MX Linux Forum

Saw the link on Distrowatch this morning and read the review. Why are folks so enamored with Plymouth? Other than the author's personal tastes, the system received outstanding marks...

http://mylinuxexplore.blogspot.com/2014 ... truly.html

Thanks. People will continue to miss the effect of the size limitation, so want to see GIMP, Firefox, whatever.

That chart at the bottom is very impressive--congrats to anti and his crew!

I have created a Reviews page linked off the MX home page, though Peregrine may want to format my basic approach differently...

Personally, not including GIMP is a plus for me as I have never used it, probably never will. I like a distro that includes a relatively small set of applications which lets the end user set it up to their liking, the basics are fine for me.

Bottom line - to produce a full featured distro that fits on a CD and includes the full LibreOffice suite is quite an accomplishment.

Many folks will complain about the no splash screen. Perhaps a tab on the MX-14 docs on installing and configuring Plymouth would be nice? Maybe even a nifty MX-14 Plymouth theme just using the default wallpaper and a status bar?

Many folks will complain about the no splash screen. Perhaps a tab on the MX-14 docs on installing and configuring Plymouth would be nice? Maybe even a nifty MX-14 Plymouth theme just using the default wallpaper and a status bar?

People have been looking at that, but I don't believe we're ready to let it out into the wild. Could be wrong...

A boot splash is only seen briefly (all being well) - text is fine with me.

dyfi wrote:A boot splash is only seen briefly (all being well) - text is fine with me.

I'm OK with that as well but look at the big deal the reviewer made of it - one of the few negative comments in the review...

As with the "sale" of any product, very often the sizzle sells it. Or at least brings people in to take a longer look. In my opinion MX-14 looks great. But others do look for that sizzle.

Regardless of the reviewers issues with aesthetics, (his aesthetics), this was a very positive first review. Encouraging.

Better than most reviews, they usually talk only about the wallpaper. This reviewer only used one third of his blog to show what he preferred when it comes to art work.
And Plymouth should probably prolong the booting time, can't see why he wants it. Scrolling text is beautiful and fast.
Henry

I actually like the wallpaper and that's rare for me - it's generally the first thing I change. I always load the murrine and xfwm4 themes and I use the silverado window border with one of the light murrine themes...

It was a good review. I wish he had tried the metapackage-installer. He listed it in included apps, but he didn't try it, instead going for the "PPA" route, showing his ubuntu roots.

But that niddling. Good review really.

dolphin_oracle wrote:It was a good review. I wish he had tried the metapackage-installer. He listed it in included apps, but he didn't try it, instead going for the "PPA" route, showing his ubuntu roots.

But that niddling. Good review really.

I was glad he didn't bork the install, since you use Ubuntu PPA's at your risk. Precompiled binaries like Skype are safer, though. He also didn't test the CR Wine, which IMO is one of the distinguishing features vs. the other distros, but that's OK. Overall a good and fair review, aesthetics aside, but he did mention that they could be easily changed.

Good review. Earlier, someone else mentioned to me that he was less than impressed with the design, aesthetics, whatever, but that sort of thing is a non-issue for me. Used to be a complaint about Mepis, too, as I recall. You can't please everyone.

I really liked this part:

In overall, I am very impressed with MX-14 and is using it right now as my main operating system. antiX has surely come up with a gem which is truly special. I recommend it to all Linux enthusiasts to try it out - just like me you may fall in love with it!

I do miss my steam punk splash.

The reviewer added info on the metapackage-installer.

Thanks for adding a comment to his review that made him do it...

<still on this>
One thing I totally don't get: how could the personal preference of where the Start icon is located be characterized as "a major issue"?

I have everything I need for economical production use grouped in the lower left corner, with as set of common applications on a small panel that auto-hides so I don't have to look at it until I need it. See attached image of lower left quadrant of screen.

That's why I don't put much stock in any sort of "review" of this sort. This guy blogs about Linux. Whooppee. When Susan Litton or Jessee Smith take a look at it, that's when people sit up and take notice. Those two (and others like them) can have a strong influence, good or bad. Hopefully they'll do it soon, before the *buntu tsunami hits.

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.

The memory usage was surprising to me. With Google Chrome running and 3 sites open, it manages to stay below 1 Gig. On my KDE install, with same sites it gets to about 3 Gig.

I'll be Polly Anna here. I admit the start icon placement issue was a bit of a head scratcher but I think it was still a GREAT REVIEW. The review was extremely favorable. The images and the look of the review are great. The tables comparing boot times and RAM use were just awesome. AFAIK, the reviewer did more research into that than we did.

Just like no distro will ever be perfect, no review is going to be perfect. Nonetheless, even though it was not perfect, this review was one of the best I've seen. Honestly.

IMO it serves no useful purpose to publicly nit-pick an extremely favorable review. Reminds my of something about "buying ink in barrels".

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.

Adrian wrote: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.-)

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.

lucky9 wrote: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.

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.

Jerry3904 wrote:

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.

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.

dolphin_oracle wrote:

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.

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

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

The search feature is also standard with the Plasma/Kickoff application launcher in MEPIS, but only with the default menu style. Since MEPIS ships with the classic menu style, and many here prefer that style and stick with it, they may not have noticed the search feature exists.

joany wrote:The search feature is also standard with the Plasma/Kickoff application launcher in MEPIS, but only with the default menu style. Since MEPIS ships with the classic menu style, and many here prefer that style and stick with it, they may not have noticed the search feature exists.

I do not remember, does it work the same way? That is, if you hit the first letter and then the second it recognizes both. As opposed to some search fields that only use the first letter. So, if you are looking for meta installer in MX you get first all the apps starting with m than all starting wit me. The other if you type m you get all apps starting with m, then if you type e you get all starting with e. As I say I do not recall how it works in KDE.

richb wrote: I do not remember, does it work the same way? That is, if you hit the first letter and then the second it recognizes both. As opposed to some search fields that only use the first letter. So, if you are looking for meta installer in MX you get first all the apps starting with m than all starting wit me. The other if you type m you get all apps starting with m, then if you type e you get all starting with e. As I say I do not recall how it works in KDE.

No, it works the same as Whisker. At least in KDE 4.8.4 it does.

joany wrote:The search feature is also standard with the Plasma/Kickoff application launcher in MEPIS, but only with the default menu style. Since MEPIS ships with the classic menu style, and many here prefer that style and stick with it, they may not have noticed the search feature exists.

I wouldn't have known that, as the very first thing I do on a KDE install is switch to Classic Menu.

In my case, I have the Recently Used listing enabled in Kmenu and set to show the last 10, so that covers me about 95% of the time.

I'm a child of the mouse. Search requires me to use the keyboard for something besides writing text or entering Command Line entries. I assume I'll get used to the menu system. I'm certainly not going to change my work flow and habits to use search for a program available in the menu.

lucky9 wrote:I'm a child of the mouse. Search requires me to use the keyboard for something besides writing text or entering Command Line entries. I assume I'll get used to the menu system. I'm certainly not going to change my work flow and habits to use search for a program available in the menu.

Me too but when I don't know whether what I want is in Settings, System or Accessories, 10 mouse clicks before I find it is unacceptable. With the search field it is one click, one keystroke or two and I have it. To me that was worth changing my habits.

richb wrote:

lucky9 wrote:I'm a child of the mouse. Search requires me to use the keyboard for something besides writing text or entering Command Line entries. I assume I'll get used to the menu system. I'm certainly not going to change my work flow and habits to use search for a program available in the menu.

Me too but when I don't know whether what I want is in Settings, System or Accessories, 10 mouse clicks before I find it is unacceptable. With the search field it is one click, one keystroke or two and I have it. To me that was worth changing my habits.

