of the software that comes as standard with MX but not on all of my laptops. Being able to choose and configure what is installed from a bare bones starting point, would be great.
All in all a really outstanding distribution that's accessible to newcomers and experienced users, alike. Ideal for a range of hardware. probably moroso established hardware, than cutting edge hardware perhaps but this is a rather minor distinction. Great effort and hats off to the developers.
quite intrigued with this second beta, from what I have seen so far it is has a quicker response that 21.3. everything I am used to using works great, and some of the comments from the FB page are definitely positive. I'm using the XFCE desktop myself, my preferred view overall, and I really like how you can switch off the same background so you can have a different background on each workspace.
So very glad I dumped Windows for this distro, tried all the rest ( even some obscure ones :) )It's snappy, solid and unless you do silly things ( like PPA's from Ubun2 ) stable as a rock :)
Just a fantastic snappy operating system everything worked out of the box , installation was easy as pie using Rufus and make a USB installer , Dual boot with windows 11 was easy if you have 2 HD hooked up to your machine just select OS on boot via Bios ,,I first tried the latest Mint beta but that felt a lil sluggish and wanted to stay away from the Ubuntu based OS , I really like the speed of this MX OS will now throw it on my laptop and dump the windows 11 telemetry, I wish by default the taskbar was on the bottom ,
Excellent distribution, everything works, as they say, out of the box, there are no problems with installing on EFI. Everything is very easy to install and configure. I used to use Linux Mint Cinnamon and LMDE, sometimes there were problems, especially with LMDE with installing deb packages, sometimes the system just hung up. With the transition to MX21 XFCE (MX 23-beta version) I was very pleased with the stability and reliability of the system, I have been using MX21 for more than a year. Thanks to the developers.
It's a great distro: easy to install and configure, availability of live usb maker and several desktop environments, etc. Some programs were giving me problems without systemd, so I figured I'd boot Debian's latest Bookworm on a usb. After spending over 8 hours to fix several issues with sudo, ufw, etc., and to get Bookworm to efi boot on my old Mac, I gave up. I then tried MX's program for cloning the live usb running system. All I can say is that it's fabulous! It completed without a hitch and I was back booting the Mac with systemd, by installing systemd-sysv on the new live system. Many thanks to the devs and the detailed instructions on their website.
I am a newbie, not cool with command lines, I use MX as a recovery tool because for whatever reason, MX always boots and installs while others couldn't, basically MX is the easiest of all. I read reviews saying MX installation is difficult and blahblahblah and those reivew really lmao, seriously, i'm pretty noob myself and a person gotta be pretty intelligently challenged to find MX's installation difficult. No offense but i can't imagine how OS setup can get easier than this, i believe even a 5th grader could do it.
Normally I don't download and install a beta version of any distro but I was more than a little intrigued with what the next MX KDE could be. While I haven't run it on my machine all that long it hasn't disappointed me. For some time now I've been in search for the "right" KDE distro; one that's stable, attractive, feature rich, fast and, most importantly, current. You would think that wouldn't be all that difficult to find, but that's not the case. Getting all five has been a challenge. In my search I almost always rule out a Debian based KDE distro simply because KDE updates quite frequently and Debian doesn't. Why then would I look at MX-23 beta2 KDE if there is an inherent weakness in it that I don't like? Well, times change and so do I. This distro is based on a very recent release of Debian (Debian 12 Bookworm), that it's using KDE Plasma 5.27.5 and that many of the applications have been updated. Yes, soon enough it will no longer be current because the KDE desktop will update, but to my way of thinking how much better can KDE make their Plasma 5.27.5 desktop than it is now? What's left for the developers to improve in this version of Plasma? It seems like now would be a great time to use it because when Plasma version 6 comes out the cycle starts all over and there will again be months and months of bug updates. This makes it a great time to try an MX KDE distro. In the short time I've used this beta version of MX-23 I really look and feel, so much so, in fact, that I will install it on my computer when it's finally released. I can't speak to this distro's stability in all areas simply because I haven't used irt all that long, but for the time I have spent using it I have been quite pleased. It looks like, in the near future, I will be dual-booting MX-23 KDE, MX-23 XFCE.
Version: 21.3 Rating: 1 Date: 2023-06-17 Votes: 0
Just a bad rendition of Debian.
Reminds me of openSUSE with its bundled garbage apps to "make things easier". If you have to include your own distribution tools, then something is wrong.
No LXQt desktop environment. XFCE is no longer lightweight and struggles with app theme consistency.
At the end of the day it's Debian and suffers from Debian things.
At first I was disappointed with not being able to adjust my mouse speed out of the box (there are touchpad options but no mouse pointer speed options as far as I can tell). Also the Conky clock wouldn't update when I adjusted the time in the taskbar clock. After getting over these few annoyances I really appreciate all the different persistence options present at startup. MX works great as a live disc. This distro let me accomplish a few things I've never done before such as challenging myself to connecting to wifi via bash.
