MX Linux Forum

Just for a bit 0of fun, what are your favourite operating systems that you really enjoyed using in the past or present day. For me it was DOS and Windows 95.

In the past, it was Slackware. After dealing with the dependencies from hell issues with RedHat (prior to Fedora) and S.U.S.E. (prior to OpenSUSE) I learned a lot from configuring/maintaining Slackware.

My favorite OS's from the past were: SuSE Linux and Redhat Linux, Windows 2000 Pro and Windows XP pro SP2 heavily modified(nLited slimmed down and embedded). The present is MX LINUX 19.4 and AVL-MXE 19.4 based(both very customized for my application and tastes).

Mx and its forerunner, Mepis. Both of which always just worked. Microsoft's products were always a necessary evil: you had to use them because that's what your employer provided.

MX currently. OS/2 in the past - far superior to the early Windows versions. It also had the best word processor I've used - DeScribe, later ported to Windows and I went on using it until about 2000.

From all I used my favourite was Windows Vista.

Windows 2000 Pro, Mepis, MX.

Another vote for OS/2, BeOS, anything that was different and doomed to d̶i̶e̶ fade away. Litestep on W9x http://www.litestep.net/ was a lot of fun.

My favorite was DOS. I was a small business user so I liked the office app support at that time. I was not a programmer or gamer or scientist or academic so had little exposure to other OS's like Unix or early Linux. But I did like CP/M at the time. There was also Apple DOS and TRS-DOS and some other proprietary OS's that were competing with MS-DOS/PC-DOS for small business or enterprise users. But I liked the simplicity of DOS at the time and it was easy for me to implement on my own without having to hire IT professionals.

If software today still supported DOS I would still use it. But for most of my small business apps I adopted Windows since about Windows 98SE and 2000.

For my personal use I now prefer Linux. My favorite used to be Slackware but then I found antiX and now my favorite is antiX and MX. But I still play with DOS almost every day as a retro computing enthusiast.

Seaken64

Gaer Boy wrote: Sun Nov 20, 2022 4:59 am ... OS/2 in the past - far superior to the early Windows versions.

Which was much to the chagrin of Microsoft:

Beyond PR paid by Microsoft, there was a considerable effort using Microsoft employees who "participated" in on-line discussion groups, usually without admitting they were Microsoft employees.

The most famous "participation" case was the "Barkto incident". A person calling himself Steve Barkto appeared in OS/2 discussion groups claiming to be a big IBM customer in Oklahoma who had adopted OS/2. Barkto had nothing good to say about OS/2 or IBM, and many of the things he said were outright lies. His posting was traced back to an account that was paid for by the credit card of Rick Segal, a high Microsoft executive.

Microsoft the Company - The House Monopoly Built, by Andrew Grygus

Eadwine Rose wrote: Sun Nov 20, 2022 5:22 am Windows 2000 Pro, Mepis, MX.

We are kindred spirits. The last Windows OS I used on my personal kit was W2K. I made Mepis my default home OS with v6.5. I then went with M8 (still with the beloved KDE3), followed by M11. I briefly went with Mint KDE after M11 no long would function properly with later web requirements until MX offered a KDE version. Have been running MX 19 KDE since it was offered and have no need or desire to change.

Apple ][ DOS, no contest.

A little later CP/M-80 mostly because it ran WordStar and supported my Epson dot matrix printer.

Best Windows was 2K Pro though XP wasn't too bad either.

My experience with Linuxes is minimal (I liked earlier CentOS versions), so MX is an easy win there.

uncle mark wrote: Sun Nov 20, 2022 12:03 pm

Eadwine Rose wrote: Sun Nov 20, 2022 5:22 am Windows 2000 Pro, Mepis, MX.

We are kindred spirits. The last Windows OS I used on my personal kit was W2K. I made Mepis my default home OS with v6.5. I then went with M8 (still with the beloved KDE3), followed by M11. I briefly went with Mint KDE after M11 no long would function properly with later web requirements until MX offered a KDE version. Have been running MX 19 KDE since it was offered and have no need or desire to change.

I was the same with Windows. That version worked fine for me, NEVER felt the need to upgrade beyond that. I remember living with friends at the time, and he upgraded to XP, the latest greatest, he HAD to have it. One day I was quietly working on whatever it was I worked on, when I hear this ice-cold piercing scream come from the attic where he was at, followed with a "Nooooooooo".

It blue screened in the middle of a large piece of his coding. Felt for him, oh yeah. Chuckled internally, too.

MEPIS 3.4.3 version (I ran this for many years as a rolling sid version and it never broke).
Feather linux
antiX

anticapitalista wrote: Mon Nov 21, 2022 8:01 am MEPIS 3.4.3 version (I ran this for many years as a rolling sid version and it never broke).
Feather linux
antiX

Mepis 3.4.3 was the first Linux I was ever able to run consistently without it breaking or me breaking it accidentally. It was also the first Linux I was ever able to get connected wirelessly. That was a spiritual experience.