I don't know, my menu changes without clicking... I need only one click to open Whisker then hover with the mouse on the category and then at most use the scroll wheel and then finally click to open the app. So, it's 2 mouse clicks, I don't know how you can reduce that to less...

Adrian wrote:

richb wrote:

lucky9 wrote:I'm a child of the mouse. Search requires me to use the keyboard for something besides writing text or entering Command Line entries. I assume I'll get used to the menu system. I'm certainly not going to change my work flow and habits to use search for a program available in the menu.

Me too but when I don't know whether what I want is in Settings, System or Accessories, 10 mouse clicks before I find it is unacceptable. With the search field it is one click, one keystroke or two and I have it. To me that was worth changing my habits.

I don't know, my menu changes without clicking... I need only one click to open Whisker then hover with the mouse on the category and then at most use the scroll wheel and then finally click to open the app. So, it's 2 mouse clicks, I don't know how you can reduce that to less...

Ok, so it is mouse moving back and forth. Sometimes several times when I miss it in the menu. I still maintain the search field is more efficient. But not worth "arguing" about.

dolphin_oracle wrote: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.

I did this quite early and also found it a good option, particularly combined with the search box. I removed the setup later - it screwed up my way of working in VBox XP, where the whisker menu isn't very useful.

I'm curious as to how MX 14 ends up using less RAM then every other XFCE desktop that reviewer tested. We didn't use any magic pixie dust when compiling the desktop. I can see we have a newer kernel than those other distros, maybe that's it, but it's amazing how some of them use 2.5 times as much to just run the desktop. I don't believe MX is running any fewer services at startup than the others, and our compiler supposedly doesn't have the optimization features that gcc 4.8 advertises.

Stevo wrote:I'm curious as to how MX 14 ends up using less RAM then every other XFCE desktop that reviewer tested. We didn't use any magic pixie dust when compiling the desktop. I can see we have a newer kernel than those other distros, maybe that's it, but it's amazing how some of them use 2.5 times as much to just run the desktop. I don't believe MX is running any fewer services at startup than the others, and our compiler supposedly doesn't have the optimization features that gcc 4.8 advertises.

I wonder about this too, did he compare against 64bit distros? I don't think that would completely explain the difference... would it?

Stevo wrote:I'm curious as to how MX 14 ends up using less RAM then every other XFCE desktop that reviewer tested.

Blood, sweat, and tears. For years, we've been sweating the small stuff to keep antiX as small and as fast as possible. Most of that carried over to MX-14.

For example, last night I figured out how to save about 3 Meg of RAM on the Live system. I also measured the extra RAM usage if we add background console images (splash). At 1024x768 it costs 4 Meg and at 1280x1024 it costs 5 Meg. Of course there are probably ways to do it that consume more RAM but that is as small as I could get it (so far). We fight for every Meg we can get. We fight the same way to keep the boot fast and to keep the size of the .iso small. Where ever possible, we'll fight dirty. Usually it just involves making lots of measurements and trying lots of different things. I might be in contention for the world's record for the most number of times booting VirtualBox. I wore out a computer because I booted it so much.

BitJam wrote:

Stevo wrote:I'm curious as to how MX 14 ends up using less RAM then every other XFCE desktop that reviewer tested.

Blood, sweat, and tears. For years, we've been sweating the small stuff to keep antiX as small and as fast as possible. Most of that carried over to MX-14.

And then we spoil it by adding things! I can't get my desktop below 300MB (180MB on the netbook). With my minimum Firefox, Thunderbird, Dolphin & KMyMoney running, the desktop uses about 650 MB. I'm not complaining - that's only 7%.

@Gaer Boy,
Yes. You have the freedom to add those things and still have a small footprint
because of the effort expended to keep the basics to a minimum.

I used Mepis running IceWM until they changed to Ubuntu, then I strayed.
Tried to use antiX over the years but had problems installing on my hardware
and couldn't get used to IceWM after discovering Xfce4. :)

...and now, MX-14 offers, to me, the best of both, with Xfce4.

Gaer Boy wrote: And then we spoil it by adding things! I can't get my desktop below 300MB (180MB on the netbook). With my minimum Firefox, Thunderbird, Dolphin & KMyMoney running, the desktop uses about 650 MB. I'm not complaining - that's only 7%.

I wouldn't say we spoil it. It's wonderful that AntiX and MX-14 are small OOTB. But why sweat it if you have lots of memory to play with?

Gaer Boy wrote:

BitJam wrote:

Stevo wrote:I'm curious as to how MX 14 ends up using less RAM then every other XFCE desktop that reviewer tested.

Blood, sweat, and tears. For years, we've been sweating the small stuff to keep antiX as small and as fast as possible. Most of that carried over to MX-14.

And then we spoil it by adding things! I can't get my desktop below 300MB (180MB on the netbook). With my minimum Firefox, Thunderbird, Dolphin & KMyMoney running, the desktop uses about 650 MB. I'm not complaining - that's only 7%.

But that's the key, at least the way I see it. Start with a gold-plated, fast, nimble, and very capable core that stands tall on its own without any cruft or useless gingerbread. That's MX. Then the user can build whatever he/she wants on top of that according to choices made and resources available. It's a win/win.

BitJam wrote:

Stevo wrote:I'm curious as to how MX 14 ends up using less RAM then every other XFCE desktop that reviewer tested.

Blood, sweat, and tears. For years, we've been sweating the small stuff to keep antiX as small and as fast as possible. Most of that carried over to MX-14.

Based on my time trying to fit code written in Assembly into very small spaces, I suspect you enjoy the challenge.

When I started coding in the mid-80s, every byte was precious as some folks didn't even have a hard drive. Writing in assembler to cut the code down to the smallest possible was the rule of the day. I remember the module I wrote in assembler to find out what kind of video card the system had so the software could adjust - it was more complex than the software. It was fun when I was young...

NGIB wrote:It was fun when I was young...

Now you sound like my wife...

NGIB wrote:When I started coding in the mid-80s, every byte was precious as some folks didn't even have a hard drive. Writing in assembler to cut the code down to the smallest possible was the rule of the day.

My first coding was in 1973 (in High School) on a PDP-8e with 8kb core memory shared between 4 teletype terminals. Punched paper tape for storage. Every byte counted. Those of us who learned in that era seem to take resource usage into account more than later generations who had megabytes or gigabytes to play with rather than kilobytes.
I'm not dissing those programmers - different circumstances lead to different emphases. And the Arduino & similar systems have reintroduced coders to dealing with resource constraints.

timkb4cq wrote:My first coding was in 1973 (in High School) on a PDP-8e with 8kb core memory shared between 4 teletype terminals. Punched paper tape for storage. Every byte counted. Those of us who learned in that era seem to take resource usage into account more than later generations who had megabytes or gigabytes to play with rather than kilobytes.
I'm not dissing those programmers - different circumstances lead to different emphases. And the Arduino & similar systems have reintroduced coders to dealing with resource constraints.

Not to mention the time constraints, with processors clocking at 1 and 2 MHz. Often the challenge was trying to accomplish a task as fast as possible, oftentimes requiring a trade off with size. That's part of my fascination with MX — so much has been crammed into a predetermined small space, AND it's fast as well. The devs have an awful lot to be really proud of.

uncle mark wrote:

NGIB wrote:It was fun when I was young...

Now you sound like my wife...

*Ba-da-boom*

Thread is unraveling...time to knot it up.

To get back on topic as someone queried how MX-14 manages to use such low RAM usage compared to other distros.

