What is the real popularity of MX Linux?

[Sparky]

Speed, stability, and compatibility. Not to mention the superb support.

[Rudy_Kaos]

Once people hear news, whether good or bad, they want to know why, that's one reason Distrowatch's HPD numbers rise. I too have tried many distros over the years. Arch or Debian based, both have their place. Now DEs, KDE and Cinnamon, too many bells & whistles for me, I like things with a more functional feel. Enter MATE which has been nothing but bad luck for me, Mint MATE lasted the longest, about 8 weeks, but still wasn't quite right for me. Then there is Gnome 3, of all my many, many, many installs it has never stayed stable on a machine for more than 6 weeks.

Then I tried Manjaro, my next favorite distro but it was different and old habits die hard. I liked XFCE on Manjaro so I decided to give MX Linux a spin. 6 months later, the longest any distro has lasted with me and I can tell you that I will be running MX for a long time. I was so tired of distro hopping, now those days are done. The Snapshot/Live USB Maker is in a class all its own and combined with LuckyBackup, I've even retired my copy of Clonezille. I love the MX Package Installer, I don't need pictures and reviews to download my software, I know what I need and want. The there's the support, Devs respond and respond quickly, the support is second to none. Those are my main reasons for MX but there are many more. I guess with any distro it all boils down to, "it just fits me and works well".

[azrielle]

When I discovered MX, it wasn't even listed on DW as an entity separate from antiX. It was called "antiX-MX 15.01" I believe, and the 64bit version was described as unstable, so users should download the 32bit version instead. That was in Jan or Feb 2016. I have since tried Live versions of well over 100 Distros, and installed several on multiple boot laptops and netbooks, including Mint17.2, Salix, Makulu, Porteus 3.1, WattOS 8, Korora 23 Mate, ParrotOS, Sparky, Manjaro Xfce, antiX, and Kali (hey, I liked the splash screen, OK?). They all crashed and burned (with the exception of antiX) for various reasons. I'm still with MX--and Win7. Ain't planning to change. I started out on Debian Potato in 2001-03 for several college classes, then ignored Linux until late 2015.

[Stevo]

does it matter?

if popularity was any sign of quality, windows would be usable and marvel movies would be watchable

besides ... we live in a world where a video of 8 nobel laureates speaking about the genesis of life in the universe has 2700 views on youtube while a video of a cat falling in a sink has 72 million ...

Maybe it's just me, but I'd click on a video of eight Nobel laureates falling into a sink...

[seaken64]

No Stevo, not just you. I was thinking the same thing! That would be hilarious!

[SwampRabbit]

When I discovered MX, it wasn't even listed on DW as an entity separate from antiX.

Crazy how that wasn't even that long ago actually.
Lots of great milestones for antiX and MX.

[figueroa]

As a nearly twenty (20) year Linux user... I'm old.

And, I'm older, with similar exposure to Unix and Gnu/Linux. MX is just plain GOOD. Thoughtfully developed, clean, usable to get real computer work done without bother. And, great support if you do need help. Great manual (user guide). Helpful videos.

If you want to PLAY with the OS, try many of them and like what manyroads wrote, whatever floats your boat. But, if you want to be productive on your computer, MX is popular for all the right reasons.

BACKUP your personal data to some external location. Do it now. Backup often. Have a backup plan and follow it. Every now and then, test your backups to be sure you can restore. If you don't, someday you will loose all your personal stuff. Hardware fails. You can always re=install an OS, but your personal data is like vapour. Poof. :-)

[BitJam]

I totally agree with you SwampRabbit!

I remember an interview dolphin_oracle did in late 2016 (I believe) where he said we were hoping to break into the top 20 at DistroWatch. This was also a personal goal of mine. Not only did MX break into the top 20, the top 10, and then become #1, antiX is now solidly in the top 20 at #11. I remember anticapitalista predicting this would happen when it looked rather hopeless to me. I'm usually down in the trenches (where I like it) while anticap has a much better idea of what is going on with other distros. I'm very impressed with the rise of antiX and especially MX at DistroWatch. I'm even more impressed by anticapitalista's predictions.

On the DW main page you can get the rankings from past years. I did this once to plot the magical rise of MX and antiX. It might even be buried in one of my posts here.

[Adrian]

the ranking for MX Linux in LinuxDistro is fake

You mean Distrowatch? What do you think that ranking means?

Why do you see is fake (I guess if you think it means popularity rather then number of clicks on that specific site for MX of course you are confused).

Who is faking it? I'm curious... Does Distrowatch have an interest to promote MX, do MX user go there and click on MX link to make it go up in ranks?

Also, why popularity is so important? I'm here exactly because I can make a difference, if I was using a distro like Ubuntu I don't know how I could have contributed and customized Ubuntu in a way to my desire like I did with MX,

[SwampRabbit]

Who is faking it? I'm curious... Does Distrowatch have an interest to promote MX, do MX user go there and click on MX link to make it go up in ranks?

Also, why popularity is so important? I'm here exactly because I can make a difference, if I was using a distro like Ubuntu I don't know how I could have contributed and customized Ubuntu in a way to my desire like I did with MX,

Jesse has a system in place to stop cheating of his "ranking" system. While not perfect, it works to a degree. You can't go from the same public IP address and get tons of "clicks".

I honestly don't think Jesse likes MX too much, especially no more than other distros. He actually avoided speaking about antiX and MX a lot. The Distrowatch team even removed several users' legit posts when posting about antiX or MX, I have screen grabs somewhere.

Bottom line is that once popularity rises enough, you can't hide it or cover it up.