After several attempts to find the right Linux for me, I have the number one
Installed Distrowatch and I have to say: I'm thrilled!! Everything runs “out of the box” as the saying goes
Even World of Warcraft runs almost better on Lutris than on Windoh! :-)) In 2004 I started with Ubuntu and over the years I tested many distros like Fedora, Linux Mint, Manjaro, etc. and now I have it for the very first time! Installed a Linux in these years that runs from the installation process to playing AAA titles without a single error!
Many thanks to the developers and please make many more versions!
By the way: I have it running on an 11 year old Acer notebook and on a one year old gaming PC!! :-)
I have tried so many Distro's, Variants and Versions of Linux i cannot begin to remember. All just to find a perfect Desktop to my needs.
Ms Linux has a fantastic Desktop with XFce. I can now configure my desktop exactly like i have my windows System with 3 screens.
On top of that the list of Settings and extras are just awesome. Most distro's i have tried usually crash within the first few hours in some or other way with me trying to customize my Linux experience.
Even the Install part works for me and this must be the fastest a Linux distro i have used excluding the puppies of the world
I have installed MX-Linux just for trying another distribution.
With my surprise I found that it works very very well on my old laptop (Toshiba L735 with second generation i3 and 4 GB RAM, Crucial 240GB SSD).
I like the main use of Synaptic for update/upgrade the software and the system, but also the MX program installer is very useful.
MX tools is a great feature that make simple to do many maintaince and ordinary jobs.
And, by the way, also the graphical aspect is very fine.
I think that I will change the Xubuntu LTS distro on my office desktop ...
WiFi working OOTB now that they have updated NetworkManager.
Android phones seen directly in File Manager just like Windows without needs to start gmtp and better cause you can see every kind of file stored.
Clean interface noobs proof.
The only complaints are about applications menu, faster sometimes to open a terminal and to start the application from there instead of wasting time searching the menu and the increased memory usage probably due to kernel (kernel.org has behind big corps interested to sell new hardware).
No systemd complexity, easy to administer and rock solid.
Really suitable both for noobs and experienced users which want the ability to administrate the system in an easy way but for everyday tasks like the ability do them "point & click".
The sysvinit boot option was the main reason why I tried MX, besides being Debian-based with the apt package manager. I have been using MX since version 19. I use it as a daily driver, both at work and for personal use, and do not think I will switch.
That said, I have read great reviews of nixOs being an unbreakable system, but I am not sure I want to spend another twenty years learning the ins and outs of the nix language. Besides, using linux is no fun if you can not break the system once in a while.
I do not use the MX tools much, relying instead on the command line tools. I did try mx-boot-repair once, and I managed to wipe my /boot partition because of an oversensitive touch pad - that, however, gave me the chance of a clean install.
I do recommend MX to both beginners and advanced users alike. Thank you Distrowatch for showcasing it!
After having tried the first 15 Distro's on DistroWatch & after weighing all the checks & balances i have decided on using MX OS XFCE 64 bit as my daily driver, the combination or flexibility & ease of use with arranging the setup & customization of the OS as well as the security features make MX OS a real Windows/IOS beater.
Though the installation of software apps on MX OS are a more laborious task compared to Windows, once this skill are mastered it is a very clean sailing experience for the average user like myself, with over 12 mths of using MX OS i have had no failures or Blue Screens of Death etc, the reliability of this Distro are outstanding.
With the ever encroaching risk of personal freedom online with Windows, IOS, Android etc using invasive tech to monitor citizens more closely than ever a person must look @ Linux Distro's as a means of interaction with the Internet for a more safer & better experience.
There is a very good reason why MX OS is listed as #1 on DistroWatch & I can only recommend it!
Very stable ,updates almoust daily .Working well on my notebook thinkpad carbon x1 gen 3 .Light distro .Using XFCE version MX-23.1ahs enviroment with compiz and emerald themes .Versatile and with a stong support (forums),it is a worm ,simple ,gorgeous and moust of all stable debian distro .If your main goal is -browsing on internet and multimedia freak ,this is it !It has a ton of software -MX repositories .It s adapt on every user . You can customize it ,has a nice interface .It is perfect ?Not yet ,it has issues too but on average ,is the best
I am running MX since over 2 years now, and distro-hopping (which was fun) has actually come to and end. So fast, so practical, so stable, running it on 8 computers. Additions: taskbar down (from left), added sensor viewer, added xsct for color temperature, put back the featherpad editor from MX-21. Truly nothing is missing for - what else is there to say.
MX-21 sometimes did not find the wifi during installation (5 year old computer !), back then MX-21_ahs did the trick, also Linux Mint back then. This is now no longer needed with MX-23.
What is still a bit problematic: Installer issues a) once it 'ate up' my good old Win10 from eMMC which I didn´t bother to reinstate, b) it doesn't like to sit together with Windows on the same SSD - better have a separate drive. Then you are good.
Plus point also: the cpu governor which is set to 'ondemand´, which is what you need. Linux Mint Debian_6 for example seems to be setting the cpus to full performance all the time, otherwise LMDE_6 would be my second best candidate.
I used the XFCE version "MX-23.1_ahs_x64" for a week.
Everything worked flawlessly: the system was ultra fast and yet I have an old PC more than 11 years old...the printer which installs itself but the scanner which does not work..."Steam" which worked flawlessly .
