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# of Distros, DEs, Respins, and Configurability

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Antediluvian wrote: Sun Jul 13, 2025 11:12 pm

thomasl wrote: Sun Jul 13, 2025 12:42 pm But my absolute , by several miles , is the frugal mode/persistence.

Can you please explain in more detail why you like (or use) a frugal install better than a regular installation. TIA.

Well, there are many . When I started with MX I had to dual-boot with existing installs of Windows 7. Frugal mode made it easy to install and test-drive MX Linux (then 18 IIRC) on top of my existing Windows setup and, more importantly, partition layout (ie no faffing around with resizing and creating new partitions). Just created the required frugal MX files (5 files altogether) on an NTFS partition, had a word with the boot manager and I was good to go. I developed and enhanced the system over time but I never saw the need for a full install. I am SysV init only and everything I want to run has always (and continues to) run perfectly fine.
Nowadays, I'm on MX23 and I don't dual-boot anymore and all ex-NTFS partitions are now ext4 but I still use frugal exclusively on the three PCs in use here. Backing up is trivial: just copy the 5 files I mentioned and that's it, the full system with all my stuff/configs is there. It's flexible as I can have more than one rootfs/homefs, ie for changes or experiments, so trying out new software is completely risk free. The way I have set up persistence means that even a can't kill my install. Simply reboot and magically everything comes back. And there's more, for instance booting my complete system from a USB stick or external SSD wherever I am (including the VMs for Windows 7 and Windows 10).

The downside is that frugal mode/persistence, because it's so enormously flexible and powerful, has a certain learning curve. Nothing too bad, mind, and with hindsight it all appears easy and straightforward but it took me a while to really understand how it works. See viewtopic.php?t=70627 for some of the gory details. I've always wanted to update these notes with new material but that thread has been closed (and given how it deteriorated I've not found the energy to create a new one).
Of course YMMV.

Re: Frugal

thomasl wrote: Mon Jul 14, 2025 12:07 pm it took me a while to really understand how it works. See viewtopic.php?t=70627 for some of the gory details.

You packed some great info into that thread!

The LACK of pettiness and useless point scoring in the forums.

1) The Community
2) Excellent Forum with much developer's involvement
3) All of MX Tools
4) The Manual is awesome
5) Great Default Choices

a beautifully elegant stable compkete system!

I'm using MX-Xfce (SysVinit boot) on my workstation, MX-plasma (systemd boot) on my laptop and MX-Fluxbox on my pendrive. Fortunately MX developers decision to offer these three DEs fits my need. And I really like the idea of dual init on my system. The MX Tools is another great feature that I like. And I also adore apt-notifier as the default update tool.

@thomasl
I'm curious to know how to setup dual boot Windows and frugal install of MX. Could you explain please?

travis82 wrote: Thu Jul 31, 2025 3:17 pmI'm curious to know how to setup dual boot Windows and frugal install of MX. Could you explain please?

Well... it's been a while I actually did this Basically, you'll need three files from a Live USB/ISO to get the process started: vmlinuz (the kernel), initrd.gz (bootstrap stuff) and linuxfs (the rest of the system). You copy these three files to a suitable directory accessible at boot time (fs type doesn't matter so could be NTFS or even exFAT, I assume). You then convince your boot manager to load kernel and initrd and with the right boot parameters the whole thing will boot, create the rootfs and/or homefs files and you're good to go. Simples.
There are two main areas of trouble. One is convincing the boot manager to boot the MX files. Depending on what you have currently installed this is can be anything between trivial and hard. Back then, when I did my first tests, I only had MBR-based systems but I already had a grub version installed on those PCs (used to multi-boot various Windows and PE environments) so it was not too difficult. UEFI tends to be easier than the MBR stuff (but easier doesn't necessarily mean easy).
The second problem is getting the boot parameters right, ie what sort of persistence, where to find the boot files etc. This, I am afraid, is a game of trial and error. But if you ever try that open another thread and someone (perhaps even I) can help. And don't forget to either save changes automatically in the persistence files or do that before rebooting.
Also check the persistence thread I mentioned in posting #12. See also #10. HTH.

I would describe MX-Linux as a beginner-friendly Debian due to its tools.
I also like the standard access to backports if a more up-to-date version of a program is needed.
MX Linux is also very performant compared to other distributions. I have never seen another operating system that boots up so quickly and is generally so responsive.

So many great things. MX is Debian stable polished to a gleaming gem.
And I value stability very highly, MX has it.

I echo many of the sentiments above, noteably:

-Markus85- yes the tools and the availability of the latest packages if you need them. And in most cases, if you make a case, and are not expecting instantanious results (though I have seen that !), you can request that an application be packaged on the forum, and you will probably get it ! And now all the other MX users can get it to.

-gimcrack
1) The Community - Yes, this community as transmitted through this forum, is the best Linux forum I have ever seen, posted on, or been a part of. Friendly, little ego and snark, just good people and true experts, that can with the MX tools, a live USB, can fix almost any problem !
2) Excellent Forum with much developer's involvement
3) All of MX Tools -Yes, the uip alone has saved so much time, I can test install, or try a new beta, and be back running with the preferred suite of packages so quickly.