As BitJam pointed out, it is in the design and philosophy of how we build antiX that also got transferred (on the whole) to MX-14. There is no fluke.

Added: Have a look here at the same author's review of antiX-13.1 and its RAM usage compared to others:

http://mylinuxexplore.blogspot.gr/2013/ ... uperb.html

Basically it is a combination of these 2 factors.

1. The Debian kernel we use and Debian kernels in general have very low RAM usage compared to many others.

2. We have removed 'cruft' (actually we attempt to make sure it doesn't get installed) and thet results in a decrease in the number of services being used therefore lower RAM usage.

Now, if user wants to further reduce RAM, it is possible by disabling services that you do not need. This option is available at installation or can be done after installation. One way to 'greatly' reduce the RAM is to disable network manager and samba (if you don't need it) and use ceni instead for networking.
For the very adventurous and for those that do not need any auto-mounting and users who know what they are doing, all of the gvfs apps/libs can be removed and replaced with udisks as an alternative.

This brings me to another plus for MX-14 that has been mentioned before, but I think it is worth repeating. It is extremely customisable, not only because Xfce is, but all aspects of the distro can be personalised and still keep a low footprint eg as some users have done by adding KDE.

anticapitalista wrote: This brings me to another plus for MX-14 that has been mentioned before, but I think it is worth repeating. It is extremely customisable, not only because Xfce is, but all aspects of the distro can be personalised and still keep a low footprint eg as some users have done by adding KDE.

You're absolutely right. I'm one of those users who opted for KDE with MX-14, and the footprint is smaller, it's faster than any other installation I've done, and it's rock-solid stable. All this after I went with the default services (nothing removed), enabled compositing, and added a lot of software to the base installation, while leaving the xfce side as it was OOTB. Kudos to anticapitalista and his team for weaving some real magic.

Here is another preview:

http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/antix-mx-14.html

Jeez, what a hack job. I do know that he's a KDE maven and aesthetics are a big deal to him...

Wow! Not a fan.

No surprise at all. He loves his bling.

Give me function over form, every time. I don't paint pretty flowers over my car doors, and for the most part I prefer plain and simple in my OS. He does have one reasonable criticism that will probably recur - QupZilla is a little flawed. I don't know that there's much alternative within the size limit.

anticapitalista wrote:No surprise at all. He loves his bling.

Personally I have never understood taking a fast and efficient OS and loading it down with KDE, Compiz, and other fluff. All I want my OS to do is sit behind the scenes and keep the computer running...

He can be contacted, but too bad there is no online comments for a rebuttal for others to read.

I agree that Qupzila has turned out to be a weak point. Perhaps a less capable but more stable browser should be considered for a future release. I do not know what that would be.

I think we started with Midori, but canned it for its lack of capabilities, as I recall.

I know I messed with a browser called Slimboat on PCLinuxOS, pretty nifty if memory serves...

Even if we had included firefox, he would have given us a bad review. Have a look at his other reviews and you will clearly see what he considers a modern linux OS should be like.

I quit reading his reviews when I figured out he hated anything but KDE with Compiz enabled. It does suck that he's one of the "big guns" in Linux reviews and it will likely be included on the Distrowatch antiX entry - not there yet though...

karieho wrote:Here is another preview:

http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/antix-mx-14.html

Overall, antiX MX-14 Symbiosis did not really impress me. It's not that it's a bad package, but it sure is not designed for most people in mind. Maybe just the dev team really.

Ouch!

Well, Dedoimedo doesn't hold back, that's for sure! 5 out of 10, wow.

I feel that aesthetics carried far too much weight in this review (I don't pay a lot of attention to default appearances, etc.), but I find it interesting that this has been brought up again.

Sometimes Dedoimedo will give a release an awful review while actually providing enough details about the release to make me want to try it out; and, I've liked releases that he didn't like, on a few different occasions. So, I read his reviews with interest; even if he's being very critical, he includes lots of useful information. I'm pretty sure that this is one of those cases where I would have seen enough in the review to make me want to download the release. He touches on several of MX-14's strengths, and these things would have been appealing to me, if I was reading the review without already knowing about them.

Qupzilla, to my way of thinking, falls into the same category as default appearances. I don't care whether or not a distro comes with my preferred default web browser (Chromium) or even my preferred default file manager (SpaceFM), as long as I can install it.

Regarding his issues with the installer:

Then, select the desired partitions. No indicator as to what belongs where, so if you have installed operating systems, you will have to manually mount and check.

Unless, like me, you already know which operating systems are installed on which partitions. Wouldn't most people make a note of that beforehand, at least?

About the "Common Services to Enable" window, I'm not sure how problematic that has been to users...

I'd say, take the negative points made in this review as constructive criticism, if applicable. Remember, this is a first release. Maybe some things can be done better. But I think the review is good exposure, and that more than a few people will read it and decide to take MX-14 for a spin.

I replaced Qupzilla with Firefox and have made a live USB install with persistence and am very happy.
Maybe the Art Department could have done a little better, but I don't care about that.

Is that an Operating System in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?

Why Yes, It's MX-14

anticapitalista wrote:No surprise at all. He loves his bling.

Where I come from we call these types "shallow".

NGIB wrote:I quit reading his reviews when I figured out he hated anything but KDE with Compiz enabled. It does suck that he's one of the "big guns" in Linux reviews and it will likely be included on the Distrowatch antiX entry - not there yet though...

Now it is on the Distrowatch antiX entry.

I am old enough to throw opinions into the trash bin.

Being a grown man means making my own decisions in life.
Not letting others decide for me.

I sure liked Harleys when the opinion was they were slow and leaked oil and you met the nicest people
riding .a Honda.

Well, Dedoimedo reviewed the Debian Testing-based MakuluLinux 5.0 (Xfce) and gave it only 4 out of 10: http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/makululinux.html

I usually prefer distros based on Stable over anything based on Testing, but Makulu looks interesting. Again, an informative review, and not one that would necessarily deter me from trying the release here, despite the reviewer's critical comments.

QupZilla is a reasonable choice for the size constraint.
Had never used it before MX-14.
And now I use it on all notebooks,
because they all choke on Chromium, my favorite. :)

I find it great for notebooks.
It is good enough to download whatever your preference might be.
As was said many years ago,
"Adequate is good enough." --Adam Osbourne.
and then refine it accoring to the reviews.

It is not the feature set of Qup that is a concern, but the crashing for some users. Yes, another browser can be downloaded but it leaves an impression of a not well thought out release if the provided browser crashes.

Personally I have not had this problem. But there does appear to be reports that this occurs.

richb wrote:It is not the feature set of Qup that is a concern, but the crashing for some users. Yes, another browser can be downloaded but it leaves an impression of a not well thought out release if the provided browser crashes.

Personally I have not had this problem. But there does appear to be reports that this occurs.

I too have never had qupzilla crash on me.

malspa wrote:Well, Dedoimedo reviewed the Debian Testing-based MakuluLinux 5.0 (Xfce) and gave it only 4 out of 10: http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/makululinux.html

I usually prefer distros based on Stable over anything based on Testing, but Makulu looks interesting. Again, an informative review, and not one that would necessarily deter me from trying the release here, despite the reviewer's critical comments.

After reading Dedoimedo's scary 4/10 review of Makulu, that distro seems geared toward those who like to live dangerously. Isn't AntiX based on Debian Testing? Loading xfce on AntiX using the meta installer would seem a safer choice.

anticapitalista wrote:

richb wrote:It is not the feature set of Qup that is a concern, but the crashing for some users. Yes, another browser can be downloaded but it leaves an impression of a not well thought out release if the provided browser crashes.