I had the most recent stable kernel available and the latest drivers for my GPU...
Unfortunately and despite my monitoring of file residues to be deleted after uninstalling software...the system started to bug after a week my printer no longer wants to work even by reinstalling the drivers and "Steam" starts to bug and becomes completely unusable...
Using Debian as it's base has made this distro rock solid, The addition of the MX tools as well as tons of documentation really make this distro a winner. Just the addition of MX snapshot is a game changer in my opinion, the ability to backup your whole OS, settings, passwords accounts into an installable ISO to restore your system without having to do anything post install is so great that I don't know why this isn't a standard practice in all distros.
What a nice distro and hopefully it continues like that. Now Im trying to use MX Linux to gaming so I hope to dont find any problem with this. Using this distro for 3 years now and I cant be more happy.
The community looks nice and most of the problems I had are solved quickly.
The performance is fast, the apps and options are good and is very easy to use, complete and robust.
Installation is intuitive and not a headache. I recommend this distro with no doubt.
The only thing is just the nvidia drivers installation, which is still not easy for me. Things like that would be easy in a future.
I switched to MX from Fedora because, like so many Fedora users, I had a lot of difficulty getting sound to work properly. With MXLinux at the top of the DistroWatch chart, I had to try it, and it's fabulous.
PROS: Everything works. It contains MX Tools, which is a suite of commonly-used apps we all use to control sound, brightness, etc., all conveniently gathered into one app; it is very useful. The wireless printer, WIFI, sound, USB...everything worked perfectly with no tweaking. Oh yeah, there's MX Tweak (and many other setting apps) to customize everything possible thing I can think of.
CONS: None yet.
To the dev team I would say....it ain't broke guys, so don't fix it. I love this distro!
A great strength of MX Linux is its community.Assistance is always forthcoming even about the most mundane queries. The OS itself is very easy to install and customization is straightforward. You have a choice of desktops including KDE, Fluxbox and Xfce.
It's very flexible and light on resources. It has some very useful utilities, for example MX Tools that gathers the most important tools under the same roof. You can easily create a live-USB, make it encrypted and portable so that you can use MX Linux and optionally your documents too on another computer.
I have been a long user of MX linux and was happy with the transition from other Debian distros. However while the appearance is improved from the previous version, the issues have not stopped. I continue to have a problem with audio and video problem across various computers and hardware. Specifically, websites containing videos including, YouTube, news sites, etc. continue to experience a problem and refuse to play. Admitting, MX Linux, both KDE and XFCE, when they work, they are great. Unfortunately, I have experienced countless problems causing me along with my peers to have to seek other distros.
This replaced Windows 10 on a Acer Extensa 2540 laptop with Intel i3 6006U CPU,240 GB SSD & 8 GB RAM.
Easy installation via DVD-R disc containing MX-23 x64 Xfce iso from SourceForge.
Wi-fi was enabled by default which allowed the customary updates to be quickly installed.
Bluetooth was also enabled by default granting me use of a Logitech cordless mouse thereby sparing me using the awful scrollpad!
Firefox and Thunderbird were a doddle to set up to my specifications as I already use them on my Windows 10 desktop.
A highly customisable distro well worth trying for anyone seeking a alternative to Microsoft's offerings - it isn't perfect,but there again,nothing is! Highly recommended!
Good looking distro, heavier than other Debian based ones (Xubuntu, Sparky Devuan). It seems faster, like ram based live usb distros do, but they are always heavier (scripts vs binaries).
Good looking distro with too much bloat. Overlapping mx apps: mx disk tool vs Gparted. MX brightness vs XFCE power manager plugin (which has brightness adjustment capability).
Good looking distro that can be installed with no problem on different hardware, which cannot be said about many popular distros.
Good looking distro with nontheless some bad user experience. Why binding Super L key to whisker menu in session & startup apps? What was wrong with keyboard shortcuts that user can reset to Xfce defaults with one click?
Why circular scrolling? Who on earth uses circular scrolling on a laptop with touchpad? Abnormally fast pointer, + circular scrolling, + horizontal srolling enabled, + tiny window scrollbars and borders = recipe for distaster. Windows disappear out of sight or you need 5 attempts to minimize window or find something in whisker menu. It looks good, but first of all it has to be functional!
Pros
Apps that many can find useful, ie nvidia driver installer. Good looking.
Cons
annoying default settings, bloatware, no minimal installation.
I'm sure it's confirmation bias, but I still feel compelled to share.
MX Linux 23 seems more responsive than 21 on a small, old ProBook 4540s with a i3-3110M CPU. This kitchen utility computer isn't fast, but it's responsive, and never generates errors. Writing is fine, browsing and vertical applications work well, streaming video is smooth.
More so, the MX interface is easily readable, and re-configurable. Lord knows why, but I like a top vertical menu, with my utilities ordered in a particular manner. I can change the default interface to my specifications in an initial, brief bit of time measured in minutes.
Setting up access to varied repositories through the MX Package Installer is easy, allowing for support of a wider variety of applications.
Lastly, the packaging of common computer operations in the MX Tools collection is clutch. The grouped apps provide GUI support for many computer management operations. They are described and presented in a manner that facilitates learning basic computer management.
