MX Linux Forum

I am just curious about other distros that fellow MX users do use or like.

Personally I often try distros in live session, but keep coming back to MX. Lastly, I installed the most recent Mint release on my back up computer, but re-installed MX hours later...
However, I am pretty sure some distros might be of interest (almost kept Opensuse xfce a few weeks ago but could not find my usual applications in their repo).

Hi Cristobal,
I recently set up in Gnome Boxes (a virtualbox workalike that's available in the repos) and have tried several distros in it. Mint was pretty flawless in running but I deleted it and have currently EndeavourOS which seems to install and run just fine. That said, like you, I soon tire of fiddling around with other distros because MX remains the standout of all distros IMO

I've just used SimplyMEPIS/MXLinux for almost 20 years now. It works, and I'm lazy...

Just made me realize that a lot of you guys knew me when I was young and stupid.

Less young, still stupid lol

Simply Mepis for me, and now MX.


I did venture sideways just to see. Quickly ran back and never strayed again.

Cristobal wrote: Tue Aug 16, 2022 8:58 am I am just curious about other distros that fellow MX users do use or like.

I just setup a triple boot the other day. MX is my default boot but I also installed Slackware 15 (learned a lot about Linux starting with 7.1) and OpenSUSE Tumbleweed (because I wanted to see what all the fuss was running a rolling release).

Use or like? None ;-}

I have 2 other mx versions on the system, and on another disk between 1-4 foreign systems, just for the sake of looking over the edge or to see what others are raving about ;-}
I never remembered the "cut-off dates", I'm using MX now since V18, before that I used opensuse for 5 years (always xfce, at least on the working system)).
At the beginning of 2020 I switched from xfce to Fluxbox and the system is now so tightly configured to my needs and requirements that I simply have no serious interest in other distributions (or desktop interfaces).
And I haven't even mentioned the MX tools as an essential part of this yet.

I'm definitely an MX Linux AND antiX user. My primary distributions over the years have always been Debian-based distributions. Sometimes I use plain Debian or Debian Sid; quite often I'll use other derivative distributions; a very good one for "Sid" users is siduction. Despite the "Sid" base, it's remarkably stable and usable, at least for me.

A BIG positive surprise over the past two years has been EndeavourOS. For those unfamiliar with it, this distribution is built from Arch Linux sources and it's a close follower in most ways to the "Arch" way. However, it's MUCH easier to install, it's nearly as fast as siduction, which has been my FASTEST distribution on my particular hardware. Like siduction, it's been remarkably solid, in spite of the cutting edge nature of the software. Unlike Arch Linux builds, including those from Manjaro, in the past, they'd work fine, and seem to be high quality, then all of a sudden, they'd have some erratic update that would utterly render the specific instance I was using, or worse, overwrite any existing partitions on my system. I'm very happy to report that EndeavourOS has NOT done any of these awful things, and I've been using it for over two years now on two of my systems, so MX Linux, antiX, siduction, and EndeavourOS have been constants on a couple of my systems.

One other general purpose distribution that uses a different slant and different packaging, but still does a good job as a general purpose distribution is PCLinuxOS.
I first tried PCLinuxOS way back when both the early version of MEPIS and the early version of PCLinuxOS were quite young; both had easy, boot from CD configurations, and both could run live from CD in those days. While I seldom use them in that fashion any more, sometimes, just as a change of pace, I'll run them today from a removable stick on a USB port and that still works.

My case is unusual in that I use mostly very old computers. But on my more modern systems I now run almost exclusively with MX and usually install antiX in a Virtual Machine. But previous to this I was running Xubuntu and Vector Linux for many years. I still have one Xubuntu install and one Slackware install on a multiboot test system. But that is not my everyday system.

On two of my old everyday systems in my lab I use (in addition to antiX and MX 32-bit versions) Q4OS Trinity, openSUSE Tumbleweed, and Debian. I usually have XFCE as the DE, or LXDE. These are Pentium 4 and Pentium-III machines. MX and antiX both run on these old machines very well. Q4OS is a close second. I run Linux Mint Debian Edition on another test system along with Q4OS, BunsenLabs, Bohdi, Sparky, and Debian.

