MX-14 Review

[Richard]

LOL.
Could be.
That's probably why I thought it was a great name. :)

[karieho]

Happily we know that MX-14 is the best distro! It is the only operating system in my computer. Because I have no time (and skill) to translated Qupzilla into finnish I use Firefox, Iceweasel and Seamonkey.

I found that I must also install kdebase-runtime, kdebase-workspace and kde-l10n-fi when using Digikam. These translated Digikam into finnish. Also the calender.

Thank you for MX-14!

[Gordon Cooper]

I think that I am with the reviewer on Qupzilla. Perhaps I could have changed
the presentation, but it all appeared to be overdone, too much eye-candy and many
options.

Guess that I like things simple, my first programming was in machine
language on an 8085 processor. Ice-weasel is OK.

[malspa]

At least he's consistent. He likes the bling.

Yep, he likes his bling. He likes for everything to work out of the box; he likes releases that he considers to be easy and pleasant for "most users" to install and use; he likes systems that perform well (he had positive comments about MX-14 in the "System resources" section).

He includes good screenshots that give the reader an idea of what to expect. I especially appreciate the shots of the installation screens.

I don't particularly care for his "tone" when he's commmenting about things he doesn't like, and some of his biases can be kinda annoying, but maybe it isn't all bad if he ruffles some feathers sometimes. I think he wants to see distro releases be as good as possible -- "good" in his view, anyway -- for as many users as possible. He takees the time to do quite a few distro reviews; he puts some work into it, relates his experiences with the releases, and expresses his opinions. I think he provides a good service to the Linux community, even if he's kinda irritating at times and even if he doesn't like your or my favorite distro (I suspect that he isn't much of a fan of Debian or Arch, by the way!).

[zarg2]

I am the user that requested the review due to the fact that I read a lot of reviews and find that while snarky at times his reviews usually point out some areas of possible improvement while praising areas that are worthy of praise. I think the review was a bit harsh and that the reviewer did not take the intended purpose of the distro: lightweight, run fast on older hardware etc... into account. I still think the review will have a positive result as those that are interested in smaller distro's will identify the positives the reviewer mentioned. I think Antix/MX14 bridge the gap between "try to be everything OOTB distro's and specialised "geeky" distro's. A user needs to learn a little bit about how the OS works to get what they want from Antix/MX14 but the results are worth it. If I have a high end machine like an I7 and want eye candy then I probably go with one of the buntu's with compiz and cairo or some other stuff to get a "oooo look at that" but for an older system that only has a CD or low memory Antix has never failed to give me a good WORKING system that I can rely on, even when using the testing repo's. MX14 gives users the stabilty of debian stable with the configurabilty of XFCE and on systems like the plethora of Dell P4's I use or repair it is a great fit. The "big boy" distro's like Ubuntu and Mint do a good job on most new machines but being a "tinkererer" I will always prefer the lighter distro's.

[Adrian]

MX14 gives users the stabilty of debian stable with the configurabilty of XFCE and on systems like the plethora of Dell P4's I use or repair it is a great fit.

I like your review better

[Jerry3904]

Welcome to MX, zarg2!

There is no problem here either with your request or finally with his review; it's just a bit hard to swallow at first after so much hard work. But the good aspects are: 1) press is press, and 2) it gives us useful feedback to consider as we move forward.

[zarg2]

Welcome to MX, zarg2!

There is no problem here either with your request or finally with his review; it's just a bit hard to swallow at first after so much hard work. But the good aspects are: 1) press is press, and 2) it gives us a good position from which to move forward.

Thanks for the welcome. I have been an avid user of Antix since 13.1 and use it as my daily working OS on my old AthlonXP 2800 Compaq Presario laptop. I use LYX on the laptop to write Ebooks and it works very well. I hate to see perfectly good machines (I have some weird affinty for Dell P4'; they are just solid) go to waste because MS has decided to move on to newer hardware/OS. MX14 gives folks like me the ability to revive/repurpose these castaway machines. I recently purchased a dozen Dell 4700's for less than $25 USD each; these will get cleaned up, MX14 installed with some other educational apps installed then shipped to rural schools in the Philippines. As I mentioned over on the Antix forums I don't think Linux will ever gain a huge share of the desktop market but it does have an important share; the poor who can only gain access to the web and it's resources with inexpensive hardware and low cost software. The hard work put into the "fit on a cd" distro's and the philosophy of providing a stable, usable OS that does not require a fast internet connection is a goal worth keeping. Antix/MX14 is not competing with the Buntu's or Fedora etc.. it is serving a need that those OS's do not.

[Jerry3904]

The Devs are in total agreement with your well-expressed sentiment here.

One big consolation for me is the now 13,300 downloads from the SourceForge server alone--pretty decent number for such an ugly non-distro!

[Paul..]

I think the reviewer's right about Qupzilla...Okay, so we made a mistake (but then who doesn't make mistakes)...and I agree with others that we should consider replacing Qupzilla with Iceweasel on the next go-round.

Personally, I don't like the OOTB aesthetics either, but customizing is little effort with XFCE [he says beating the dead horse].