MX-14 Review

[lucky9]

Everyone comes to the table with a history. Some are more varied than others. The 'comfort zone' that each reviewer has is different. For the most part I'd agree that mentioning Wallpaper as a major thing, good or bad, is not productive use of time typing. But it is a big part of the first impression. Just not important in the long run.

Just ask Microsoft about changing the Interface around if you think this is not important. That said I like the setup as it ships. My little 1024x600 Netbook display is more usable with the default MX14 Desktop. So I didn't even twitch at where things were located.

As for the Meta-Installer, I had to hunt for it myself and I knew it was in there. Perhaps in the next version it could have an Icon on the Desktop? Something more prominent? Perhaps a spot at the top of the main menu.

I had to hunt for some things in the menu structure. That is probably more to do with me than with where they are. But I mention it in case someone else has the same problem. I found myself having to find things more than once. That is certainly a problem with my ability to assimilate a different Interface rather than the Interface itself. I'm just a KDE User that branches out on occasion. But it does show that it's going to be mentioned. So it shouldn't be a surprise nor should it cause concern. Just a fact.

Fitting it on a CD should be more prominent as a feature. Any review that doesn't make that a big feature of MX14 isn't really 'getting it'.

And remember, there is no such thing as bad publicity! Just bad product. And MX14 is not bad product.

[arjaybe]

I liked the review, it was good enough that I managed to get around my pet peeve, reviewers who comment about wallpapers... In my opinion if the wallpaper is not a goatse or something similar doesn't have to be brought into discussion.

And I share his opinion about MX performance, I've been exclusively using MX-14 at work and home and it flies, before MX I had Arch with KDE and my computers were starting to run out of memory and thrash, the situation got so bad that I was thinking about replacing computers (my work computer for example cannot do more than 4GB). I still like KDE and I'm not sure if KDE was the main cause of my computers running out of memory but Xfce works perfectly for what I need and MX uses a sliver of memory compared to my previous OS.

I'm running MX with KDE-standard installed. It's been open for three hours today. I'm using Firefox, which currently has seven tabs open. It has had as many as twenty open as I've visited over fifty sites so far today. I also have LibreOffice open with a document being written. My current RAM usage is about 500MB. With this efficiency, I don't need to stop using KDE. I'm sure the RAM usage would be less with XFCE, but I don't see it as a problem that needs solving.

As for the review, I thought it was good, which is better than bad.-)

[Adrian]

Chrome eats much more memory thank Firefox because each tab uses its own process and because I have a lot of extensions. Still I was using Chrome before and I'm using it now on MX before it was thrashing and now it's peachy :) Regardless what was causing my previous the current MX system works great and I was nice to see that confirmed with numbers in the review.

[uncle mark]

I had to hunt for some things in the menu structure. That is probably more to do with me than with where they are. But I mention it in case someone else has the same problem. I found myself having to find things more than once. That is certainly a problem with my ability to assimilate a different Interface rather than the Interface itself. I'm just a KDE User that branches out on occasion. But it does show that it's going to be mentioned. So it shouldn't be a surprise nor should it cause concern. Just a fact.

Once I realized how the search bar in the Whisker menu worked, my problem finding stuff went away. (And dare I say it, in Windows 7 the search function in the menu works great as well.) It's just not something a lot of us are used to using. Of course, in either case, you need to at least have some idea what you're looking for.

[Jerry3904]

Once I realized how the search bar in the Whisker menu worked, my problem finding stuff went away.

I almost never go through the menu structure any more...that incremental search field is very fast, usually with the first two letters I am done.

[uncle mark]

Once I realized how the search bar in the Whisker menu worked, my problem finding stuff went away.

I almost never go through the menu structure any more...that incremental search field is very fast, usually with the first two letters I am done.

Exactly. Once you realize it's there and use it a time or two you'll probably never feel the need to drill down through a menu tree again.

[dolphin_oracle]

Once I realized how the search bar in the Whisker menu worked, my problem finding stuff went away. (And dare I say it, in Windows 7 the search function in the menu works great as well.) It's just not something a lot of us are used to using. Of course, in either case, you need to at least have some idea what you're looking for.

I like the win7 setup of hitting the "windows" key to get the menu (something icewm does in antix by default as well) so I set up my whisker menu to pop up when I hit the "windows" keys, goes right to the search bar, no mouse, no fuss.

There is something about the whisker men that makes it strange to navigate though. the categories are on the right, which to me is a little weird for browsing, but the search is awesome. more than makes up for category placement.

[richb]

Once I realized how the search bar in the Whisker menu worked, my problem finding stuff went away. (And dare I say it, in Windows 7 the search function in the menu works great as well.) It's just not something a lot of us are used to using. Of course, in either case, you need to at least have some idea what you're looking for.

I like the win7 setup of hitting the "windows" key to get the menu (something icewm does in antix by default as well) so I set up my whisker menu to pop up when I hit the "windows" keys, goes right to the search bar, no mouse, no fuss.

There is something about the whisker men that makes it strange to navigate though. the categories are on the right, which to me is a little weird for browsing, but the search is awesome. more than makes up for category placement.

I got that Window key tip from one of your videos, and immediately enabled it. I agree the category arrangement is weird in the whisker menu. But as others have said that search field is awesome.

[Jerry3904]

There is something about the whisker men that makes it strange to navigate though. the categories are on the right, which to me is a little weird for browsing, but the search is awesome. more than makes up for category placement.

I emailed the developer about that when we were starting and got a great response:

> Hi --
>
> I am leading a small team to produce an Xfce version of Mepis Linux 12
> (in development), which is based on Debian Stable with packagers who
> routinely backport applications to keep users current. I would like to
> use your excellent Whisker Menu, but only if the menu can have
> categories on the left and entries on the right--the standard reading
> order in the West?
>
> We currently have Xfce 4.8 on our test machine, and at least there the
> order depends on which side of the panel I place the launcher. If the
> launcher is on the left side, then the entries are on the left and the
> categories on the right. If the launcher is on the right side, the
> order is reversed. Is there a way to force, or trick, Whisker Menu into
> producing a "categories left-entries right" order when the launcher is
> on the left side?
>
> Thanks very much.
>
> Jerry

Hi,

Whisker Menu was designed with the intent of having the favorites always
be close to the mouse cursor when the menu is opened. Because of that
design decision I did not add any way to override it and have the
categories on the left. However, this is a very common feature request
so I am considering adding it for the 1.4 series (the 1.3 feature branch
is already in string freeze, and I hope to make a release by the end of
the month).

Cheers,
Graeme Gott

[Adrian]

I actually like to have the favorites on the left. But I'm not opposed to having options.