Seaken64

I came to MX rather recently, 2 years ago, but used SimplyMepis way back. Today, I split my Linux time between Fedora and MX for the most part, those are the distros on my main desktops and personal laptop. What keeps me in Fedora and MX are the communities. Both are warm and welcoming, and give me opportunities to contribute when I'm able. Both have very active communities so if you have an issue there is usually someone who steps in to offer some help. That being said, there are other linux flavors in my life too:

Main work desktop = MX Fluxbox
Main home desktop = Fedora
Work laptop (Windows 11, but...) = Ubuntu in WSL because it is well supported and documented
Work RPi 1 (acts as VPN server, bastion/jump box, personal git server) = Raspberry Pi OS Lite (because it works best on 1st generation RPi's with 512mb of RAM)
Work server (old laptop with i3 with 4gigs of RAM, it serves web apps and static pages to my work intranet) = Debian Stable
Work laptop for running projector/slides = Ubuntu Mate (being decommissioned today because of new AV equipment install that comes with dedicated Windows Intel NUC)
Personal laptop (vacations/lazyboy recliner computing) = MX Fluxbox
Homelab server = Fedora
Homelab file backup server = Fedora
Homelabl RPi 3 as a PiHole = Raspberry Pi OS Lite

@masinick
Good to know about Endeavour OS, I am very curious about it and might give it a try.
@seaken64
The Trinity desktop is very appealing to me (XP look alike), I was about to install it, but the ease of use of MX kept me from doing so.

Debian since the... ehm, long time ago? Raspbian on RPIs.

Also tried *ubuntu, Mint, and Neon - but never on my main machine.

@Cristobal , I agree that the ease of use with MX makes it a good choice. But I like to experiment and look at different things. If I weren't so pleased with MX and antiX I would probably be an everyday Q4OS Trinity user.

Seaken64

It's funny. In the past I bounced between two seemingly opposites: Debian and Arch.
I'd get bored with Debian and install Arch. Then some update would mess me up an an awkward time and I'd go back to Debian for the stability.

Happy with MX

Fedora is the "fun" distro for seeing what's shiny and new and testing all that out. Not very useful at all otherwise though unless you're a developer who absolutely insists on using the latest packages.

There are many other distros beyond that that I would recommend, but I'm making a dedicated video that will cover a bunch of Linux stuff for former Windows power users, so you'll all just have to wait for that. But at the end of the day, MX definitely takes home the 1st prize as the best main workhorse distro, being both incredibly versatile and incredibly stable.

seaken64 wrote: Tue Aug 16, 2022 12:23 pm @Cristobal , I agree that the ease of use with MX makes it a good choice. But I like to experiment and look at different things. If I weren't so pleased with MX and antiX I would probably be an everyday Q4OS Trinity user.

Seaken64

My main concerns were:
- installing openvpn (and the network manager) in order to use the config files from my VPN provider
- not being able to find most of the app I use in MX (and available from their repo)

Other than that, I agree with with you, Q4OS seems to be a very good distro (not resource hungry with the Trinity DE)

I started with Mepis 6.5, and Mepis was always Old Faithful, the workhorse that always just worked. However, I've been exploring other distros and multi-booting since maybe 2008.

The exploration intensified from around 2012 due to Mepis12 beta (Warren's last release) not working on my then-PC, so I was looking for alternatives for when Mepis 11 was EOL. I got into SolydX and Manjaro XFCE because of that. And as I got better at setting up my PC to multiboot, share a data drive among the distros, and deal with custom grub configs, I realised it was not really an issue to have many distros.

When Mepis forum announced that MX14 was being developed, I was excited but by then, collecting other distros had become a fun thing. And I had grown to like Manjaro and generally the Arch ecosphere and usage of pacman.

Currently I have 14 (!!) installations on my main PC, but 3 are MX19 installs and 2 are MX21 installs (basically 1 each of XFCE and KDE; the 3rd MX19 is a XFCE install on which I also installed Plasma to test how both would work together). Of the remaining 9 installs I have:

- 2 Manjaros (XFCE and Budgie)
- Anarchy (Arch-based) (Gnome)
- Artix (Arch-based, but init = runit) (Plasma)
- Void (Cinnamon)

- KDE Neon (Plasma)
- Solus (Budgie)
- Fedora (Gnome)
- PCLinuxOS (MATE) (MATE has never captured my imagination, but I thought I should have it in my collection!)

The distros above are listed in descending order of my preferences.

To be honest, I can do without the distros after Void. If any of those 4 ever get borked in an upgrade (they are either rolling or have a clear upgrade path between releases), I don't think I would restore or reinstall them. I still keep them because they have continued to work and upgrade without issue for many years.

Why have so many? I'm just curious about different package management systems, desktop environments, distro families.


I don't mess as much with my laptops. I just pair MX with a rolling distro. My current laptop holds MX19 and Manjaro, while my old ASUS laptop holds MX19 and Solus, because Solus is a curated rolling distro that requires minimal maintenance. I can go close to a year without updating my old laptop (and I do!) and when I finally carry out the update on Solus, there are no issues. I wouldn't want to try that with an Arch-based distro.

Starting with Slackware in 1993 ? .. I dabbled with Linux and eventually found Mepis to be the best distro for me.