A significant improvement over previous MX versions, IMHO.
Pros:
* KDE looks polished and fairly clean.
* NVIDIA integration works, just choose the tool and "follow your nose"
* Office is there (Libre)
* VLC is there
* GIMP is there
* Fairly intuitive/logical layout.
* Most Windows users could easily use this distro and be productive.
* For native apps, the response is snappy (for KDE that's a plus)
* Debian. It's stable.
Cons:
* Greeter flashes and redraws on this system (and you lose your early input - better to wait if this happens)
* Activations (like firefox) can be slow
* "Fiddlers" need to remember: no systemd. This can be a good thing, or not.
* Wayland offered. Not for Windows users just yet. It's improving.
it is stable, fast, it works in almost any computer, it is user friendly and excellent for first time linux users, no problems with the installation, because is based on debian it is super easy to install any package, it has a lot of good tools within the os that will help to the normal use to feel more in control.
One of the things that sets MX Linux apart from other Linux distributions is its focus on stability and performance. The developers of MX Linux carefully test all of the software that is included in the distribution, and they also make a number of optimizations to the system to improve performance. As a result, MX Linux runs very smoothly on a wide range of hardware, including older or less powerful computers.
In addition to its stability, performance, and ease of use, MX Linux is also notable for its wide range of pre-installed software. MX Linux comes with a variety of productivity, multimedia, and development tools pre-installed, so users can start using the distribution right away without having to install any additional software. MX Linux also includes a number of unique tools that are developed by the MX Linux team, such as the MX Package Installer and the MX Tools.
Overall, MX Linux is a great choice for users who are looking for a stable, performant, and easy-to-use Linux distribution. It is also a great choice for users who want a distribution with a wide range of pre-installed software.
As both Canonical and RedHat have made some controversial choices recently, I had to investigate the Debian-Universe (former Fedora User).
After some searching MX LInux is now my favorite distribution, hits the sweet-spot for me between ease-of-use and compatibility with power user modifications.
Especially the SysV-Variant follows the UNIX Philosophy and I found everything to be easily adjustable via both the terminal and the user interface, without any sort of interference. I.e. the MX Boot Options adjusts /etc/default/grub directly (including nice and helpful comments) and their is no intermediate sort of database of sorts, which I appreciate very much.
This allows an easy back-and-forth switching in case one wants to adjust the boot parameters (in my case I had to disable the nouveau-drivers for an nvidia-machine and on another machine it was related to some cgroups parameters related to minikube).
As part of the user-friendly tools we have multiple mx tools in addition to the aforementioned "mx boot options", the highlight are the ones related to the live distribution, including remastering and persistence. Those are a real game changer and one of the unique selling points, that are not offered within other distributions.
The XFCE Desktop Environment (which I use exclusively) works like a charm as always
It is the first distribution where I have no compromises or regrets.
The only downside is perhaps the security aspect, where Fedora / RedHat have a very slim lead, due to SELinux and Wayland, which are in my opinion slightly more secure. The main issue is related to the outdated x-server protocol which does not enforce application isolation. So be careful with foreign software (outside the debian repos). Therefore I recommend to disable flatpaks and snaps and would rather build from source directly. Unless you would spin up a VM for that.
Besides that MX Linux provides nevertheless a secure overall experience, as you get access to the latest kernels and the recent CPU-bugs were alle fixed (Try the spectre-meltdown-checker). Also the firewall preconfiguration and update policies (using the mx-updater-widget) was reasonable for end-users.
Please note that the distribution sticks to the debian-way and also includes the latest non-free firmware drivers, which adds to the security but violates the free software foundations principles. For me this is a reasonable tradeoff as I prefer Intel WIFI/Bluetooth.
Overall a 9,5/10, generously rounded up to 10, due to the subjective excitement.
Thank you MX LInux developers for your tremendous work!
Like its companion distro, Antix, I found this not ideal for a beginner.
I tried three times to install, with a message simply telling me installation failed.
I went back with the live version and used Gparted to delete all partitions.
This worked fine and it installed without a problem.
I do think that this might be a bit intimidating for a complete beginner.
I like the distro which still bears some resemblance to Mepis in some of its features. Mepis was my first successful foray into the world of Linux.
MX Linux 21 was my first daily-driver Linux distro, by that I mean I tried a couple of score of distros before deciding to make MX Linux my daily driver while learning more about Linux as a whole.
As I learned more about MX Linux and its antecedent platform AntiX I became more uncomfortable using it for sensitive transactions and started using more trustworthy distros for sensitive transactions. As my Linux journey continued I noted performance differences between MX and several other, lighter distros; fair enough as MX LInux is a middleweight distro, but the performance was not appreciably better than several heavyweight distros.
Then MX Linux 23 came along, and what a buggy, bloated RAM pig it is. MX Linux 23 sent me shopping for another full desktop distro to use. I was shocked to see the newest Linux Mint is lighter, more stable,and simply, now, faster. Interestingly Mint XFCE weighs in at almost half of what MX Linux 23 now comes in at! That sent me down the road of comparing MX Linux with a plethora of other distros and MX Linux did not compare favorably any longer.
