MX Linux Forum

Good evening everyone,

Interesting topic. First of all, I gave up distro hopping a few years back because I descovered MX Linux and I have been an avid user since.
What would I suggest for MX 25 ? Hmmmmm. Here's a thought. Last week I read a posting on another Linux website where the person posting the question was inquiring why Linux OS isn't more popular that Apple or MS Win. The reply came back that Linux in it's current form can't compete because:

1. There are too many Linux distributions out there and it's difficult for someone to know which one to pick or even how to get started.
2. A new user won't know how to configure their system / desktop because of so many choices.
3. A new user might not know where to go to get help, let alone type anything into a command line.
4. The Linux desktop will never go mainstream because people who buy a PC / Laptop will want to boot it up and start working. They just want it too work.

With that in mind, perhaps MX Linux 25 could somehow have one edition especially for newbies where everything just worked out of the box. The right office, multimedia, netwoking software to get them started. There are a lot of other distros that hype that premise, but the real truth is that with so many different PC's and laptops, it's difficult to keep up with required software.

Perhaps MX Linux can go mainstream with their own PC or laptop with MX Linux pre-installed. That way, you control the software and hardware and make sure everything just works when you boot it up.

Hey, I can dream can't I ? If people only knew what they were missing.

txm0523 wrote: Mon Jun 02, 2025 11:43 pm With that in mind, perhaps MX Linux 25 could somehow have one edition especially for newbies where everything just worked out of the box. The right office, multimedia, netwoking software to get them started.

That sounds like what MX Linux already delivers. Even the live session from the ISO is fully functional and can be used to Get Stuff Done without requiring an install or post-install configuration steps. It may not include WINE or Steam or your favorite e-reader but these aren't things a majority of folks may want to have and it's easy enough to add them on your own. Linux isn't right for everyone and I know a lot of Linux fans have trouble accepting that, or appreciating that when you try to make your distro accessible to everyone, you end up making it ideal for no one.

Jakob77 wrote: Mon Jun 02, 2025 6:47 pm So it is too complicated or not possible to make an easy going tool for it.?

There's no point in recreating the wheel

IIRC, Disk Manager comes preloaded in Xfce up to MX-23, which serves that very function. When run, it backs up the existing fstab & writes a new one with a format type I simply do not like because that part of me is still old-school, and I like to annotate my changes to important files, which are lost if I use the DM created fstab. Where DM helps a lot is it provides a means to avoid PEBCAK human typo errors which can cause a halted machine at boot, not nice when you don't expect it.

When I use DiskManager to add a new partition or external USB device to fstab, I take only the line it adds pertaining to the newly added device, edit it to use my preferred mount point, then write that line back into the original fstab, add my annotations and reinstate it. This of course means I need to either keep the DM created fstab as a backup, or remove it altogether.

would love to experience a slightly more improved mecanics against focus stealing, so that when i am opening
Whisker menu for something while FF starting, the menu stays open


( safeboot: maybe an enhancement against tampered copies? )

txm0523

Thank you for some good input. :-)

I can share a lot of your thoughts but if you can take it that far I will faint. lol
And what is too many choices for one is just a wonderful lot of options for another.
And the blame game can start already by the first program. Hey, why did you choose THAT editor..????!!... and so on. If they ever get further. lol

You and I also still have other options than just waiting for more software to be put into MX-install that will make the install slower and take up more disk space.

We can just go heavy and make a respin. MX has provided us with all the magic tools for it.
And that is where the subject moves from being a matter for the developers to be completely under the users control.
There all wild dreams can be put on a test. :-)

And beside that the developers has made other tools that helps making it easy to share some configuration fragments.
I have not seen a user group taking it up yet but with just 20Kb space you can share a pretty big Xfce Panel.
It is so easy to do the backup and restore in MX-Tweak. And the backup files in "~/.restore" we can just copy from one user to another.
There is also a new MX tool "User installed packages" where you can pull out a list of all your programs and edit it for an other user who can use it for restore.


So the conclusion I reached is that if something has to be changed in the MX-install it will hardly ever be easy and you have to have a really good case like I strongly believe I have with PATH for user scripts in Xfce.
It can from my point of view not be true that it has to be a difficult confusing task for new users to generate a full functional PATH for user scripts in Xfce. When I was looking for help the problem was not even understood. I can see he has forgotten about it but if it had not been for the good CharlesV's patience I don't think it would ever have been solved. And that would have been a shame since it is very easy to do it right if you just know how.
If the right change is put into MX-Install Xfce the confusion and dysfunctionality about PATH for user scripts can come to an end. That is why I think it is worth bringing it to the developers attention.






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Preparing a PATH in Xfce for user scripts is one thing.
That can be hard enough and too much to hope for.


So I know it is really taking it over the top if I also suggest to create a directory and a file.



However what would you say if a developer wrote this for your information:







When you have installed MX25 Xfce one of the small new changes is a user script prepared directory:

"~/bin-prepared"

It is prepared with suitable permissions and has a "readme.txt" file inside it with this content:

Dear MX user


This MX25 text file from "~/bin-prepared" is just for information about the directory.

"~/bin-prepared" is a directory MX has prepared for your not supported private scripts that you want it to be easy to execute.

If you after install choose to rename "~/bin-prepared" to "~/bin", then it will automatically be included in PATH after next reboot.

That means you will be able to execute your scripts from launchers and anywhere in Terminal.

If you don't want the directory anyway, you can just delete it. There will be zero implications. If there is no "~/bin" it will not be included in PATH, and it will be automatically excluded from PATH during next boot up.



If you are a newbie but want to know more about scripting in MX then you can ...bla.. bla.. etc.

Think about it. :-)

@Jakob77 I have not forgotten about helping you. However, I do *not* believe the that should be a 'default' either.

As you have so quickly disregarded... there is a security issue right here and your little 'default path' means that it would be easier for someone to compromise the system. If *you* are not concerned with that then have at it, but I have to vote no for a default path there.

I particularly hope they continue with XFCE and Fluxbox, as well as Sysvinit and X11.

Gabriel_M wrote: Tue Jun 03, 2025 10:24 am I particularly hope they continue with XFCE and Fluxbox, as well as Sysvinit and X11.

Yes , systemd, sysvinit, and why not some more runit, s66, like antiX.

And Don't forget than the fundamental changes must be asked to debian, and it is too late for MX25 ... Mx is a derivative of debian.

CharlesV wrote: Tue Jun 03, 2025 10:21 am @Jakob77 I have not forgotten about helping you. However, I do *not* believe the that should be a 'default' either.

As you have so quickly disregarded... there is a security issue right here and your little 'default path' means that it would be easier for someone to compromise the system. If *you* are not concerned with that then have at it, but I have to vote no for a default path there.

+1

I prefer to use /usr/local for things like that.