Since I have always run, developed on and supported a large user base of Windows, I found it VERY hard to move to Linux for my desktop, trying several times over the years and falling back to Windows with some linux use. ( I spend a lot of time in cmd and cli, and this is where I found linux to be amazing.)

Eventually, and traveling through Mint, PCLinuxOS, Manjaro and many many others, I landed on mint as ‘the one’. However, I found Mint to be more unstable than I care for, and tweaking and bending was just not something I care to do on my primary rigs which must be up.

I continued to search for a good, stable version that I could a) put on older machines and donate to schools and clubs, and b) run for a long time with no issues. (Billboards, digital signs, kiosks etc). And had pretty much given up on MY desktop using linux. I continued using Knoppix and AntiX for recovery and upgrading windows machines, and started using puppy linux for clients that couldn’t stay out of trouble ;-/

And then I found MXLinux … I started using it on computers I would donate, then recovery usb’s , and then started using it in a VM as a desktop. Since I run SO heavy on windows, it took me a long time to figure out how to do everything I needed on a daily basis. But I found MXL to be absolutely the best desktop.

I started converting me, and at the same time clients and friends and found most windows users, like myself, could get around in it easily and without a bunch of CLI tweaking. I have found MX to be far more stable than anything else I have run, and it is easily repaired, tweaked, and SO maneuverable that it is quite amazing.

For me, MXL is FAR FAR above the rest in many ways. I still support clients on Mint, Debian and a few other distro’s, but there is just nothing else that comes close in my opinion.

If MX Linux didn't exist, I would use Linux Mint Debian Edition, with Xfce on top.

Chris

I've used Red Hat before they went commercial, Mandrake/Mandriva, and then settled on Slackware before switching to MX Linux as a daily driver a few years ago. I am a package maintainer and kernel tester for Slackware, so I still have a machine with both 15.0 and Current running. I like it as Slackware has a more simpler package management philosophy. Besides, it's the oldest distro. I just don't like to spend the time these days customizing the applications and interfaces, so a distro like MX Linux that has all of that already, is a big win for me.

I used to liked the one-size-fits-all desktop distros, and I still recommend them to newcomers for "general use" computing (a little bit of just about everything). I guess I've become more of a "niche user" now since I don't use my 'puter for "a little bit of everything" anymore. I was a Xubuntu fanboy for years, and if they hadn't switched to snaps as the default package manager, I'd still have kept a copy. Did Linux Mint and Linux Lite and they were both superb for general use.

But I also love minimalism, wanting to clean every li'l bit of unnecessary software from an OS, but it rarely works out the way I need it to. I throw Xfce on top of antiX for my main daily driver. Yeah, I know I could just use MX instead, but having systemd without using it violates my obsessed need for as little extra as possible (except I just gotta have my Xfce desktop!).

I have been flirting with a sweet, fast, little-known Xfce distro based on Slackware, called Salix OS. It's "Linux for Lazy Slackers." It has a sweet little tool set and GUI stuff so I can avoid the dreaded and fearsome ▄︻デȶɛʀʍɨռǟʟ═══━一 and just happily point-and-click my way along. And so systemd!

Salix 15.0 RC3 is out now and likely to be the final product. It's kinda sorta like MX, but for Slackware instead of Debian.

I use MX Linux on my main desktop. My primary laptop runs SolydX for about 5 years now.

While I generally prefer xfce, there are a few apps that fall into the KDE realm that I really find useful and I have a secondary desktop system that has had Manjaro KDE running for better than 7 years, with no problems, that provides those apps. I've been thinking about using MX KDE instead of Manjaro but why mess with what works.

PCLinuxOS (PCLOS). Due to the MX that was running on my Lenovo not being supported anymore, I had a bit of a look around via Distrowatch, & decided to give PCLOS a go. It uses Synaptic & associated packages that have been modified to handle .rpm packages. PCLOS uses a full rolling release package management system, which is certainly something I like, as I've used the Arch (pacman) based rollers, much more than any other type since early 2008.

PCLOS is very similar to MX. Its number of users are less. & the number of packages in its repos are also less than MX. Which is about the only negative thing I can say about it at this stage. If you put in a request for a package to be incorporated into the repos it will most likely be included.

My main machine (Clevo) is also out of MX support now. I expect I'll clone my Lenovo setup onto it & migrate. I've still got my Pi4 running on the MX spin. It is a really economical torrent client. Not much good as a data server though. They really are still just not powerful enough.

I'll continue testing on the Lenovo for a while yet before I make my decision to move on.

handy wrote: Tue Aug 16, 2022 11:02 pm PCLinuxOS (PCLOS). Due to the MX that was running on my Lenovo not being supported anymore...My main machine (Clevo) is also out of MX support now.