I will say MX Linux as good support forum, great folks who are always willing to help and that is worth a lot.
IMO, MX Linux is running on its once stellar reputation and a helpful support form cannot out weigh the inherent deficiencies. At this point given MX Linux association with what I consider a sketchy distro, given the new instability introduced in MX Linux 23, given its new RAM bloat and deteriorating responsiveness and freezes I am leaving MX Linux. In all fairness I never explored used MX Linux much vaunted MXTools, they may well be worth the price of admission for some, but I don't use them. What remains to me is a buggy, RAM hungry, slow system with integrity issues.
As a distro, given its slower response, instability, and RAM use I would rate MX Linux 23 in the lower end of average now but dock it even further for its reliance on antiX, where as I considered MX Linux 21 an above average distro overall.
MX (21.3) was good distro, but since version 23 its quality declined. Bluetooth, pipewire problems. (With debian 12 xfce there wasn't problems). It's appearance also was buggy. I think devs released this version way too soon.
Devs also not responding to problem request.. its sad this really was a good distro. I thinks devs are really busy,since its dev team are too small. I used xfce version.
I really hope devs will fix these problems since i really like their mindset,but currently its unusable since i can't use my bluetooth earphones.
Loaded the KDE Plasma version of this today and I knew right away this was going to be my OS for the foreseeable future.
What a wonderful job, gents. Smooth, sleek and just enough packages and tweaks to make it look and feel clean and modern and still stay nimble and fast which is what drew a lot of use old Linux users here in the first place.
I had been using an old version of Mint that didn't even have support any more but was still serving me well. Then I went and got a 6g network adapter to joint the 21st century and it wouldn't pick up a driver due to the old Kernel so it was time for a change,. I downloaded Debian which i love but it didn't pick it up either and quite frankly this day and age if it isn't plug and play out of the box then why waste time with it. I could do it but I have a Job, Kid's, wife, and a stinkin yard to mow and i don't have time to find out how to get it going like I used to.
Then I tried Garuda, yes it recognized the card but like everything Arch to me, it just felt obtuse, not to mention gawdy and loud and a little buggy. Not trying to hurt your Arch guys feewings as I know how tender you are, It is just the route I took to get here is all.
Then I plugged this in and snap crackle pop , it was like an old friend, I didn't even realize how much I missed a simple conky.
Great Job Gentlemen, I hope everyone who tries it likes it as much as I do because if I could build one myself this is probably pretty close to what I would try to accomplish.
This is a follow up to my previous review about MX Linux which i rate 1/10 because MX Tools did not work properly after upgrading from version 21 to version 23 using the Debian way which is mentioned in the MX Linux blog, but after couple of updates every thing works properly, and it is my daily driver right now, it has every thing any usual user will need from operating system, even Linux Mint not close to the perfection of MX Linux right now, it is really a great system and it add new features faster than any other distribution in the Linux world.
MX 23 KDE is a notable improvement over Debian 12 with KDE.
They both have the same version of Plasma and the same kernel but MX has clearly applied some love to their version and it shows.
If you like KDE, if you like debian, then by all means give this version a go. I can't really fault it for anything. What I expected is what I got and frankly I am a bit surprised at that as I usually find something that gets me in a knot.
But tomorrow is another day I suppose, but until then I am looking at my work laptop running Ubuntu and am thinking its days are numbered, lol.
Tested all the flavours (KDE, XFCE and Fluxbox) for a few days: this release follows the solid path of previous releases, so no problems at all. It is the good Mx as usual.
The new release permittes to work better with an ASUS T103H (now audio is available, a thing not possible with previous versions).
One suggestion for the developpers? Clean and give a better order to the menuses: in my opinion they are a little bit confusing and some items appear in more than one location, so that, sometimes, you need to much time to search for an item.
At the moment , but I did not go deep into that, the only annopying thing is the version of Thunderbird that does not allow to have shared data and configs with other latest versions of it (yes I use multiple linuxes and using a shared thunderbird data is useful while changing environment).
Wish they could fix the sound adjustment for when you are turning on the bluetooth speaker. Should be able to set the sound levels before switching from pc speaker to bluetooth. I don't like it blasting me because I was watching a video with little or no sound and have to turn it up. It remembers the sound setting so it won't default to a low level where you can increase it to your liking. Shouldn't be to hard to fix.
I'm using MX-21.3 Debian ver. 11.7 and xfce 4.18.1
Thanks alot MX team. I'm a 16yr Linux user as my primary OS and MX Linux is best. Stability, looks, configurablility, adding and removing programs, its number one in my book and I've tried many of them.
I am in early stage of trying out MX but so far it runs way better then either Windows 10 or 11 on this very low end Mini PC with a Celeron N5095 and 8Gb RAM. I did try Debian but honestly I don't like Gnome UI at all and even Ubuntu leaves me asking many questions about its desktop environment. Cinnamon in Mint is good but it also seems rather heavy UI for this quad Celeron. I was looking for something that looks relatively modern and yet doesn't complain about the crappy hardware. Microsoft of course claims this hardware is fine with Windows 11 but it certainly does not feel like it using it. I definitely think its worth a test install even on older hardware because MX has done a good job creating a lower impact distro that actually does not look really ugly.