Personally I have not had this problem. But there does appear to be reports that this occurs.

I too have never had qupzilla crash on me.

I would be fine with QupZilla - the "firstFlash" crash notwithstanding - if I could get it to perform reliably. On both desktop & netbook it has a random failure to load pages - I would guess an average of about 1 in 50, but sometimes 2 or 3 in succession. The page either times out or goes on "connecting" for over 20 minutes, during which time I can visit 10 or more other pages without problems. It is most unlikely to be my connection - I have never seen the same behaviour with Firefox.

I will try again when I build my new machine.

anticapitalista wrote:

richb wrote:It is not the feature set of Qup that is a concern, but the crashing for some users. Yes, another browser can be downloaded but it leaves an impression of a not well thought out release if the provided browser crashes.

Personally I have not had this problem. But there does appear to be reports that this occurs.

I too have never had qupzilla crash on me.

I suspect they're all flash related. I've had it crash on me a time or two I think, but I don't tend to get too worked up about it.

joany wrote: ...[snip] ...
After reading Dedoimedo's scary 4/10 review of Makulu, that distro seems geared toward those who like to live dangerously. Isn't AntiX based on Debian Testing? Loading xfce on AntiX using the meta installer would seem a safer choice.

Latest antiX-13 series is actually based on Wheezy.

Richard wrote:QupZilla is a reasonable choice for the size constraint.
Had never used it before MX-14.
And now I use it on all notebooks,
because they all choke on Chromium, my favorite. :)

I find it great for notebooks.
It is good enough to download whatever your preference might be.
As was said many years ago,
"Adequate is good enough." --Adam Osbourne.
and then refine it accoring to the reviews.

Exactly why it is there: performance to size ratio.

But it is not performing if it is crashing. I do not have a good feel for how frequent it is. As I said it works fine for me. But if reviewers have it crash, it only takes a few.

Personally I think that MX14 is too good for that reviewer. Prejudices are difficult things to get a hold of. That reviewer just needs to meditate.

lucky9 wrote:Personally I think that MX14 is too good for that reviewer. Prejudices are difficult things to get a hold of. That reviewer just needs to meditate.

The qup comment was the only valid thing he said. Either he is lying about the crashes or it crashes for him. I will comment no more on Qupzilla. Just thinking of future releases.

Nor am I criticizing the decision to use it in the first release.

There's always IceWeasel.
It seems to be about 23 MB downloading now.

Going to try it awhile.
It should not have flash issues? Does it?

Nope, doesn't seem to. Youtube is good.

lucky9 wrote:That reviewer just needs to meditate.

You mis-spelled medicate.

I suspected that medication was involved. Might even be legally acquired.

I think ad hominem attacks against the reviewer are inappropriate. A user from the antiX forums asked him to review MX-14. He complied and I think he reviewed it honestly. It's just not the kind of distro he likes.

There will be good reviews and there will be bad reviews. By attacking the writers of bad reviews, all we really do is make ourselves look bad and make it less likely that others will even bother to give us reviews in the future. I think MX-14 is a great distro but we need to accept the fact that is is not everyone's cup of tea.

It's unfortunate that Qupzilla performed so poorly on the reviewer's system but them's the breaks. Even if everything functioned perfectly I don't think he would have given it a really positive review. That's not because he is dishonest or a bad person. It is because he prefers a different kind of distro. There is nothing wrong with that.

@Bitjam,

Agree totally. I was trying to frame a response to the attacks, but you did it better than I could.

At least he's consistent. He likes the bling. Maybe we could use a different theme than Raleigh in the future, which just reminds me too much of Windows 2000, too.

The thing that would really rankle would be getting an inconsistent review.

I've been testing slimboat (hint: run slimboat.sh), and it is very fast and full of features (except spellcheck), but crashes constantly, due to some conflict between its own QT 4.8.2 and our 4.8.4. It's also closed source, so we can't try and rebuild it against our own QT 4.

I saw somewhere a reference to MX-15?
but don't remember where.
Consider IceWeasel as a default browser.
It is now based on the ESR version from Mozilla.

What is the size difference between IceWeasel ESR and Firefox latest?
Would that keep it under the size limit
and eliminate the flash problem with qupzilla?

Richard wrote:I saw somewhere a reference to MX-15?

Maybe you were thinking of the rocket powered X-15 rocket-plane (video).

Or the marionette powered Fireball XL5 space ship (video).

edit: added video links

LOL.
Could be.
That's probably why I thought it was a great name. :)

Happily we know that MX-14 is the best distro! It is the only operating system in my computer. Because I have no time (and skill) to translated Qupzilla into finnish I use Firefox, Iceweasel and Seamonkey.

I found that I must also install kdebase-runtime, kdebase-workspace and kde-l10n-fi when using Digikam. These translated Digikam into finnish. Also the calender.

Thank you for MX-14!

I think that I am with the reviewer on Qupzilla. Perhaps I could have changed
the presentation, but it all appeared to be overdone, too much eye-candy and many
options.

Guess that I like things simple, my first programming was in machine
language on an 8085 processor. Ice-weasel is OK.

Stevo wrote:At least he's consistent. He likes the bling.

Yep, he likes his bling. He likes for everything to work out of the box; he likes releases that he considers to be easy and pleasant for "most users" to install and use; he likes systems that perform well (he had positive comments about MX-14 in the "System resources" section).

He includes good screenshots that give the reader an idea of what to expect. I especially appreciate the shots of the installation screens.

I don't particularly care for his "tone" when he's commmenting about things he doesn't like, and some of his biases can be kinda annoying, but maybe it isn't all bad if he ruffles some feathers sometimes. I think he wants to see distro releases be as good as possible -- "good" in his view, anyway -- for as many users as possible. He takees the time to do quite a few distro reviews; he puts some work into it, relates his experiences with the releases, and expresses his opinions. I think he provides a good service to the Linux community, even if he's kinda irritating at times and even if he doesn't like your or my favorite distro (I suspect that he isn't much of a fan of Debian or Arch, by the way!).

I am the user that requested the review due to the fact that I read a lot of reviews and find that while snarky at times his reviews usually point out some areas of possible improvement while praising areas that are worthy of praise. I think the review was a bit harsh and that the reviewer did not take the intended purpose of the distro: lightweight, run fast on older hardware etc... into account. I still think the review will have a positive result as those that are interested in smaller distro's will identify the positives the reviewer mentioned. I think Antix/MX14 bridge the gap between "try to be everything OOTB distro's and specialised "geeky" distro's. A user needs to learn a little bit about how the OS works to get what they want from Antix/MX14 but the results are worth it. If I have a high end machine like an I7 and want eye candy then I probably go with one of the buntu's with compiz and cairo or some other stuff to get a "oooo look at that" but for an older system that only has a CD or low memory Antix has never failed to give me a good WORKING system that I can rely on, even when using the testing repo's. MX14 gives users the stabilty of debian stable with the configurabilty of XFCE and on systems like the plethora of Dell P4's I use or repair it is a great fit. The "big boy" distro's like Ubuntu and Mint do a good job on most new machines but being a "tinkererer" I will always prefer the lighter distro's.

MX14 gives users the stabilty of debian stable with the configurabilty of XFCE and on systems like the plethora of Dell P4's I use or repair it is a great fit.

I like your review better

Welcome to MX, zarg2!

There is no problem here either with your request or finally with his review; it's just a bit hard to swallow at first after so much hard work. But the good aspects are: 1) press is press, and 2) it gives us useful feedback to consider as we move forward.

Jerry3904 wrote:Welcome to MX, zarg2!