Just curious, would installing MX21 on those machines be a possible solution as well, so you wouldn't be running an unsupported version of MX? I'm guessing you were using this "end of life" for your installed version of MX as an opportunity to see what else is out there since it would be best to do a clean install of MX21 on those machines anyway. Although, I love MX and have done two clean installs to move from MX19 to MX21 on two of my machines, there are lots of great distros out there. I have heard good things about PCLinuxOS and their community. A positive and supportive community are great reasons to run a distro.

mowest wrote: Wed Aug 17, 2022 8:35 am

handy wrote: Tue Aug 16, 2022 11:02 pm PCLinuxOS (PCLOS). Due to the MX that was running on my Lenovo not being supported anymore...My main machine (Clevo) is also out of MX support now.

Just curious, would installing MX21 on those machines be a possible solution as well, so you wouldn't be running an unsupported version of MX? I'm guessing you were using this "end of life" for your installed version of MX as an opportunity to see what else is out there since it would be best to do a clean install of MX21 on those machines anyway. Although, I love MX and have done two clean installs to move from MX19 to MX21 on two of my machines, there are lots of great distros out there. I have heard good things about PCLinuxOS and their community. A positive and supportive community are great reasons to run a distro.

I concur with mowest's suggestion. Is there something embedded in your earlier versions of MX that can't easily enough be ported to MX21 handy? MX21 in my experience runs equally well on old hardware and newer. I am writing at the moment on an 16 year old PC that runs 3Gb of RAM and I can put this machine to most tasks I have for it. Maybe you need to do more elaborate computing but then I presume your Lenovo and Clevo machines are relatively modern and could handle all versions of MX?

Thanks for your reply's.

I love Arch Linux. I left (in 2011) due to the disrespectful arguments (which I only observed & did not participate in) that went on between staff, mods, TU's & many others (some with huge post counts) re, Arch moving to systemd.

I found Manjaro in late 2011 & really liked it. It was a lot of fun back then with a small community & lots of enthusiasm. I did have to put up with systemd for sometime, until a chap came along & provided a systemd free alternative for Manjaro - which was welcomed by Philm & the other high flyers.

That systemd free dev left Manjaro & started Artix (with some others who were into providing Arch without systemd). I used Artix for a while but ended up drifting out of there (can't remember why?). I desired another systemd free distro. I looked at Devuan, didn't like it for some reason. Then discovered MX & antiX & liked them. Nearly the end of history lesson.

I used PCLOS >15 years ago, I liked it, but I moved on to discover Arch.

When I recently looked at PCLOS, I discovered that it was systemd free & full rolling release! I wonder why I hadn't looked at it after I left Artix? As they really are my prime desires. MX is close to that, but it is not a full roller.

When I set up my systems from scratch on a new distro, it takes quite a lot of time. Admittedly I can drag my config files with me. Even so, it still takes a lot of time. I don't much like doing it these days. I did once, not now. That is the prime reason I like full rolling release distros. I rarely need the latest versions of kernels or other packages. I just don't like going to all that work to build a customised system if there is a way to avoid it. :)

Rolling release or not:- Build it; then clone it; backup your most recent clones. If you have a hardware failure, you can very quickly recover by casting a cloned image onto the old drive, or a new one, or another machine (failure or not). I love it!

Since I've been using MX-Linux and antiX, those have been my favorite distros. I have one desktop that's still using Ubuntu (18.04) but I'm going to reformat it with MX when I have the time. At that point, I'll be using MX and antiX exclusively.

But my daughter doesn't like MX. Part of it may be the touchiness of the touchpad (I don't use a touchpad). She loves Mint. She's not at all technical, and Mint is painless for her. Then again, my husband isn't at all technical, either, and he's been using MX just as painlessly. But his is a desktop, so no touchpad.

A long time ago I tried MX 17 (I think) and had too many problems. Same thing with Debian Xfce. I don't remember what version that was. I only used MX as a Live USB after that and used Xubuntu as a daily driver for several years with few problems.

I installed Linux Mint 20 Xfce when it was released about 2 years ago. I was relatively happy with it. I had very few problems. Then last month when Linux Mint 21 was released I installed the Xfce version. I immediatley noticed high memory use. From a cold boot with nothing running it was using around 750 M. LM 20.3 with the same kernel and same Xfce version used about 450 M. I thought that was way too high for Xfce so I did a clean install of LM 21 Cinnamon. It used about 800 M and I had some video problems that I didn't have on Xfce.

Yesterday I decided to try MX Xfce again. I really like the "new" MX installer. Now I can create separate / and /home encrypted partitions and not use the whole disk. After I installed it I enabled the ahs repo, upgraded, and installed the 5.17 kernel. With the 5.17 kernel I no longer need the amdgpu tearfree option. I checked the memory usage between 5.10 and 5.17 and systemd and sysv and it varies from 518 M to 603 M. I can't tell if I have some problem or if Xfce is just a memory hog now.