As a new comer to Linux,i find MX Linux (with KDE Plasma) a real joy to use.I find it easy to navigate,easy to understand;and the helpful guides that are supplied with this distro are really helpful (they have got me out of sticky situations more than once!)
But as with the majority of Linux distros,it does fall short on the gaming and emulation front,so just for that reason i have to use a windows o/s (i have a emulation setup on win 11,which would be near to impossible to achieve in any Linux distro).
So i will slowly, but surely be transferring my folders fron win to MX linux.
Well done MX Linux team,i never thought,that just a month ago Mx Linux would be my main O/S.
P.S i am a "normal" pc user;no advanced knowledge os o/s etc.
(M)agic E(X)cellence, that is what this distro is. Easy to install, easy to use, and hard to break. I have been using the final every day on many computers, and it is as solid as ever, better looking and smoother than ever if that is possible. It is like the people who created MX created it just for the ease of the user in mind(especially the KDE, XFCE is good too). I no longer have any wishes for features, just make the software selection as large as possible for this amazing distro, there is none better than MX, even Mint is not close anymore.
This review is based on the desire for a solid and stable daily use OS. One that will not need to be replaced and the need to reload all you additional applications often.
If you are looking for a solid and stable daily use OS, MX does the job.
It comes with a good set of applications to cover most needs.
It has a 5 year supported life.
When you needs require other applications, you can usually find it.
I have not had any issues with other applications that I have installed.
I do not have to spend time managing my daily use system.
Updates can be done when you have time or desire. Best of all they just work.
MX takes Debian, which continues to be a poor solution for me personally, and turns it into something that could be my own daily driver. 3 other Bookworm derivatives that I looked at were flawed in important ways, given my limited capability to fix issues. All these try-outs were on a generic PC with no uncommon hardware, no raid, a standard FHD monitor, etc. MX23 XFCE now has a permanent spot on that PC.
MX XFCE is not my favorite distro. This XFCE/Debian OS works just like the developers designed it to work. But for those of us who have different biases to satisfy, there are better solutions. For me personally, the rating would be 9/10. Except how can I penalize a system that Just Works?
Plus, it's supported for almost 5 years.
This post is a simple opinion statement more than a review, but then it's more than an opinion. The fact is that the MX/antiX people have done something special. Their stuff works.
It works really well on older hardware. I have an old core2duo powered ThinkPad and installed MXLinux on it. MXLinux with Fluxbox flies on this machine. The distro looks a bit barebones with Fluxbox on it, but it is very easy to find and install apps using apt anyways.
I used to run AntiX on this machine, but decided that ICEWM is a bit too "different" for my liking, so I got MXLinux instead. It is definitely not for everyone but for my use case, I'd say it's about as perfect as they come. I surf the web, take online seminars and to a bit of coding on this machine and it's been good and serves its purpose well.
This amd64 distribution gave new life to all my Apple Macintosh computers from 2009 (Mac Mini and iMac) where poor Apple with macOS could no longer support with security updates. With this Debian based distribution, I can stay up-to-date with security updates and even manage my fans with Bash scripts that run "sensors" from lm-sensors and enumerate fans, get their maximum rated speeds, and adjust them accordingly to a percentage based on temperature. THAT is something that Apple still can not handle well, and requires third-party software to do properly. The nvidia drivers are even available and work for OpenGL applications, and the MX themes are clean and fast. Install some nerd-fonts, "bpytop", Visual Studio Code, and maybe a SATA SSD and I was good to go for another few years. MX is awesome for old Intel Macintosh that Apple no longer deems worthy of life.
I have been a long user of MX Linux and was happy with the transition from other Debian distros. However, while the appearance is improved from the previous version, the issues have not stopped. I continue to have a problem with audio and video problem across various computers and hardware. Specifically, websites containing videos including, YouTube, news sites, etc. continue to experience a problem and refuse to play. Admitting, MX Linux, both KDE and XFCE, when they work, they are great. Unfortunately, I have experienced countless problems causing me along with my peers to have to seek other distros.
I am writing on 23 KDE Plasma right now and this is silky smooth. I was not happy about losing a few pieces of software, but I understand it has to do with the switch to pipewire so its OK. This Distro is solid as ever, with the bonus of being prettier. It does use more ram, but not a lot more. It seems more polished to me, but that may just be perception. In any event MX is going in the right direction no doubt. People who are new to linux won't need a lot of hand-holding after the machine is set up as the user requires. I have never had a problem with updates though on MX. Kudos to the devs.
From 1995 I had various Linux systems, after Z80 computers could not prevail and x86 systems spread.
Professionally I have been using various MX-linux (now V21.3) on more than 20 computers for data processing since MX 19.
I mainly use the following programs:
Industry software based on Jawa
Double and Midnight Commander
LibreOffice Base and Calc
MySQL (MariaDB) on localhost
with your own scripts
Firefox and Chromium with Keepass
FreeFilesync and Rclone
Many clouds can be easily integrated.
