MX Linux Forum

What I mean is: is MX the new hot distro after Manjaro and Solus?

It sure seems like MX suddenly is playing in the "big leagues" with Manjaro, Mint and Ubuntu (Xubuntu?).
Maybe it's a better question if MX was the Manjaro or 2018?

It's all a matter of preference. We do not consider ourselves a big league player. At least.. -I- don't.

We're a small team with an even smaller team of builders.

I would add that being a small team does things so that they work well and big with great solidity.
MX already earned its respect in the GNU / Linux world for the well thought out and developed things.

I'm not quite certain what the real question is; but then, I'm pretty dense. :lipsrsealed: To me the safe & true response is we are neither.

I don't think you can equate the 2.

As an independent distro with its own package management system (albeit forked from pisi), Solus is very much about wanting to give their users a curated, user-friendly experience. They need to ensure that despite being a rolling distro, everything works without the user having to do due diligence before installing updates, or having to maintain their system.

Thus they don't have huge repos, nor numerous apps doing the same job. For instance, you won't find tons of different file managers in their repos. They had Nautilus file manager for Budgie desktop and that was it, until they added their Mate and Plasma releases. So now they have dolphin and Caja file managers for those other 2 DEs as well. But I think that is all. I don't think they have Nemo file manager for instance (at least that was the case the last I checked).

MX on the other hand is based on Debian, so its repos are large and sprawling. You could find a million and one applications that do a similar job, and you could install all of them on your system if you wished. You could even make package requests for yet another application doing that same task, if it wasn't found in the Debian repos.

It's a more chaotic freedom. But then, it's not a rolling distro, being based on Debian Stable, so it doesn't have to worry too much about crazy updates from upstream that break the system.

I don't know about "new hot distro". It's getting a lot of play now, in part, because it's stable and runs very fast even on older PCs. People see it's based on Debian stable, yet packages are updated quite often so they can't claim MX is just trying to put lipstick on Debian with the same old out-of-date packages.

Systemd hasn't won universal acclaim just yet, so It doesn't hurt that MX has SysV as default init, yet still has systemd available if you want to use it, instead. Nearly all of the reviews have been highly favorable, both by users and those who consider themselves to be reviewers on youtube. The negative reviews I've seen have obviously been done by fans of other distros who feel somehow threatened by the rise of MX. My favorite was a short one that simply said MX is buggy so he will stay with Ubuntu MATE or Linux Mint. I doubt he even tried it before scratching out that masterpiece.

MX is laid out well, has the incomparable MX Tools, with the MX Package Installer, test repo and Debian backports. For many people it has everything they want and need, and for some it's just what they've been looking for. No bells and whistles, wobbly things, spinny things, or other whirygigs. It just works, and works well. And, most importantly, it has an engaged team of developers and support.

I would describe the MX ecosystem as being more closely analagous to "the LMDE2 of 2019"

please, please, please, MX...
do not become a major distro (I'm not telling anybody... )
small is better if you're not trying to make money or fame

Captain Brillo wrote: Tue Jan 22, 2019 8:21 pm please, please, please, MX...
do not become a major distro (I'm not telling anybody... )
small is better if you're not trying to make money or fame

Not the goal of MX in either case. Just trying to be as good as possible and serve the users.

Not sure anything Debian Stable would be described by the Linux community at large as "hot" :) There are not many people building on Debian Stable, and even less that are doing it right like MX.