Some ideas for MX Linux 25 KDE

[orion99]

I have been a user of MX KDE for 2 months (previously, XFCE).
Indeed, Fastfetch by default may be good.
For music, I am not ultra -political plasma, each time I install VLC which is a universal video / music tool and which seems to me, due to this versatility, go to MX's philosophy ...
Otherwise, I did not find a distro or even of bone as complete out of the box as MX KDE (if not which one?). MX + plasma tools. It's already a lot.
Post scriptum: I don't remember if I installed VLC in addition or if it was "native".

[dings]

I agree: audio players are an individual decision. Most of the time I can't get along with the standard players of a distro, especially not with the fashionable minimal apps, and install Quod Libet myself.

[Arnox]

I'll just put my notes and suggestions here onto the pile.

Yakuake - I don't actually use this whatsoever as I use the old Windows Run shortcut (Meta + R) as the shortcut to open a new Konsole window.

KCalc - The only thing I think is missing from this is the ability to edit your equation history. The Windows 7 calculator had this feature and I used it a lot when I realized I made a mistake with entering in an equation. Hardly the end of the world, but it was very handy.

VeraCrypt - Should probably be installed by default. Unless someone knows a good alternative to this.

qBittorrent - I use this simply because it offers an in-built search tool for all the major torrent sites. Ridiculously handy as well.

Strawberry - Serves as both an audio tagging tool and audio player for me. It seems some people are unhappy with this though... I dunno. I guess it could be replaced, but if so, then it needs to have both tagging tools and also be a good player as well.

SMPlayer/VLC - I agree that SMPlayer is superior to VLC in so many regards BUT... There is one thing. I think that if you want to play blu-rays, you will have to use VLC as you'll need the requisite keydb.cfg file to put into ~/.config/aacs. That being said though, I never tried to just simply install libaacs, put the keydb file in the aacs folder, and then just see if SMPlayer can play blu-rays. If I'm wrong about all this, please let me know. It would be awesome to be able to ditch VLC entirely.

KMahjongg - Take it out and put in chess. lol That said, I don't actually know what the best package for this would be. I should explore this.

MX Codec Installer - Weirdly missing from the default install? Are the proprietary codecs just now installed by default or... ?

GParted - Add this. I use this tool all the damn time.

[asqwerth]

@Arnox

DId your MX23-KDE not have Strawberry? What was the default media library manager you got?

[Arnox]

@Arnox

DId your MX23-KDE not have Strawberry? What was the default media library manager you got?

Hm? No, it did have it. I was saying I'd be open to it being replaced, but Strawberry seems to do a great job already for me personally, so the replacement would have to have feature parity.

[baldyeti]

i do not have much to add when it comes to apps included by default, I am sure the MX devs will make reasonable choices that can easily be adjusted to one's liking once installed anyway.

But i thought i'd share a good news i read this morning on the linux.debian.user.kde newsgroup. The debian KDE maintainers are planning to include plasma 6.3 (which should be released by mid-February) in sid/testing/trixie (before the freeze in mid-March).

[Adrian]

I would like a way for users to express their preferences, maybe we can run head to head polls for some of the choices, for music player, video player, photo manager... if somebody would organize that would be great.

[gimcrack]

I would like a way for users to express their preferences, maybe we can run head to head polls for some of the choices, for music player, video player, photo manager... if somebody would organize that would be great.

Everybody said there isn't a perfect Linux distro. The developers choose their defaults and are happy with them. I been using Linux for over 20 years and only distro I didn't changed their defaults was a Gentoo based distro call Sabayon. To me that was perfect at the time. I only used Sabayon for 6 months. One reason it was base on Gentoo, nothing else to say about that. Sabayon is a discontinue distro. When I start using a Linux distro my first time. I always settle with their default choices. Just to see if I like the them and their setup. If not I go to my go to applications and shuffle a few defaults to my favorite ones if the developer didn't choose them as defaults. To me every Linux distro is prefect after my touches if they need them. If your favorite application wasn't chosen as default, just changed it. Linux is all about preferences anyway. Make it your own. Favorite Music Player is moc(terminal) or Clementine. Favorite Video Player Mpv, VLC is second best. Favorite photo manager is only one for me and that is XnView.

[Arnox]

I would like a way for users to express their preferences, maybe we can run head to head polls for some of the choices, for music player, video player, photo manager... if somebody would organize that would be great.

Everybody said there isn't a perfect Linux distro. The developers choose their defaults and are happy with them. I been using Linux for over 20 years and only distro I didn't changed their defaults was a Gentoo based distro call Sabayon. To me that was perfect at the time. I only used Sabayon for 6 months. One reason it was base on Gentoo, nothing else to say about that. Sabayon is a discontinue distro. When I start using a Linux distro my first time. I always settle with their default choices. Just to see if I like the them and their setup. If not I go to my go to applications and shuffle a few defaults to my favorite ones if the developer didn't choose them as defaults. To me every Linux distro is prefect after my touches if they need them. If your favorite application wasn't chosen as default, just changed it. Linux is all about preferences anyway. Make it your own. Favorite Music Player is moc(terminal) or Clementine. Favorite Video Player Mpv, VLC is second best. Favorite photo manager is only one for me and that is XnView.

I think the big issue though is people new to Linux who don't know what the options are and they just use the defaults already installed to the distro, and then get a bad impression if the app, for whatever reason, fails to meet their needs.

[gimcrack]

I would like a way for users to express their preferences, maybe we can run head to head polls for some of the choices, for music player, video player, photo manager... if somebody would organize that would be great.

I think the big issue though is people new to Linux who don't know what the options are and they just use the defaults already installed to the distro, and then get a bad impression if the app, for whatever reason, fails to meet their needs.

Many don't even look into settings of their default applications. 9 out of 10, they have the correct application. Just that options isn't mark in the settings. Takes a second to look, plus many applications has third-party plugins to make the current default application even more awesome. Yes, beginner don't know this at first. But in time they will. I do encourage to distro hop to 5-10 distro's after you stick with the one you choose at least a month. So you can learn the pros and cons of things. Plus read everything about Linux old or current. At least current for the beginners. But look into the past after you're comfortable using Linux. That way you learn many different applications in time. Then you're going to know your favorites for sure. I think MX default applications are fine for a beginner.