I think I will stay with MX 21.1 for now.

handy wrote: Fri Aug 19, 2022 12:48 am Thanks for your reply's...

When I set up my systems from scratch on a new distro, it takes quite a lot of time. Admittedly I can drag my config files with me. Even so, it still takes a lot of time. I don't much like doing it these days. I did once, not now. That is the prime reason I like full rolling release distros. I rarely need the latest versions of kernels or other packages. I just don't like going to all that work to build a customised system if there is a way to avoid it. :)

Rolling release or not:- Build it; then clone it; backup your most recent clones. If you have a hardware failure, you can very quickly recover by casting a cloned image onto the old drive, or a new one, or another machine (failure or not). I love it!

@handy Now I understand. Yes, I can definitely see the appeal of a true rolling distro. As you said, install, set up once, clone images as part of your backup routine, and you always can do a restore of the OS in seconds on a new drive and it would be as if you never had a drive failure. Since I have grown to love the stability of MX, I decided that during the new install of MX21 I documented every little change that I made to my system, and continue to document those changes. When I did the second install of MX21 on a different system it went a lot faster, but I've been thinking about this. I already self host my dotfiles on a local git server, I'm thinking of looking into Ansible and creating an Ansible play book that makes all of those changes for me after a fresh install. Since for me most of my post install set up involves installing the programs that I use regularly and git cloning my dotefiles to the new install, it should be a rather quick process, but I need to learn Ansible first, which is on a list of Linux things that I want to learn, so I might not have that ready before the next release of MX

MX is my main, because of easy of use, tools such as MX Snapshot and just overall completeness. I just feel in love with MX.

But, there is this one old 32 bit game, that needs wine, the only one I play, that for the last two years or so, I could not get it working on MX. Game works on Endeavour, Manjaro, Linux Lite, Sparky... For this reason, I have separate computer, where I dual boot Endeavour and Linux Lite, so I have access to that game. If I could get game working on MX, I would not need to run any other Linux flavor. Too bad... Arch based rolling distro sometimes breaks game after system update (usually new version of wine), that is, why I'm running it on two different Linux distros. Maybe one day, I will be able to run only Linux MX

@Buck Fankers, you could block Wine from being upgraded on Arch based (probably any) distro. /etc/pacman.conf (from memory, its been a while now... ).

Mostly I stick with Debian based distros, the two other than MX Linux that I dabble with are LMDE and BunsenLabs, I ran CrunchBang before the developer quit, after that I ran LMDE as my main distro when it was made with Xfce, when they dropped Xfce from LMDE I went to Debian Xfce.

Currently I am tempted to use the BunsenLabs net install script with the CLI respin Adrian made, just to see what happens.

When I first ran linux fulltime I was running SalineOS, a single dev debian distro. Loved it. When the dev stopped deving I went back to winblows. MX, being a ditsrowatch fav, was obviously my next choice. It works well and does what I need it to without too much fuss. The forum help one gets is a MAJOR advantage as well. I have a couple others in the wing I want to try like xerolinux, geckolinux, artix suite66, and endeavour os arch atlantis neo but don't have the time right now to mess with it.
Anything that's debian and doesn't use systemd is for me.

Devuan, Slackware and Void. MX is on my daily workhorse laptop, which previously had Slackware but now I just use it on a live usb. Devuan is on an external hd and Void on another laptop.

I'd like to multi-boot all four but I haven't yet found to find the time to do it.

partially OT

@handy

Sorry for late reply. I'm logging in very infrequently, once or twice a month. Yes, this is what I was doing, freezing wine, but this time something else broke the game client.

All this being said, I finally got that game to work on MX!!! With the help of some pro. I can now ditch all other Linux distributions! I mean, I like Endeavour, very nice Arch based system, I like it much better than Manjaro, but I want to only have one Linux and that is Linux MX.

I will post install guide in a day or two, in case someone else my be interested.

MX is the best I've ever used, so it would be hard to get me to change. I started on Slackware, way back at like 9, tried almost every major distro available at the time - Gentoo, SuSE, Debian, Fedora (was RedHat back then ), used Arch linux for a few years (too much work), switched to Mint for a while - but MX has beaten all of them for ease of use and OOTB functionality.

the old SuSE Linux distro of the early 2000s. Just pure GOLD! And then came Mepis/MX!

Buck Fankers wrote: Sat Sep 03, 2022 3:27 pm partially OT

@handy

Sorry for late reply. I'm logging in very infrequently, once or twice a month. Yes, this is what I was doing, freezing wine, but this time something else broke the game client.