There is no problem here either with your request or finally with his review; it's just a bit hard to swallow at first after so much hard work. But the good aspects are: 1) press is press, and 2) it gives us a good position from which to move forward.

Thanks for the welcome. I have been an avid user of Antix since 13.1 and use it as my daily working OS on my old AthlonXP 2800 Compaq Presario laptop. I use LYX on the laptop to write Ebooks and it works very well. I hate to see perfectly good machines (I have some weird affinty for Dell P4'; they are just solid) go to waste because MS has decided to move on to newer hardware/OS. MX14 gives folks like me the ability to revive/repurpose these castaway machines. I recently purchased a dozen Dell 4700's for less than $25 USD each; these will get cleaned up, MX14 installed with some other educational apps installed then shipped to rural schools in the Philippines. As I mentioned over on the Antix forums I don't think Linux will ever gain a huge share of the desktop market but it does have an important share; the poor who can only gain access to the web and it's resources with inexpensive hardware and low cost software. The hard work put into the "fit on a cd" distro's and the philosophy of providing a stable, usable OS that does not require a fast internet connection is a goal worth keeping. Antix/MX14 is not competing with the Buntu's or Fedora etc.. it is serving a need that those OS's do not.

The Devs are in total agreement with your well-expressed sentiment here.

One big consolation for me is the now 13,300 downloads from the SourceForge server alone--pretty decent number for such an ugly non-distro!

I think the reviewer's right about Qupzilla...Okay, so we made a mistake (but then who doesn't make mistakes)...and I agree with others that we should consider replacing Qupzilla with Iceweasel on the next go-round.

Personally, I don't like the OOTB aesthetics either, but customizing is little effort with XFCE [he says beating the dead horse].

I guess I'm less inclined to need eye-candy. MX14 is fine OOTB for me. I did use the Meta-Installer to install Firefox. At this time that's all that's been done. It runs great on my Netbook and that's all I ask of it. antiX 13.2 is on it also. It was actually easier to get online using WiFi while using MX14. Usually it takes antiX and ceni to accomplish that.

I'll do some 'house cleaning' in the near future. There are some things that I'm probably not going to use and some that I'd like to add.
As an aside, I don't use Flash a lot. My Browser's have Plug-ins that restrict it unless I want to see something. I have yet to even open Qupzilla. Guess I really should just to see it.

As noted by others the tone of that review wasn't warranted by facts with the possible exception of Qupzilla and Flash. I noticed the reviewer missed the Meta-Installer until reminded. I had trouble finding it myself. I'm getting old enough to use getting old as an excuse so that didn't bother me much.
I'd personally give MX14 a 9.0-9.5 out of 10.

The more I use MX-14 the more I love it. I recommend it also to Dedoimedo.
He can not install Mageia...same problem with using MX-14?

"A lot of you emailed me, asking me, why the heck wouldn't I review Mageia,
what's my problem, and such. Well, I would, honest miss, but the problem is,
this distribution does not want to cooperate with my hardware."


http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/mageia-3.html

I wasn't too keen at first, but It seems the more I use MX-14 the more I like it.

I've removed Qupzilla (& installed Iceweasel) because it doesn't handle my bookmarks how I like; also removed Clementine & installed Audacious.

karieho wrote:The more I use MX-14 the more I love it. I recommend it also to Dedoimedo.
He can not install Mageia...same problem with using MX-14?

"A lot of you emailed me, asking me, why the heck wouldn't I review Mageia,
what's my problem, and such. Well, I would, honest miss, but the problem is,
this distribution does not want to cooperate with my hardware."


http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/mageia-3.html

Doesn't Dedoimedo have a CD/DVD drive? I've read a lot of posts from people who couldn't get a USB to boot but had success with a CD or DVD. Seems kind of dumb and shortsighted to write off a distro on account of that.

But look what he did with MX-14: ignored the design intent for a "midweight" OS and the CD limit, and reviewed it against his projection of a full OS with no size limit. Between dumb and shortsighted I would be able to choose.

I only understand this "dedoimedo-man" has no idea of Linux.

..
I tried two different USB sticks, and had the image written using three different tools, including Universal USB Pendrive, UNetbootin and USB Writer.
..

I became a "grown up" with Mageia and had never Installation problems. Betraying three USB tools, he knows not, Mageia provides only hybrid ISO's from.

The pejorative assessment of MX-14 borders on insult. A typical "Windoser".

I finally sent Dedo an email, which I guess I will reprint here:

One regret about the MX-14 Review

Hi --

As the Project Manager for MX-14, I appreciated your in-depth review of the OS even as i was obviously not in agreement with all your conclusions. But here's the fundamental point that I don't understand.

MX-14 announces on the website that it is designed to be a midweight OS limited to 700 MB in order to fit on a CD, and Distrowatch repeated that in its announcement. You're a smart guy and know very well that working within those very tight limitations forces countless choices about packages: no room for GIMP (but Mirage is a good midweight substitute), for any full-sized browser (Firefox is 50 MB larger that QupZilla, a good midweight substitute), etc.

Given the explicit goals announced for the OS, it seems to me that your initial choice as a reviewer was either to reject the premises for some set of reasons, or grant the premises and review the development product within them--including the methods made available to the user to alter the OS depending on personal needs, wants and hardware.

Because you passed over in silence the presence and effect of those explicit goals, you were free to compare MX-14 to the model of a full system with unlimited resources--which it specifically stated it was not. That seemed to me to fall below your usual level of quality analysis that has kept me reading your stuff for quite a while. Luckily it did not appear to affect the 16,000 downloads during the first month after release, a high number for a new kid on the block that suggests to me that you may well see us again next year.

Jerry

...suggests to me that you may well see us again next year.

Politely phrased, but I would prefer you to really ignore this joker next year.

That seemed to me to fall below your usual level of quality analysis that has kept me reading your stuff for quite a while. Luckily it did not appear to affect the 16,000 downloads during the first month after release...

LOL! You sound like my wife. She can tell people to go to hell and have them thank her for it... until they realize after the fact that was actually what she did.

It's all a rhetorical exercise!

We'll see how Dedo criticizes Xubuntu 14.04. It looks like MX-14.

http://www.webupd8.org/2014/04/xubuntu- ... nload.html

To me, it appears to be using some other window style than Raleigh, plus a window decoration with rounded top corners--and the window buttons are sure not what MX uses.

It would be interesting to see what the base desktop RAM use is, though.

Edit: According to his review--a boot to the desktop consumes 310 MB. Without Conky or Compiz. Whoa!

Here is Blogspot Xubuntu 14.04 review:

http://mylinuxexplore.blogspot.fi/2014/ ... eview.html

Response from Dedo:

Thanks for the comments.

But the thing is, the mission statement is not important. If you said, MX-14 was designed to be heavyweight, then it would sound even better. And if you said it was a distro for advanced users, then it would be even more amazing still.

The only thing is the user - how they feel when using. And that's it.

You can take my review as criticism and reject it, or you can take it as friendly feedback - which it is - and build upon it. I hope it's the latter.

Cheers,
Igor

I am glad he read it.

He is unmoved which was a foregone conclusion, I believe. But at least you made your point.

Since his point is how one "feels using it", the conclusion I draw is that his conclusion was totally subjective. But it is what it is. I hope there are more reviews to get a better sense how reviewers feel. So far I have seen one good one not so good. Have there been any others that I missed?

Here's a video review, link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVGsncX9V3Q

zarg2 wrote:Here's a video review, link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVGsncX9V3Q

Not very useful with only images.

richb wrote:

zarg2 wrote:Here's a video review, link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVGsncX9V3Q

Not very useful with only images.

well, except for the 1300 or so subscribers.

dolphin_oracle wrote:

richb wrote:

zarg2 wrote:Here's a video review, link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVGsncX9V3Q

Not very useful with only images.

well, except for the 1300 or so subscribers.

