New user

[BrianNStPaul]

Hello, I recently installed MX Linux on a bit older laptop and so far everything seems to be working well. My last experiences with Linux were around 2008-2010 and while I enjoyed the experience it didn't seem like the distros I tried were quite ready for full-time use. This time, everything from install to update to customization seems much better, and I am considering using Linux exclusively on my laptops and desktops at home. It's great that MX Linux "just works" even for a relatively inexperienced user, but I'm sure I could learn more and better utilize the system. With end-of-life approaching for our current platform and the upgrade path looking difficult and/or unreasonable I would appreciate any insight or advice on transitioning to using Linux for full-time use. Excluding the basics ( email, browser, "office" apps ) my partner and I are mostly concerned with the following:
Basic desktop publishing - creation and printing of greeting cards etc
Fairly low-demand gaming, mostly from Steam
Music/video library management, converting legacy media to digital
Please let me know if there are any steps we should take beyond making backups to prepare moving forward with Linux. System information for this computer is listed below, in case I missed anything obvious in setup and installation.

Thanks!

Code: Select all

System:
  Kernel: 6.1.0-37-amd64 [6.1.140-1] arch: x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 12.2.0
    parameters: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-6.1.0-37-amd64 root=UUID=<filter> ro quiet splash
  Desktop: Xfce v: 4.20.0 tk: Gtk v: 3.24.38 info: xfce4-panel wm: xfwm v: 4.20.0 vt: 7
    dm: LightDM v: 1.32.0 Distro: MX-23.6_x64 Libretto April 13  2025 base: Debian GNU/Linux 12
    (bookworm)
Machine:
  Type: Laptop System: Hewlett-Packard product: HP EliteBook 8470w v: A1029D1103
    serial: <superuser required> Chassis: type: 10 serial: <superuser required>
  Mobo: Hewlett-Packard model: 179B v: KBC Version 42.35 serial: <superuser required>
    BIOS: Hewlett-Packard v: 68ICF Ver. F.42 date: 05/20/2013
Battery:
  ID-1: BAT0 charge: 31.8 Wh (75.4%) condition: 42.2/42.2 Wh (100.0%) volts: 11.1 min: 11.1
    model: Hewlett-Packard Primary type: Li-ion serial: <filter> status: discharging
CPU:
  Info: model: Intel Core i5-3360M bits: 64 type: MT MCP arch: Ivy Bridge gen: core 3 level: v2
    built: 2012-15 process: Intel 22nm family: 6 model-id: 0x3A (58) stepping: 9 microcode: 0x21
  Topology: cpus: 1x cores: 2 tpc: 2 threads: 4 smt: enabled cache: L1: 128 KiB
    desc: d-2x32 KiB; i-2x32 KiB L2: 512 KiB desc: 2x256 KiB L3: 3 MiB desc: 1x3 MiB
  Speed (MHz): avg: 1673 high: 2834 min/max: 1200/3500 scaling: driver: intel_cpufreq
    governor: ondemand cores: 1: 2834 2: 1200 3: 1200 4: 1459 bogomips: 22350
  Flags: avx ht lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3
  Vulnerabilities:
  Type: gather_data_sampling status: Not affected
  Type: indirect_target_selection status: Not affected
  Type: itlb_multihit status: KVM: VMX unsupported
  Type: l1tf mitigation: PTE Inversion
  Type: mds mitigation: Clear CPU buffers; SMT vulnerable
  Type: meltdown mitigation: PTI
  Type: mmio_stale_data status: Unknown: No mitigations
  Type: reg_file_data_sampling status: Not affected
  Type: retbleed status: Not affected
  Type: spec_rstack_overflow status: Not affected
  Type: spec_store_bypass mitigation: Speculative Store Bypass disabled via prctl
  Type: spectre_v1 mitigation: usercopy/swapgs barriers and __user pointer sanitization
  Type: spectre_v2 mitigation: Retpolines; IBPB: conditional; IBRS_FW; STIBP: conditional; RSB
    filling; PBRSB-eIBRS: Not affected; BHI: Not affected
  Type: srbds status: Vulnerable: No microcode
  Type: tsx_async_abort status: Not affected
Graphics:
  Device-1: AMD Thames [Radeon HD 7550M/7570M/7650M] vendor: Hewlett-Packard driver: radeon
    v: kernel alternate: amdgpu arch: TeraScale-2 code: Evergreen process: TSMC 32-40nm
    built: 2009-15 pcie: gen: 2 speed: 5 GT/s lanes: 16 ports: active: LVDS-1
    empty: DP-1, DP-2, DP-3, VGA-1 bus-ID: 01:00.0 chip-ID: 1002:6841 class-ID: 0300 temp: 52.0 C
  Device-2: Sunplus Innovation HP HD Webcam [Fixed] type: USB driver: uvcvideo bus-ID: 1-1.3:4
    chip-ID: 1bcf:2c03 class-ID: 0e02
  Display: x11 server: X.Org v: 1.21.1.7 compositor: xfwm v: 4.20.0 driver: X: loaded: radeon
    unloaded: fbdev,modesetting,vesa dri: r600 gpu: radeon display-ID: :0.0 screens: 1
  Screen-1: 0 s-res: 1366x768 s-dpi: 96 s-size: 362x204mm (14.25x8.03") s-diag: 416mm (16.36")
  Monitor-1: LVDS-1 mapped: LVDS model: AU Optronics 0x313c built: 2011 res: 1366x768 hz: 60
    dpi: 112 gamma: 1.2 size: 309x173mm (12.17x6.81") diag: 354mm (13.9") ratio: 16:9 modes:
    max: 1366x768 min: 640x480