All this being said, I finally got that game to work on MX!!! With the help of some pro. I can now ditch all other Linux distributions! I mean, I like Endeavour, very nice Arch based system, I like it much better than Manjaro, but I want to only have one Linux and that is Linux MX.

I will post install guide in a day or two, in case someone else my be interested.

I may have a look at Endeavour. PCLOS crapped out on me after a big (208 packages & an hour downloading, primarily due to a major python3 update I think) update. I really couldn't be bothered spending forever trying to fix it. OR casting a backup image onto the drive & then spending forever working out how to prevent it from happening again.

Perhaps Endeavour will be more stable? I expect it runs systemd though...

Endeavour is systemd reliant. Artix, Arch & any other distro that is closely based on Arch (Void too, for that matter) will require more effort than I want to put in - or just as likely more than I'm capable of dealing with these days. Rolling release distros require their users to be capable of recovering from the problems that they just installed. (I don't use rsync or timeshift to keep track of daily changes of my system.

So, the good news is, that I know how stable & well supported MX is. MX is systemd free & semi rolling. Shame it can't be full rolling, though if it were it would just as likely be lumped into the same boat as Arch/*, Void & the other full rollers.

Better the devil(s) you know & all that. :D

I've always said that once my mind deteriorates to the point that I can no longer use & maintain a Linux distro - there is always OS-X to fall back on. OS-X has been purposely built so that any IT illiterate computer idiot will be able to use it. Apple really has done an excellent job in that regard.

Thanks to OS-X, if my mind deteriorates enough that I have no other choice but use it, I'll likely still be able to continue to use a computer until my dying day. (Though I'll probably die of boredom!)

Ever try to run OSX on an old HP laptop that used to run Windows 7? That's where MX really shines. I love that I can keep my old clunkers running with modern software.

I have one box in my lab/office that still runs Windows 10 that I use for TV on a HD Homerun and cable card. I also setup MX, Xubuntu, Fedora, openSUSE Leap, and Absolute64 (Slackware 15). I updated all of them last weekend. MX was the only one that still runs fine with my dual screen setup (One TV screen and one LCD desk monitor). All the others barfed up and I am now going through the issues trying to get my setup back.

I like playing with various linux distros. But I also make sure to put MX on every system so that I have at least one good OS to use.

Seaken

If I favor a distro besides MX, I'd have to say LM. Mint was my first experience with Linux, once I'd decided to leave Windows as a daily driver. I really really liked the Cinnamon DE. I like the automated version upgrades- one click takes you up to the next revision number. I also like the easy click-and-choose individual updates in the update manager. I like the look and feel of the Cinnamon DE. But I run older hardware- my newest computer is like a 2015 or 2016 motherboard- the ASRock in my signature line and you see it comes with a pretty laid back CPU- and Mint Cinnamon a couple years back or so started to get a little slower for me. Enough to think hmm time to find some other solution.

So hit the YouTubes and Distrowatch and searches for something a bit lighter. Tried Lubuntu several times it sure looks pretty but always manages to tick me off in one fashion or another. Love Mint with the Cinnamon DE but hate Mint Xfce, I never have liked it and probably never will, every time I try it out it finds some way to irritate me, like Lubuntu does. Also still manages to use more resources than MX.

I'm happy with my MX. I never thought I'd like Xfce but that was because Mint's implementation had put a bad taste in my mouth to me MX is nothing like it. I'm not an uber-technical Linux junkie I just want my computer to do what I want it to do without pissing me off and MX does the job nicely. Every so often I'll try another distro, I'll retry Mint Xfce or Lubuntu, tried Endeavor and a few others but yeah I'm going to be with MX a good while, it's lean enough to suit my affinity for Less Is More (my very very first computer was a Sinclair ZX-80 so I'm used to being the weird minimalist kid) but still have a really nice environment that doesn't make me feel as if I'm being deprived of anything. I've messed around with antiX some and would use that on my little baby emachine desktop in the sig line except for one application I run on it that just insists upon crashing starting a couple upgrades ago (the application upgrades, not antiX). But MX Fluxbox does well enough for my needs there.

But yeah if I happened onto a more powerful machine and I was tempted to stray from MX it'd be Mint Cinnamon. Maybe. Pretty happy with what I got and at this point don't really see a need to switch off it.

rickyraccoon wrote: Mon Sep 12, 2022 11:42 am I like the automated version upgrades- one click takes you up to the next revision number.

What do you mean with this? Does this mean, that Linux Mint supports the possibility to upgrade from one main version to another? This is something is miss in MX: A supported upgrade possibility, so that we can upgrade from MX-19 to MX-21.
Does Mint have this?

(Please note: I only know MX. This was my first and only dist. until now.)