Very quickly you can duplicate the system with dd or a snapshot for new devices.
I have been using MX since version 18. The reason I used it until this day is that once you've configured your desktop to your liking, it'll just work. However, every time they release a major upgrade you're forced to reinstall. Some workarounds do exist, but it's cumbersome and not officially supported. This is such a bad user experience and I just dread having to spend half a day on making backups of files and configs etc. My old laptop is still on 18.3 for that reason, despite no update being released for that version anymore. It's just too much of a hassle and shouldn't be required. Other distros manage to deliver version upgrades, why not MX? I won't be updating my current PC (on MX 21.3) to version 23. I might as well install debian out of the box. I don't care about the whole anti-systemd nonsense anyway.
The latest iteration of desktop perfection. I am using the xfce 64 bit version, a fast, easy install. Has all the software from Debian, with many upgraded versions available, or if not, someone on the forum will usually package it in a few days if it is possible. For the chess fan, they have stockfish 15, a 130 ELO point gain, the worlds strongest chess engine in the repo !
Debian stable, polished with great tools, like the UIP tool, user installed programs tool that lets you reinstall all your installed favorites with one easy click. Lots of tweaking tools, gives great flexibility to configure as you think best. Totally stable, current uptime 16 days.
Per definition I hate upgrading Operating systems.
Kind of bad dream. It demands a a lote of work to a certain extend.
And also time most of us don't have. Some distro's also give al lot of problems, in cases (almost) unresolvable. Practice.
This install was the smoothest for me in a little more than a decade
(distributions of all sorts). This in spite of some hurdles which could be overcome and which were almost always caused by applications which behave
in cases a little different than might be expected.
MX is very responsive and fast and it almost never crashes. (It is Debian
and some Ubuntu). The OS stays out of the way, great!
I have seen only one crash and probably this was my fault.
I used until now MMX19 which was a hero for me and earlier MX alike.
MX23 is at least as perfect until now.
Surprise: many apps from the repo work, that was a problem in Ubuntu for years.
I don't quite understand the setting of user/root passwords,
system and/or terminal, but it's right what I have now; it works fine.
I have a user passwd and a root passwd for some actions.
But in the terminal it has to be the user passwd at the moment. (??)
Sound and all concerned is perfectly configured. Simple. Also recording and reproduction.
It was already very good in MX, but for me it always has been a difficult story in Linux-history.
Pulse-audio works fine now. Veromix, very handy, is not needed anymore.
Tiny:
Please move the pop-up open-app-butons away from panel one.
Or release that. It sucks a little. It looks they are locked when they appear; I can' t remove them.
But maybe I'm not aware of a simple solution?!
All in all I'm very relieved and very happy with MX23 until now.
Ten out of ten.
But your logo at boot could be smaller. :smile:
I downloaded the MX 23 64 bit Fluxbox edition. I had no problems downloading, and like that when the USB boots it has an option to check its integrity. I tested it on a 2008 Dell M2400 laptop, and it had no issues booting up with default settings. I like that it it setup to automatically start and connect Wifi on a single click. I also see it monitors for available updates, and updated them without any issues. It was easy to find the set time and date option, and all I had to do was click a city in my timezone for it to get corrected. I tried out the package installer and it had no problems adding one of the listed packages, I also tried adding packages via the Synaptic GUI package manager, and that worked fine as well. After adding them and trying them, I remastered the USB to include ak=ll the updates and programs added. It took a few minutes to run but was successful as well.
I have to say it is the friendliest Fluxbox system I've seen, and running Fluxbox, it was very responsive, even running on an old Laptop from a slow USB port.
No bugs were found. I'd say its definitely worth taking for a test drive, and probably something newer users would be able to manage.
Awesome....great OS..fast and easy and versatile as well..I use this version with AHS in my Imacs desktop and macbook pros and air laptops..also macminis .2010 - 2015 models with 4GB to 32 GB RAMs..It ran best on all of them,,,whether dual nvidia , intel, or amd gpus -No problem.. I acquired macserver model 2012 and at this time I am testing its character so far no hazzle. By the way, I can not boot on my 2017 macbook pro.It was installed but on restart after installing, no booting, only apple logo appears on retina screen. this model has amd gpu with 4GB video RAM. Its my hobby to acquire, buy dead apple macs repair and install Linux on them instead of costly apple OS...with cairo-dock panel of course.. .Thanx..
I have tried MX Linux because Mepis was the first distro I could get to work- that was a long time ago. Much as I like MX, it did have one flaw for me. Unlike other distros, it won't install unless I delete all partitions first.
MX tools are excellent, though, and I think it's an excellent distro, especially if you have older hardware.
Personally, I prefer to have the taskbar at the top, but of course that's down to individual preference. I acquired that preference when using Linux Mint with Cairo Dock.
Using MX Linux 23 KDE for last two weeks as my daily driver. In my work I use .net ecosystem (with Rider, Docker, etc).
Whole setup was much faster and easier then Fedora 37 (much less issues) and most of quirks was related to my actions.
One of things I need to mention for KDE is to always look on MX tools before KDE settings.
I tried to enable automatic login in KDE (using full disk encryption) and keyboard and it has issues.