I should have said not useful to me.

And regardless of number of subscribers, you can hardly call it a review.

I saw that and actually liked it, but it is not a review in the dictionary sense: "criticism imply careful examination of something, formulation of a judgment, and statement of the judgment."

true but it is more "visibility".

Sure, but the question was whether there were any other reviews.

I have to say that the total lack of consideration of stated objective is, shall I say disappointing. But at least he states that is totally not a consideration.
The fact that there is no room for anything except a royal flush-type distro is simply a choice. Not one that most of us find useful.

uncle mark wrote:

That seemed to me to fall below your usual level of quality analysis that has kept me reading your stuff for quite a while. Luckily it did not appear to affect the 16,000 downloads during the first month after release...

LOL! You sound like my wife. She can tell people to go to hell and have them thank her for it... until they realize after the fact that was actually what she did.

Or like mine (who works in a drug store), and suggests Fiber Therapy.

If his sole consideration is how the user feels about the distro, then IMO, stated objectives are relevant because it affects the expectations of the user.

But in any case, I've read other distro reviews of his, and he tends to want his distro to be already eye-candified from OOTB, and he always approaches installation and usage of a distro as if the user were a total uninitiated newbie who would not bother or know to get help (from the forum or Internet searches) .

Using those criteria, I could have told you how his review of MX would go before reading it.

Jerry3904 wrote:Response from Dedo:

Thanks for the comments.

But the thing is, the mission statement is not important. If you said, MX-14 was designed to be heavyweight, then it would sound even better. And if you said it was a distro for advanced users, then it would be even more amazing still.

The only thing is the user - how they feel when using. And that's it.

You can take my review as criticism and reject it, or you can take it as friendly feedback - which it is - and build upon it. I hope it's the latter.

Cheers,
Igor

I am glad he read it.

What a cheesy reply. If he was reviewing a short story, he'd criticize it for not being a novel. What he's saying is that the intended purpose isn't important, only his disappointed expectations. I'd call him an amateur, but that would insult amateurs.

arjaybe wrote:I'd call him an amateur, but that would insult amateurs.

The bar to entry as a Linux reviewer on the Internet is pretty low.

Well, the guy wrote about it as he saw it. Good or bad, we want people to review the release, right? Looks like only two people have been interested enough to do that. And it looks like antiX's DistroWatch page hit ranking has been falling like a rock. Maybe look at the reasons for those things.

If I have a gripe with Dedoimedo's review, it's that he didn't write much about all of the tools/utilities that MX-14 comes with. That's one of its strong points, for me, along with the fact that it's Debian, that the Debian repos are available. He didn't find much that didn't work; the things he found problems with (Qupzilla, printing over Samba, the Fn keys) don't concern me (well, maybe the Fn keys, but I don't know how much of an issue that is), so the review wouldn't have made me decide not to try MX-14. The default appearances, QupZilla, I didn't care much for those, either, but I'd just install a different web browser and tweak the desktop, problems solved.

I just don't understand why folks think an OS needs to have flash, bells and whistles. If I want to watch a cartoon, I'll watch a cartoon and when I boot my computer it's because I want to run an application not because I want to marvel at how pretty my OS is. If the end user wants KDE, Compiz, and all manner of flashy stuff - they can install it...

I started using Linux in 1996 with Red Hat 5.2. Since then, I have used many distros for example Caldera, Mandrake, Suse, Fedora,
Mandriva, Mepis, PClinuxOs, Ubuntu, Xubuntu, Kubuntu, Lubuntu, Knoppix, Rosa, SolydXK, Netrunner etc.

For some reason, I moved up to the second disro. For example Mandrake destroyed my cd-burner, Opensuse deletes my photos (Digikam 3.0 bug) or
then I just didn't like them.

"The latest offering of Mandrake's distribution, 9.2, has been found to not only be incompatible with some LG CD-ROM drives, but to
destroy them during the installation process. Mandrake have posted information on their errata page and further information can be found
on this thread."

This is how I first chose to use Mepis and now MX-14. Maybe they do not look as pretty as some other distros, but at least I can
focus on to do the job. As Blogspot says "I rate MX-14 as one of the most functional XFCE 4 distros I have used. It is fast, stable and efficient."
For me and my wife it is best distro. It just works! Perhaps it is best not to wait for new reviews (or ignore what Dedo says) and focus only on to use it.

karieho wrote:As Blogspot says "I rate MX-14 as one of the most functional XFCE 4 distros I have used. It is fast, stable and efficient."
For me and my wife it is best distro. It just works! Perhaps it is best not to wait for new reviews (or ignore what Dedo says) and focus only on to use it.

Yeah, it doesn't matter much what Dedoimedo or anyone else says if the release works well for the person using it.

I don't think Dedoimedo likes Debian very much -- I couldn't find any more recent Debian reviews than his ones of Debian 5.03 "Squeeze" (http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/debian.html) and Debian 6 "Lenny" (http://dedoimedo.com/computers/debian-6.html), both of which I enjoyed running here, and both of which he didn't care for, to put things mildly!

And, I checked out his review of CrunchBang 11 "Waldorf" (http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/crun ... ldorf.html). Fairly positive review. That's cool; I like CrunchBang 11 and everything. But I don't think that it's as much better than MX-14 as his reviews might lead one to believe; it's different out-of-the-box and it comes with its own pros and cons, but for me it was kind of a toss-up between keeping Waldorf on my low-spec computer or replacing it with MX-14 (I kept CrunchBang, but one seemed as good as the other).

I'd be interested to see what he has to say about Wheezy Xfce, which I use now on my primary computer. I think he'd probably rip it; I don't think it's along the lines of what he likes, especially out-of-the-box. But to me, it's wonderful.

So I'd say take Dedoimedo's reviews with a grain of salt, if you can; if you can get any useful info from them, do that. Beyond that, just keep trying to make MX better. Remember, this is only the first release, and it's an excellent start; its users are happy, and that's the important thing.

Considering it is the first release & how many dowloads you have had, it certainly says to me that you have done something right.
Word of mouth & comments from users on the 'net will gain more users, even if one person does not find it to his/her taste.

I spent a long time with pure Debian, but in the end, I went for pre packaged firmware that got my wifi working O.T.B.

Crunchbang was favourite for several years, but then I found antiX was now using a Debian base so swapped to that because I liked Fluxbox & light weight distros, it is easy to add programs that you want after an install.

So having been with antiX for a while, there was mention of this new distro in conjunction with Mepis, which also now is using a Debian base, so I thought I'd try it.

I didn't particularly like it to begin with, but as I have said elsewhere, it seems to grow on you.

Does Crunchbang include persistence, "snapshot" etc?
If not, ISTM these facilities are overwhelming reasons for preferring MX-14.

GuiGuy wrote:Does Crunchbang include persistence, "snapshot" etc?
If not, ISTM these facilities are overwhelming reasons for preferring MX-14.

But that is not true for everyone. Neither is a draw for me.

For some reason Waldorf was super slow on my laptop and Fedora 20 LXDE runs almost as fast as Antix13.2 (go figure). I agree with MX-Tester that for some MX14 may be a little off-putting at first since it looks different but once they realize it's a sandbox that you can build your own castles in it becomes a fun distro to use. My wife is always complaing because I constantly experiment with the DE setup on the computer hooked up to our TV . I just am looking for a "sweet spot" that I like for looks/ease of use and MX14/XFCE makes it very easy to try differnt things without fear of breakage. Perhaps a little "welcome to MX14; please go to the control center and play with the desktop" welcome screen would help total newbies to explore the flexibility of the distro. Adiradnam Sen's review does a pretty good job of showing whats hiding under the hood in MX14.

richb wrote:....
But that is not true for everyone. Neither is a draw for me.