Duliwi wrote: Mon Sep 12, 2022 1:32 pm

rickyraccoon wrote: Mon Sep 12, 2022 11:42 am I like the automated version upgrades- one click takes you up to the next revision number.

What do you mean with this? Does this mean, that Linux Mint supports the possibility to upgrade from one main version to another? This is something is miss in MX: A supported upgrade possibility, so that we can upgrade from MX-19 to MX-21.
Does Mint have this?

(Please note: I only know MX. This was my first and only dist. until now.)

Yes, Linux Mint has a tool that does exactly that.

I didn't know that Mint could do that. Very well done Mint. Shame they use systemd...

I hope this isn’t too off topic, and I haven’t tried it yet, but I’ll probably try Titan linux on a low resource laptop.
Supposedly, it’s a keletal KDE plasma and ships with very minimal apps, (IIRC, no LibreOffice), Debian Stable, they’re still adding to the toolbox.
Maybe somewhat similar to this, sans KDE:https://sourceforge.net/projects/mx-lin ... X-Minimal/

Archlabs is my daily driver. Great community with very talented people's. (yet it is just another linux system)

MX-ahs wildflower
any Debian system is a lot of work for me to setup. As I want the latest programs, with Debian that means git & source code installs that 's how one learns & make Linux your own. Definitely Fun side of Debian
I have no need at all for the bells & whistles , gui desktops. But in saying this it is Good for windows users & any players that want a well supported system. (yet it is just another linux system)

jeffreyC wrote: Mon Sep 12, 2022 2:02 pm

Duliwi wrote: Mon Sep 12, 2022 1:32 pm

rickyraccoon wrote: Mon Sep 12, 2022 11:42 am I like the automated version upgrades- one click takes you up to the next revision number.

What do you mean with this? Does this mean, that Linux Mint supports the possibility to upgrade from one main version to another? This is something is miss in MX: A supported upgrade possibility, so that we can upgrade from MX-19 to MX-21.
Does Mint have this?

(Please note: I only know MX. This was my first and only dist. until now.)

Yes, Linux Mint has a tool that does exactly that.

Yes, but just like MX & Debian relation: Providing that the Ubuntu base is still the same. When it's a new Ubuntu base you need to fresh install.

Huckleberry Finn wrote: Tue Sep 13, 2022 4:36 am
Yes, but just like MX & Debian relation: Providing that the Ubuntu base is still the same. When it's a new Ubuntu base you need to fresh install.

Not that accurate. I believe Mint does provide a upgrade path from LTS to LTS version, which they reduced to a graphical interface button.

Even from days of old (maybe 2010 onwards), I recall Kubuntu LTS already having that type of upgrade path***. I used to run Kubuntu LTS on my old ASUS laptop and I recall using that upgrade path twice, ie I had 3 different releases of Kubuntu LTS on my laptop. However, after my second running of the upgrade path, the 3rd LTS release of Kubuntu didn't run too well on my machine. It was glitchy and I wiped it. I think too much cruft was left behind after 2 rounds of release upgrades, maybe new release packages weren't a 1-for-1 replacement for old packages, etc.

Same with the old Netrunner (Ubuntu KDE-based). I'd gone through 2 upgrades (15, 16 17) on my PC, and again the 3rd release version was just not running right so I got rid of it.

After that, my view was that for Debian/Ubuntu-based fixed release distros, clean installs were better. I could always backup or reuse /home, but the system packages were best clean-installed.

You can also do release upgrades in vanilla Debian if you just manually change the repos to the next stable release when it's available. How long it will last without some issues setting in however, I don't know. Perhaps it'll be fine if you mainly stuck with what was in Debian's own repos.


But MX is different:
1. uses systemd-shim in order to have both init systems co-exist
2. backports lots of packages, including things like graphics-related drivers and packages
3. uses tricks to make sure some things that require systemd will still work in sysv (eg network manager, getting the action buttons in sddm login screen to work in modern themes)

Those things may or may not interfere with the normal upgrade path of vanilla Debian. See the excerpt below from MX website:

https://mxlinux.org/mx-repos/

Debian Stable is a wonderful solid distribution that can be upgraded in place from version to version automatically as long as the Debian Stable repos are used exclusively. MX uses Debian Stable as a base, but updates a lot of the userland programs & libraries, and backports newer programs from testing by building them against the Stable base. That gives a better user experience but interferes with Debian’s dist-upgrade path. Our current choice is to stick with sysvinit instead of going to full systemd.

So it’s a trade-off: better desktop user experience at the expense of having to do a quick fresh install (which lets you save /home if desired) when the Debian base changes, typically every 2-3 years

***note: by the provision of an upgrade path, I mean that I actually got a notification in the panel that a new version of Kubuntu LTS was available and I could click on something to commence upgrade.