Always check in MX tools first for a settings (possibly not an issue with XFCE edition).
Also described on mx forum how to get L2TM VPN working.
In general whole setup was only a bit more complex then Kubunutu, but output is so much better.
Plasma 5,27 is amazing and much better then version in Kubuntu LTS.
MX tools are great, no issue with drivers, Nvidia, etc.
Very useful defaults.
And one thing that is truly amazing is MX Snapshot. This tool can snapshot your whole system (apps and data) into live iso image (writeable) so backup system you can burn to Pendrive and work from. And you can install it later on any machine using standard installer. All settings, configs app and your data are preserved.
Without this tool would give distro 9/10 but absolutely love it.
Distro comes with AHS - so will get recent kernel quite fast, not many updates (Stable and slowly changing system) but apps are updated (no Firefox ESR nonsense). And yes Flatpack is enabled and ready to be used.
I created my installation media on USB key for "MX Linux":
first boot:
I choose the installation with the NVIDIA driver knowing that my graphics card is too old and obsolete it does not work...
second boot:
I choose this time the installation with the free graphics driver after 5 minutes I think bingo! the installation finally starts ... but if "MX Linux" recognizes my ultra recent card in wifi 6 on the other hand "MX Linux" does not recognize my ultra recent card also in ethernet! while all other Linux systems even "Ubuntu" recognize and install my peripherals without wincing... bye bye "MX Linux" finished for me...
This is my favorite release of any version of Linux I have used.
What I like most is the ease in installation/configuration of my setup onto a new computer. As in the previous release of MXLinux, you can take a snapshot of your system, with or without user accounts, and make a bootable USB flash drive to reinstall if things get messed-up or a fresh install on another system. An added feature is you can create a list of applications the user has added beyond the original distribution applications. This list allows you to do an original distribution install, then load the list of programs from an installation, then pick and choose which of those applications you wish to install on this new system. Sometimes, the install of an application can't be done from this list, but the application tells you which was the problem so you can install from Synaptic or the Package Installer.
In early releases MXLinux 21, when a new user was added using the User Manager, the UID was put into the system UID range of under 1000. If you have been avoiding using MXLinux because of that little bug, that was corrected in later releases of MXLinux 21 and also works correctly is release 23.
MXLinux makes it easy to setup Samba shares - sort of. To share a directory, create the user in User Manager so they have an account on the local MXLinux machine 'serving' the share, then add the user/password in the Samba Config tool. You then create the share while in the Samba Config tool and assign the permissions. I was not able to access any of the shares without modifying the '/etc/samba/smb.conf' file first by (as sudo):
cd /etc/samba
cp smb.conf smb.conf.orig
testparm > smb.conf.new
featherpad smb.conf
and adding the following lines to the Global section (substitute myadmin with your normal login):
force user = myadmin
force group = myadmin
create mask = 0770
directory mask = 0770
and save the file. Ensure that the directories shared have the proper owner:group ownership. Note that MXLinux now uses the syntax (substitute your proper user:group):
chown myadmin:myadmin /my/directory/path/filename
where a ':' is used instead of '.'.
However, the above steps are correct, but you first have to get through the firewall. I had to use the ‘gufw’ utility to apply the ‘Samba’ preconfigured rules to access the shares. That is something that should have been automatically configured during setup if the ‘Samba’ sharing was selected during the initial install.
The one thing I don't like is the large number of applications in the start menu. However, if you can remember at least part of the name of a program (perhaps you don't use it very often), you can start typing it in the menu search box and it is likely to show-up.
I do use VPNs regularly to do remote administration of networks. As long as you have loaded the programs to support those VPNs, setup is easy and connections reliable. I have used the old PPTP, OpenVPN and L2TP.
I have spent a week of hard work with the new MX, and it is impressive to say the least. Solid stable and secure as MX has always been. I have lost a few applications(which have been replaced) but it remains "top of the list" by a significant margin. I am in the process of putting this new MX on all computers, but the good news is MX installs very quickly so it will not take long. MX is using a bit more memory, but it is also improving in responsiveness, so that is a big win. Browsers just use a ton of memory these days, and that won't change.
I moved over to MX Linux (KDE) From the ever increasingly buggy Kubuntu after some research, Seeing that it was a collab between AnitX and the Former Mepis Linux distro Devs I decided to take the plunge, and I have to say, I am quite impressed. I used to run Mepis back in the day and it was nice to see that they were still alive and kicking.. Basing it on Debian assures a nice stable foundation to build upon and having access to AntiX tools and utilities integrated into the distro gives users the ability to leverage some very useful tools to keep your system running excellent and creating a path to easily backup your system without too much difficulty. Installation is relatively problem free with a link to start the install from the Live desktop, KDE is implemented cleanly with minimal modifications (just the way I like) that leaves you with a simple, attractive desktop after install. I ran version 21.3 for a few months before moving over the version 23 with very little issues. Both, versions have been rock solid and I am quite happy with the upgrade, especially with the addition of Pipewire in 23.x Finally, a stable sound server that connects to BT devices properly in Linux. overall, A well developed, stable distro that is worth checking out.
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