Fair enough, but how about the other big advantages of MX-14: this forum and the community packaging team?

GuiGuy wrote:

richb wrote:....
But that is not true for everyone. Neither is a draw for me.

Fair enough, but how about the other big advantages of MX-14: this forum and the community packaging team?

I would vote for the community packaging team, it's amazing to run Debian Stable and still have new packages for most of the popular pieces of software.

Totally agree--we need to have another person on that team who has the interest and ability.

I am thinking of a recruitment effort later for them and the rest of the MX-14 Dev Team in order to begin to lay out MX-15 planning.

GuiGuy wrote:

richb wrote:....
But that is not true for everyone. Neither is a draw for me.

Fair enough, but how about the other big advantages of MX-14: this forum and the community packaging team?

Absolutely, and a thorough review would point out all that. Something is bound to appeal to almost anyone.

For a long time I was a technophobe. I imagined that Linux was "just for geeks" and couldn't imagine doing all this cool stuff without having someone looking over my shoulder the whole time.

"Don't touch that! You'll blow up the whole feramantle drive!"

When I heard about "Linux for human beings" I was amazed, and having nothing to lose, I wiped away Windows and tried all the 'buntu flavors, then Mint, then PCLinuxOS, Debian, Mepis (8.5 I think it was). More recently I've been looking at some of the "lightweight" distros (SalixOS, Lubuntu, AntiX, Puppy, now MX-14). As my computer ages, though, I have found that OSes and software require increasingly more and more resources, and even my old favorite (Xubuntu) was getting slower. Most of the time I could overcome it by changing swappiness and choosing lighter applications. But lately, well... until yesterday!

While AntiX was awesomely fast, I'm still a little technophobic and require stability above all else. Just the word "Testing" gives me more than a little pause. So here comes MX-14, based on Debian Stable! And it just doesn't get any more stable than Debian Stable. I was delighted when I read about MX-14! Mepis enjoys a reputation for "making Debian simple" for technophobic sidekicks like me, but without all the drama, hype, and uncertainty of the Ubuntu family. While I did successfully install and configure Debian once, it was buggy and argued with my hardware too often, and it's too complicated for me to share with the other Teen Titans, so it was back to Xubuntu with fingers crossed. But again, borked by an update. Full of extras I never used or cared about (Plymouth, PulseAudio, etc), and no longer fits on a CD. If not for Plop Linux, that would have been a deal breaker.

MX-14 runs wonderfully fast, and I'm at completely at ease with it because it's Debian Stable! Yippieeeeee!

I'm not a great Linux reviewer because I'm just a sidekick and not qualified to talk about a distro's inner workings. My "reviews" read more like fanboy rants I guess, but I hope to get better at it as I go. I'll write one when when my school work permits, and post it here. A hearty thanks to all who had a hand in developing this simple, workable Debian Stable Xfce mixture!

Just a note on antiX. On my antiX 13.2 on installation you can choose either Testing or Stable. That said I use MX14 on my single-core Atom Netbook almost exclusively from XFCE. But I also have KDE Standard available. Always nice to have a second DE for a change.

GuiGuy wrote:Does Crunchbang include persistence, "snapshot" etc?
If not, ISTM these facilities are overwhelming reasons for preferring MX-14.

I don't think CrunchBang includes persistence. But I'd say there are various reasons for preferring either MX-14 or CrunchBang.

CrunchBang certainly has the more eye-catching name.

I like Openbox about as much as I like Xfce. CrunchBang does a nice job with Openbox; they add other things (including some things from Xfce) so that it's not like you miss having a "full DE" or whatever.

Forums are good, too. I can't say that they're any less friendly or knowledgeable over there than here.

I went back and looked over the notes that I took when I installed CrunchBang. I noted that the installer resembled Debian's, but that the installation was much quicker and easier. I chose the "Manual" partitioning method, set up my partitions, etc., and after that, the installation took 13 minutes to complete. There was a nice post-installation script, which I used for adding LibreOffice and for a few other things.

Openbox doesn't have its own panel, so CrunchBang gives you the tint2 panel, which is nice, but I think most people would prefer something like xfce4-panel. I actually use xfce4-panel in my Openbox set-up in openSUSE. tint2 is quite configurable, though, especially once you know what to do with its config file. Still, that might be considered a drawback (to some people) when comparing MX-14 and CrunchBang.

I think both distros are excellent. I happened to have CrunchBang installed already when MX-14 came out, and could find no reason to replace CrunchBang with MX-14, but if MX-14 had already been running here I don't think I would have wanted to replace it with CrunchBang. Either way, Debian underneath, Wheezy repos available. I wouldn't say that either one's "better" than the other, overall.

Well I did it! My "review" of sorts here.

The Boy Wonder wrote:Well I did it! My "review" of sorts here.

Wow, nice write-up!

I think it should be mentioned, however, that MX-14 is really "a special edition" of antiX.

Nice review, Boy Wonder. I dropped a comment on your site.

The Boy Wonder wrote:Well I did it! My "review" of sorts here.

Well written! I do agree with malspa: much magic came from the antiX side of the symbiosis--and especailly the Lead Dev anticapitalista. If you have time and interest to revise your review, I would like to see MX-14 correctly labeled as "a special version of antiX developed in full collaboration with the Mepis Community" (website) so that the roles would be better described.

TIA.

Thanks for the corrections and advice. I have edited the post accordingly. I'm always open to correction, suggestions, and constructive commentary. I wouldn't be a very good student if I wasn't!

Special gratitude and thanks to Anticapitalista and his team for this fantastic special edition of AntiX

from one very grateful boy wonder.

karieho wrote:We'll see how Dedo criticizes Xubuntu 14.04.

http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/xubuntu-trusty.html

Wow. Well, you can compare this to his review of MX-14 (http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/antix-mx-14.html). I wish he would have tried Xubuntu 14.04 on the same machine that he tried MX-14 on, but whatever.

Kinda made me laugh when I saw that he gave Xubuntu 14.04 a 9.7/10 (compared to 5/10 for MX-14). I've never used Xubuntu, but people do seem to be happy with Xubuntu 14.04. I seriously doubt that it's that much better than MX-14, though.

malspa quoted:-

I seriously doubt that it's that much better than MX-14, though.

Agreed.

Maybe I'm being a little harsh, but it seems Dediomedo searched for a laptop that won't work well with Linux until he found one: The Lenovo T400. Then used that as his "test box" in order to trash any distro that doesn't work properly OOTB. Doesn't this guy realize that the ability of Linux to work with particular hardware depends largely on the kernel, and that Linux kernel developers and distro developers aren't the same people?

In that review, he emphasized that the issues were not Xubuntu's fault, and that the computer had given him problems with every distro he tried on it. Doesn't appear to be the same computer he tested MX-14 on.

malspa wrote:In that review, he emphasized that the issues were not Xubuntu's fault, and that the computer had given him problems with every distro he tried on it. Doesn't appear to be the same computer he tested MX-14 on.

None of that matters. It's all about pretty.

Unfortunately, Dedoimedo's reviews of MX-14 and Xubuntu 14.04 are poorly done in comparison to Arindam Sen's reviews of the same releases:

http://mylinuxexplore.blogspot.co.uk/20 ... truly.html

http://mylinuxexplore.blogspot.co.uk/20 ... eview.html

And those two reviews seem to confirm what I've suspected to be the case: That MX-14 and Xubuntu 14.04 are both very nice releases, and that neither one is all that much better than the other.