Thank you for this interesting explanations @asqwerth .

asqwerth wrote: Tue Sep 13, 2022 6:03 am

Huckleberry Finn wrote: Tue Sep 13, 2022 4:36 am
Yes, but just like MX & Debian relation: Providing that the Ubuntu base is still the same. When it's a new Ubuntu base you need to fresh install.

Not that accurate. I believe Mint does provide a upgrade path from LTS to LTS version...

That's already what I meant and Mint already uses the LTS as the base. (I did not say : "when there's a new Ubuntu release", but a "new base" which is already known to be LTS)

Say, Mint

18 Sarah was based on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS Xenial ..
19 Tara on 18.04 LTS Bionic
20 Ulyana on 20.04 LTS Focal

and so on.. You can do the point upgrades (i.e. from 18.0 to 18.1 , .. 18.3 till 19) but you need a fresh installation when you want to upgrade from Mint 18 to 19 then to 20 ...

@Huckleberry Finn

i think we mean roughly the same thing. Mint and other Ubuntu based distros may officially offer an upgrade path to the next LTS (or in netrunner's case, the next new) base, but while it may work for one upgrade of base, it may not work indefinitely. And eventually you'll need a fresh install anyway, so that is still the recommended way to upgrade to a new base.

Puppy Linux
Bionic edition
works great as a rescue & bootable USB
and a travel OS

I have Linux Mint on an old Laptop with the cinnamon desktop; But I have MX on my newer laptop and on my desktop all in one.

I haven't run Mint, but I do have experience running Ubuntu flavors and Fedora.

In the case of Ubuntu flavors, I have done in place upgrades from one release to the next sometimes moving from LTS to interim releases and then back to LTS's as they became available. In WSL (on my Windows systems) I often upgrade from LTS to LTS. All of my in place upgrades have gone very well often spanning 2-4, or maybe even 6 updates (since these updates can be either 6 months apart or 2 years apart) before the system has a hard drive crash or it gets cycled out of use because of newer hardware.

I have done the same with Fedora. I have a Fedora workstation system that is on Fedora 36 currently, and started on Fedora 31. I just do an in place upgrade from one version to the next on Fedora. These upgrades have also worked without issue. The one thing that has happened with my Fedora install is that I'm not able to take advantage of Btrfs as the default file system on Fedora because my original install was XFS before they switched to Btrfs as the default. I think there might be a way to in place change the file system, but I have not wanted to try that out, since it is my main system that I use at home.

That being said, I have not minded doing fresh installs of MX versions. On my workstation at work, which I don't want to have any issues, I do have my home partition on a separate Btrfs array of drives, and the root partition and boot on a separate SSD, so fresh installs only touch the SSD and then I map /home to the Btrfs drives. My other MX system is a "vacation/couch" system that doesn't get a ton of use unless I'm wanting to sit in my recliner or I'm on vacation, so doing fresh installs on that system are not a big deal either, especially since I have documented the changes I need to make after a fresh install.

Slackel and SaliX

https://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=slackel

https://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=salix

Ha! I knew I wasn't the only SalixOS user around here. The new 15.0 (still available in 32-bit) will (hopefully) keep my ancient Dell Dimension alive for another several years.

I use Pop!_OS at work because it's basically Ubuntu but a little more polished. Almost all of our development runs on Ubuntu so it's nice to have something similar. I'm also using the linux-surface project stuff because that machine is a Surface Pro 7+. I don't care much for GNOME but I tolerate it because it's got a touch screen. I've never tried KDE with it.

I'm much more comfortable in XFCE so if I have to install something other than MX or antiX, I go with Xubuntu on personal machines. For friends and family, I tend to suggest whatever the default release of Mint is.

I tried Big Linux and found it impressive to begin with but then ... I tried to uninstall Firefox uh-huh a language dependency prevented it from uninstalling.
I tried an install of Librewolf and Firefox appeared. On the fly I thought I saw some adobe fonts. All of these together = uninstalled quickly.
Kudos to the work done of Thunderbird 102 - it makes moving things so much easier. So I do not favour Big Linux - but it is pretty swift and quick at what it does

I also tried Nitrux partly because it seemed interesting and partly to have some experience on a Gentoo linked distro ... but after about 2 minutes it was not for me.

Isn't it great to have live USB options!

So my fallback distro has to be Linux Mint - for the time being

Late in catching up to this thread.

When I opined I miss the Mint way of being able to do a full version upgrade (say from 20.x to 21) that's not to say I mind doing a fresh install- I have a terabyte HDD I use only for long term data storage, and it's a simple matter to dump the contents of my SSD I run MX off of to that, then reinstall.

Until now, but that's a matter for a thread I'm fixin' to start in the hardware subforum...