MEPIS 3.4.3 - solid with no issues
Xandros - I had to compile it, Ran without any problems.
And of course MX from the beginning of its life.

Sinclair Spectrum Basic (in 1982), AmigaOS, Mepis.

Chris

OS/2 Warp. But I really liked Windows NT and Windows 2000. The BSDs (especially OpenBSD) are also nice (better design than crusty old Linux).

Actually I remember a fun bug in the installer for OS/2 Warp 3.0, which wouldn't have been picked up back then since 2GB disks weren't invented yet. If you tried installing to a partition between 2-4GB, 6-8GB, 10-12GB, 14-16GB, etc. you'd get an error saying that the partition doesn't have enough disk space. I suspect they decided signed 32-bit integers would be fine, so the aforementioned forbidden partition sizes would be considered as negative disk sizes. Up to 2GB, 4-6GB, 8-10GB, 12-14GB, 16-18GB, etc. were all good. Much playing around with the installer's partition allocator on my monster multi-billion byte hard drive, and also it needs an 8MB boot manager partition at the very start. Forward thinking in a nutshell.

==> Burroughs Series-L (1974-1977)
==> UNIS (Univac) (1977-1981)
==> Vax/VMS, DEC10, PDP:RSTS (1981-1994)
==> Linux (numerous distros); (1994-today)

Basically the entire Windows NT line from 2000 all the way to 8.1. All of them in that range brought at very least a few great things to the table for Windows. XP and 7 though are definitely the biggest highlights. XP was the penultimate version of Windows 2000, and Vista was a great OS and a much needed huge step forward for Windows, but it needed some more time in the oven, and that's what 7 was. For over a decade, Windows absolutely kicked ass in the OS space... But... Those day are over now.

And for Linux, I recently posted my list of Linux Distro Greatest Hits but I'll go ahead and post it again here.

MX Linux
(Best overall workhorse distro and the best TRUE Windows-like distro as well)

Q4OS
(The most Windows-XP-esque distro)

AntiX Linux
(Specifically designed for running on old computers)

BunsenLabs
(A great lightweight distro which also competes with AntiX)

AV Linux
(Content creation distro with an MX Linux base)

ElementaryOS
(The most simplified distro you can get)

Kali Linux
(Penetration-testing distro)

Tails
(Privacy-oriented distro designed specifically for running solely on USB drives)

Qubes OS
(Security and sandboxing-oriented distro designed to be installed to the system)

Fedora
(The distro with generally the newest stuff in the Linux world)

Debian (using the NetInstall CD version)
(A very good standard distro for servers)

Red Hat Enterprise Linux
(A very Debian like distro with full professional support for paying customers)

NixOS
(Raw customization, built on Haskell with a big bonus of reproducible builds)

Slackware
(Very customizable like NixOS, but with very, very, VERY tightly tuned and tested software packages, however, there is no dependency management and no reproducible builds)

Linux From Scratch
(Full manual make-your-own-distro)

-

Oh yeah, also, Android was pretty cool back when Google was pretty cool.

WinXP was pretty much the last halfway decent Microsoft OS, and it was my first. But when it got sooooo sssllllooooowwwww and even multiple trips to the computer shop made little difference, I looked at a Mac and was instantly put off by the price! Now what?

A little Google search (before Google became evil) found "Linux for Human Beings®" and I was delighted with Ubuntu for awhile but quickly tired of that puke-colored desktop theme and tried the other "flavors," settling on Xfce. I was a Xubuntu fanboy for years until they started introducing beta stuff into the 'buntus. Who the heck puts beta software into a distro aimed at newbies?! Thereafter:

Mint (Xfce)
PCLinuxOS
LXLE
Linux Lite
SalixOS (Slackware-based, Xfce awesomeness)
antiX
MX-Linux.

After MX-Linux, Linux Mint is probably my favorite. But I always revisit SalixOS because it's a good one to really "learn Linux" on, and because it's Slackware, and because it's systemd-free.




Moderator: coloring and bolding removed, please keep forum posts easily readable, thanks.