Interesting review. Why is it called MX-14 rather than MEPIS 14? To make sure a new user would not expect to get the KDE with this new distro. ?

Why is it called MX-14 rather than MEPIS 14?

Because it is not a MEPIS release--take a look at the website description: http://www.mepiscommunity.org/mx

There are also a bunch of threads on here talking about this in detail if you want to follow it out.

It's not Mepis. It's the result of the Mepis Community devs and the antix devs. Warren was not involved. It uses XFCE for the DE. It has several enhancements not the least of which is the MetaInstaller. Flash Updater and others make it a totally different idea.
It is based on Wheezy. It is 32 bit only.

Plymouth just slows things down...waaay down sometimes. Plymouth on a 'old machine' distro is counterproductive.

I'm a 'watch the text scroll by during boot' man. Granted, sometimes it's too fast to glean anything from, but it always gives me SOME indication of how things are going during bootup and has been useful to me as a troubleshooting aid on many occasions.

Including Plymouth OOTB may indeed increase 'sales', and that would be a good thing. But make it so that the 'eye candy' crowd can keep it, and the 'text' crowd can uninstall it without penalty. I have tried to uninstall it from other distros only to lose the whole distro without warning. This is 'anti-linux'. I didn't keep those distros and they get no 2nd chance. There are too many 'pro-linux' choices out there, of which MX is king!

Regards,

Gary

gmagar wrote:Plymouth just slows things down...waaay down sometimes. Plymouth on a 'old machine' distro is counterproductive.

Pardon my newbie-ish ignorance then, but if Plymouth slows everything down, how is it that Xubuntu boots up to a desktop in under 9 seconds on my old hardware? MX takes nearly 45 seconds.

I don't care about splash or text either way, but judging purely on what I see and from the perspective of an admittedly "ordinary" Linux user, I can't see that the splash screen on boot-up slows anything down.

9 seconds trumps 45 seconds. You win. And you are pardoned.

9 seconds is astonishing. ..

Curious.

On a newer AA1,
I tried
Xubuntu and it wouldn't do wireless out of the box.
Didn't notice how fast it was.
So, I erased it.
then
I tried
MX-14 and it wouldn't do wireless out of the box.
Didn't notice how fast it was.
So, I fixed it.

I don't really understand. Maybe the blue wallpaper?

I have Xubuntu 14.04 on another partition, it doesn't seem to boot all that fast to me.

One thing I don't like about Xubuntu is when I log out of Xfce, it takes about 1-1/2 to 2 minutes for the lightdm greeter to appear.

The Boy Wonder wrote:Pardon my newbie-ish ignorance then, but if Plymouth slows everything down, how is it that Xubuntu boots up to a desktop in under 9 seconds on my old hardware? MX takes nearly 45 seconds.

I am worried about what boot of MX needs for 45 seconds.
I try MX in some old PC, but do not take the boot time so much.
This feels like raising time-out by some kind of searches.

Sprechen sie deutch...

Here is a review:

http://adopters.de/145/antix-mx-14-symbiosis-xfce/

Ja, ich spreche Deutsch und werde es lesen. Vielen Dank.

Ich studiert Deutsch an dem Universitat so ich kanne singe Deutsch. Und ich lernt just enough to get me into trouble, but not enough to get me out.

karieho wrote:... Here is a review: http://adopters.de/145/antix-mx-14-symbiosis-xfce/

My German was never that good to read that even after living there three times for a total of 7 years. Just could shop, read menus and order food and drink; and most important pick up Frauleins.

Can be translated here https://translate.google.com/. If you have never used it, just copy article and paste in box on left and click translate above box on right. She will even read it to you if you click the speaker on bottom of translation.

Review is over 2 months old, and focuses on standard elements. Some highlights:

Perfect for older hardware, but runs perfectly on current hardware as well. Can easily be made to look like the standard Xfce, and most will like to have the panel in its usual place on the bottom. Theme can hardly be called modern and fresh, but easy to change.

Boot process is quick, installation very easy, and resource usage very low. Good implementation of software and tools, with others easily installable. Individual software choices may be easily changed using the available repos through Synaptic.

Absolutely stable and without bugs that I could find.

Hello Mepis community,

It's been a while since I've posted (a few years actually ), and something triggered me to check out the mepiscommunity.org website since I'm know starting to think about updating my Mepis 11 install on my desktop (actually still runs Mepis 11 24/7 ). I figured that there wouldn't be much updates, but to my surprise I see you guys have been working on a new distro with the antiX team. This immediately sparked some interest and I quickly read through some of the reviews written on MX Linux and now I'm sold to give it a try!

First off, I applaud you all for keeping the magic of Mepis alive despite the slowing or lack thereof development! I'll admit, that was part of the reason why I kind of fell off (not to mention having 2 kids under the age of 3 and working on swapping a motor into my car). It was this community that really got me into Linux and I must say that I've missed posting here. Thankful that I decided to visit and provide feedback in the coming weeks on MX.

I do have one question... Is this a 3rd version or is it a merger of Mepis and antiX as a "special edition" release? I'm trying to follow if there is still a separate antiX release alongside MX Linux.

Very Respectfully,
Nats007

Welcome back!

Is this a 3rd version or is it a merger of Mepis and antiX as a "special edition" release? I'm trying to follow if there is still a separate antiX release alongside MX Linux.

You will be glad to know that antiX is very much alive on its own, and anti and the crew are working now on the antiX 14 release. Check out their website to see how things are going.

The collaborative MX Linux project is doing well, and in a few months will begin to think about MX-15 development, at least some of which will depend on how antiX 14 ends up.

Jerry3904 wrote:Welcome back!

Is this a 3rd version or is it a merger of Mepis and antiX as a "special edition" release? I'm trying to follow if there is still a separate antiX release alongside MX Linux.

You will be glad to know that antiX is very much alive on its own, and anti and the crew are working now on the antiX 14 release. Check out their website to see how things are going.

The collaborative MX Linux project is doing well, and in a few months will begin to think about MX-15 development, at least some of which will depend on how antiX 14 ends up.

Thank you, Sir and good to know! I'll most likely keep running antiX on my Eee then to have access to Debian testing, but I'm all for MX Linux on my desktop.

Here is PCWELT's short review:

http://www.pcwelt.de/ratgeber/Antix_MX- ... 40516.html

Thanks! I left a comment thanking them for looking at it and directing them to the correct website.

I am impressed with your German and that you are the project manager of MX-14.

Here's a link https://translate.google.com/ where the article can be pasted to translate.

Here is mx-14.3 review:

http://adopters.de/748/antixmepis-mx-14 ... tribution/

Here is mx-14.3 review

It's a little bit early as it isn't released yet. But very positive.
Henry

Utopia wrote:.........
It's a little bit early as it isn't released yet...........
Henry

Is this it?
http://en.sourceforge.jp/projects/sfnet ... /releases/

Yes it is. I am just doing the switchover now (download page, announcements, etc.). Everything should be ready in about an hour--though you can go ahead and download now, I just checked the md5sum.

That's fast, I'm still testing RC2. Or maybe I'm slow.
Henry

karieho wrote:Here is mx-14.3 review:

http://adopters.de/748/antixmepis-mx-14 ... tribution/

Hast du das geschrieben?

Answer to Jerry3904

Leider weiß ich nicht. Ich habe Deutsch in der Schule nur als 3 Jahre untersucht. Nicht ganz die Fähigkeiten ...