  API: OpenGL v: 4.5 Mesa 22.3.6 renderer: AMD TURKS (DRM 2.50.0 / 6.1.0-37-amd64 LLVM 15.0.6)
    direct-render: Yes
Audio:
  Device-1: Intel 7 Series/C216 Family High Definition Audio vendor: Hewlett-Packard 7
    driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus-ID: 00:1b.0 chip-ID: 8086:1e20 class-ID: 0403
  Device-2: AMD Turks HDMI Audio [Radeon HD 6500/6600 / 6700M Series] vendor: Hewlett-Packard
    driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel pcie: gen: 2 speed: 5 GT/s lanes: 16 bus-ID: 01:00.1
    chip-ID: 1002:aa90 class-ID: 0403
  API: ALSA v: k6.1.0-37-amd64 status: kernel-api tools: alsamixer,amixer
  Server-1: PipeWire v: 1.0.0 status: active with: 1: pipewire-pulse status: active
    2: wireplumber status: active 3: pipewire-alsa type: plugin 4: pw-jack type: plugin
    tools: pactl,pw-cat,pw-cli,wpctl
Network:
  Device-1: Intel 82579LM Gigabit Network vendor: Hewlett-Packard driver: e1000e v: kernel
    port: 5020 bus-ID: 00:19.0 chip-ID: 8086:1502 class-ID: 0200
  IF: eth0 state: down mac: <filter>
  Device-2: Intel Centrino Ultimate-N 6300 driver: iwlwifi v: kernel modules: wl pcie: gen: 1
    speed: 2.5 GT/s lanes: 1 bus-ID: 25:00.0 chip-ID: 8086:422b class-ID: 0280
  IF: wlan0 state: up mac: <filter>
Bluetooth:
  Device-1: Broadcom HP Portable SoftSailing type: USB driver: btusb v: 0.8 bus-ID: 2-1.6:3
    chip-ID: 0a5c:21e1 class-ID: fe01 serial: <filter>
  Report: hciconfig ID: hci0 rfk-id: 1 state: up address: <filter> bt-v: 2.1 lmp-v: 4.0
    sub-v: 220e hci-v: 4.0 rev: 1000
  Info: acl-mtu: 1021:8 sco-mtu: 64:1 link-policy: rswitch sniff link-mode: peripheral accept
    service-classes: rendering, capturing, object transfer, audio, telephony
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 465.76 GiB used: 12.31 GiB (2.6%)
  SMART Message: Unable to run smartctl. Root privileges required.
  ID-1: /dev/sda maj-min: 8:0 vendor: Western Digital model: WD5000BPKT-60PK4T0 size: 465.76 GiB
    block-size: physical: 4096 B logical: 512 B speed: 3.0 Gb/s type: HDD rpm: 7200 serial: <filter>
    rev: 1A01 scheme: MBR
Partition:
  ID-1: / raw-size: 465.76 GiB size: 457.38 GiB (98.20%) used: 12.31 GiB (2.7%) fs: ext4
    dev: /dev/sda1 maj-min: 8:1
Swap:
  Kernel: swappiness: 15 (default 60) cache-pressure: 100 (default)
  ID-1: swap-1 type: file size: 2 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) priority: -2 file: /swap/swap
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 56.0 C mobo: N/A gpu: radeon temp: 52.0 C
  Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A
Repos:
  Packages: pm: dpkg pkgs: 2150 libs: 1074 tools: apt,apt-get,aptitude,nala,synaptic pm: rpm
    pkgs: 0 pm: flatpak pkgs: 0
  No active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian-stable-updates.list
    1: deb http://deb.debian.org/debian bookworm-updates main contrib non-free non-free-firmware
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian.list
    1: deb http://deb.debian.org/debian bookworm main contrib non-free non-free-firmware
    2: deb http://security.debian.org/debian-security bookworm-security main contrib non-free non-free-firmware
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mx.list
    1: deb http://mirror.math.princeton.edu/pub/mxlinux/mx/repo/ bookworm main non-free
Info:
  Processes: 236 Uptime: 25m wakeups: 2 Memory: 3.76 GiB used: 1.87 GiB (49.8%) Init: SysVinit
  v: 3.06 runlevel: 5 default: graphical tool: systemctl Compilers: gcc: 12.2.0 alt: 12
  Client: shell wrapper v: 5.2.15-release inxi: 3.3.26
Boot Mode: BIOS (legacy, CSM, MBR)

[CharlesV]

Welcome in!

I would suggest check out the MX guide if you have not already. And I would also suggest to setup timeshift for the system backup / restore. ( it does not back up your data in your home folders, but it does do system backup and is 'kind of like windows restore point'.

I normally suggest a daily backup, and personally I do both that as well as a timeshift snapshot before an update - just to be safe.

Scribus is an amazing desktop publishing system. It does quite a bit more too, but it is pretty awesome.

I use Audacity for my recording of music,
KDenlive is the best video editor / creator I have found ( Windows OR Linux )
And Inkscape is a very nice Vector editor.

I am sure there a few more things you will find as well :-)

[asqwerth]

I don't do desktop publishing, but I would assume a relevant question is whether you wish to bring over template/data files from your current DTP program. If that is a proprietary program, you will need to check whether the devs of that program have a Linux version of that program, or whether there are any other programs available in the Linux world that can read those template/data files.

Probably best to do some research, or ask that as a separate question in this forum.

[Mauser]

Welcome to MX Linux.