MX Linux Forum

I looked at a couple blog posts enumerating the amount of downloads MX gets per week. Honestly, although it's not Ubuntu numbers probably, it still seems to be an awful lot. Are we underestimating just how many people use MX?

There is a distrowatch topic on this with about 60 pages. Might be a good start.

Eadwine Rose wrote: Mon May 12, 2025 5:45 pm There is a distrowatch topic on this with about 60 pages. Might be a good start.

I'm assuming this is the thread you're referring to? If so, that's a lot more about Distrowatch reviews than anything. Most of the posts in there are also 3+ years old. I still think MX is indeed more popular than we think.

How popular do "we" think it is?

The only metric we have available to us is from the primary Sourceforge Servers on the number of downloads per month. There are MX mirrors around the globe that mirror the main servers content and many use their local mirrors to obtain their copies of MX Linux, plus we have PTP sharing which is private data only available to the hosting machine.

More on why we can never know the number of users;

• The first being Browser fingerprints are not unique to MX Linux. A browser running on MX Linux can appear identical to one on Debian, Ubuntu, or even Windows if customized. Most MX Linux users use Firefox, which suppresses fingerprinting (e.g., privacy.resistFingerprinting). The user agent string often only shows "Linux x86_64" and does not specify "MX Linux."

• Snapshots and respins abound due to the simplicity with which they are made and distributed.

• A single download might be used to install from 1 to 100 or more machines and it may never become an installed product.

The long ans short of it is, we simply do not know and neither can we ever know.

Adrian wrote: Mon May 12, 2025 8:58 pm How popular do "we" think it is?

We as in the MX community in general.

I, of course, don't know what everyone thinks for this and am making generalizations, but I was personally getting the impression that the MX community think MX Linux is some really niche distribution in reality.

The download count SourceForge gives us right now seems even more impressive too considering the downloads should be at the low end due simply to the fact that we are months away to the release of Debian 13.x.

Arnox wrote: Mon May 12, 2025 10:32 pm The download count SourceForge gives us right now seems even more impressive too considering the downloads should be at the low end due simply to the fact that we are months away to the release of Debian 13.x.

This statement ignores the fact that general support for Windows 10 is ending in five months. Hardware minimum requirements for migrating make this a bigger deal than previous Microsoft software end-of-life deadlines. Most Windows users looking to migrate to another OS won't know the Debian release schedule and are very unlikely to do that homework before making the switch. In short, people installing MX for the first time right now don't know about Trixie or why its forthcoming availability will affect the current release of MX.

We'll never know.

Some people who download mx to try may not stay with it. Others may continue to use it but never bother with the forum (or mention it on other sites) because they find it easy to maintain.

And the download numbers will certainly be 'niche' level when you compare with the major distros.

Not really an issue I think a lot about.

DukeComposed wrote: Mon May 12, 2025 11:03 pm

Arnox wrote: Mon May 12, 2025 10:32 pm The download count SourceForge gives us right now seems even more impressive too considering the downloads should be at the low end due simply to the fact that we are months away to the release of Debian 13.x.

This statement ignores the fact that general support for Windows 10 is ending in five months. Hardware minimum requirements for migrating make this a bigger deal than previous Microsoft software end-of-life deadlines. Most Windows users looking to migrate to another OS won't know the Debian release schedule and are very unlikely to do that homework before making the switch. In short, people installing MX for the first time right now don't know about Trixie or why its forthcoming availability will affect the current release of MX.

Even with that, who says people looking to migrate off Windows 10 are going to pick MX as their first choice or even their second choice? I mean, I HOPE it's their first choice. lol But regardless, my point is simply that how much that affects the downloads is not known whatsoever. Could be a lot. Could be very little. But we do know certain things for sure such as Debian 13 coming out. And even if we did say that downloads for MX are boosted a lot by migrating Windows 10 users, it's still impressive to me at least that we have so many people that have both heard of us and are willing to give MX a chance.

asqwerth wrote: Mon May 12, 2025 11:23 pm We'll never know.

Some people who download mx to try may not stay with it. Others may continue to use it but never bother with the forum because they find it easy to maintain.

And the download numbers will certainly be 'niche' level when you compare with the major distros.

Not really an issue I think a lot about.

Does any of this really matter? Well, perhaps not, though like any MX fan, I want this distro to be recognized because a lot of time, talent, and effort went into, and still goes into it, and this distro has strengths in whole that many distros only have in part or not at all.

1. it's not that important, we don't get paid by the number of people who use MX, if anything it takes more time to support different needs and requests. Donations are plenty as is for what we need: servers, domain names, etc, but we are all volunteers and anyway the community would not afford to pay the salary of any of us.
2. If it's important is if increase in popularity attracts more contributors, but if MX is popular then maybe it's a pity that it doesn't really show in the number of contributors.
3. it's subjective, what is "niche" what is "popular"? We see hundreds of thousands of downloads per release, but Ubuntu and the rest probably beat us by an order of magnitude. So yes, in that respect we are niche.

Rest assured though, you don't really need to promote MX, we don't suffer from lack of fame, most of us we do what we do because we enjoy it and more fame would not serve us any better, it would probably attract more trolls.

Following on from what Adrian says, I agree that more people volunteering to help in different areas, eg packaging, development, artwork and theming etc would be helpful.

A few years ago, I was the only one in German-speaking Linux forums (distribution-independent) recommending MX for beginners/Windows switchers. That has changed since then.
Still in the minority, but no longer invisible.

Am I correct in thinking that the number of MX Linux users could not be estimated from repository updates?

AltTabDelete wrote: Thu May 29, 2025 2:46 pm Am I correct in thinking that the number of MX Linux users could not be estimated from repository updates?

Yes, because many of us have multiple computers.

wdscharff wrote: Tue May 13, 2025 1:58 am A few years ago, I was the only one in German-speaking Linux forums (distribution-independent) recommending MX for beginners/Windows switchers. That has changed since then.
Still in the minority, but no longer invisible.

I've wondered about the number of German (or German speaking) users we have, simply based on the large number of posts we have in the German thread. Could they all just be fans of Rose?

uncle mark wrote: Thu May 29, 2025 3:49 pm I've wondered about the number of German (or German speaking) users we have, simply based on the large number of posts we have in the German thread. Could they all just be fans of Rose?

Why, are Germans fans of Dutch people?

Where sports are concerned, definitely not!

I personally have yet to compete against a German in the para-sport I participate in, but you bet when playing against a German my brain goes GAME ON.


And it has nothing to do with the war, mind you. It has everything to do with 1974.

The Germans are coming. Please be ready for them.

This is from the Danish news about a small part of Germany:

A total of 60,000 employees in the administration, the police and teachers in schools will have to move away from the software of the tech giants and use open source programs.
As early as September this year, employees in the state administration are expected to have uninstalled Microsoft Office and replaced it with LibreOffice. The same will apply to the email systems. Later, other IT systems will be replaced, and even the state's telephone system will be converted to open source.

--

In my opinion, if you run a distro, it is not so much a question about if you want more users or not. In respect for the OS Linux I consider it to be an obligation to wish for more users and to treat them well.
How many demands you want or don't want to supply is another matter but in order to calibrate the expectations it can be important to be honest about it already at the front door.

You might have to change the forum front page soon or all headlines will be in German. ;-)

Heh. Sure.

AltTabDelete wrote: Thu May 29, 2025 2:46 pm Am I correct in thinking that the number of MX Linux users could not be estimated from repository updates?

Apart from users having multiple computers (raises hand) and wildly different intervals at which different users check for updates, there are only four URLs out of the 104 on our list of mirrors that we could get those update numbers from - the rest are third-party mirrors - so we don't bother.