The only one distro I'm using now is MX-Linux. On my main machine I've got just MX-Fluxbox with some customization, and on my laptop I've got LXQT-DE over MX-Fluxbox. Before MX-Fluxbox I had MX-Linux XFCE on my machine and this one is still installed on my fathers computer. I know another distros, but I'm not sure if they are so good now, as they were at the time I tested and use them. So these are distros i have really enjoyed using and playing with:
1. MX-Fluxbox
I like it because it's a very universal system. I can use it as well on my main machine, but I can also install it and enjoy almost the same workflow on my old 32bit EEEPC netbook. I like it also because it is very customizable and modular. E.g. if I don't like Thunar I can easily change to another file-manager. If I don't like the default look and feel of the tint2-panel I can easily change it's look and behavior. The rofi launcher is much more flexible and customizable, than any launchers I know from another DE's. Because MX-Fluxbox is a base MX edition it doesn't install too many programs I don't use, so I can fully customize my system according to my own preferences.
2. MX-Linux XFCE
I think this is the best choice for beginners. It is easy to use, it has most of the applications already installed. Managing the system with MX-Tools is very easy and comfortable.
3. Sparky Linux
A really interesting Debian based distro, not as easy to use as MX-Linux, but still good for the average non-geek Linux users. It is lightweight, it has also 32-bit version, so you can use it on very old machines as well. It has some nice set of tools called (Aptus). It is very flexible, and has a tool that allows you very easy to install and change any desktop environment, you want.
4. Antix Linux
It is a great choice for old machines. I have used it on a one-core 1,03GHz Pentium Laptop, where using MX was problematic.
5. SolydXK
It was my distro of choice before I discovered MX. I'ts also a very stable Debian-based distro. It is something like a more user-friendly Debian, it doesn't develop the 32-bit version and it has less it's own specific tools as its predecessors. I think you won't rather discover anything new after moving from MX to SolydXK, so I don't know if it has really sense to try it now, but I must admit, it was stable and quite enjoyable.

The first PC i saw was a Commodore C64 (ma father brought it home when I was a child) and I remember enjoying programming on it - though we had no floppy everything was gone, when you turned it off.
The time I got my first own PC it was the DOS6.2 / Win3.1 era... I loved it... Went on later to WIN95 which was also great at that time. That was probably the first time I heard of "other" OSes
Tried Knoppix at that time (can't remember exactly but I think it was a version 3.1 or something like that). Enjoyed tinkering with it a bit but fell back into the Microsoft universe (though never forgetting the fun part of escaping it).
From there on the experience went downwards fast... WinME, Vista, Win7... And finally Win8.1 which I tried to "maintain" and hold on to till it got so f*** up that it nearly bricked......
Time for some change!
I did it the hard way:
With NO experience in GNU/Linux whatsoever I installed Linux Mint Cinnamon and wiped Windows completely... I was really fed up with Microsoft (trying to push me to Win10 and stuff).
Got that running... Distrohopped quite a bit though MX was an early find that stuck with me.
Decided MX 19 was the one "just works" distro (I didn't like the Ubuntu branch for the same reasons I don't like Microsoft) I wanted to try a deeper connection with. It still runs on my main laptop to this day... I love it. I really do. It is THE distro i would recommend a Windows-runaway any time.
Learning curve was steep at first but I managed a few things to get around with.
NEVER EVER (!!! mark that !!!) switching back to Windows EVER!
Got some other distros running on some other machines:
Trisquel - on my Backup servers
Some debian stuff - mostly containers - on my proxmox server
obv. Kali and Parrot for tinkering around ^^
and some Armbian on my DeskPi (Raspi4) which is also great
oh yeah and some DietPi here and there on some standalones (Tor relay for instance)

Yeah... seems I am a debian / non Ubuntu - branch kid...

Hi,

Well admittedly I've only been drinking my own Kool-Aid for many years now but..

My first foray into Linux was MEPIS in about 2006 and it blew my mind, however it wasn't geared at all to multimedia production so I jumped to the first Ubuntu Studio based on Gutsy Gibbon 7.10 but the fun ended very quickly with Ubuntu's short support cycle for the '.10' releases and the next Ubuntu LTS release (Hardy Heron) had some major Kernel issues for mulltimedia work so I tried Debian Lenny and between it and Remastersys (whose developer I became friends with) I had a good run of years on pure Debian and Remastersys until Tony withdrew Remastersys due to some of the most toxic emails from entitled Users I've ever seen simply because he asked for donations... By then sharing my AV Linux setups had kind of become a 'thing' of it's own so I had to find an alternative and all there was that worked with Debian was a backup utility called Systemback which was a very kludgy way to distribute ISO's and I was just about ready to fold the tent and then I (re)discovered the incredible phenomenon of MX Linux and it's ISO toolchain. I can't even begin to praise this project enough, it's phenomenal for it's Users but it's also an incredible resource for Distributors! You're stuck with me now...

@AVLinux
What a great testimonial for MX Linux. I have been watching your work from afar, (I am not an audio visual producer of any kind), but do admire what you are doing.

@richb

If you liked that, here's a snippet from my last release announcement which I would guess won't be read by most regular MX'ers..

First, the gratitude! I can honestly say that had I not made the move to MX Linux AV Linux would have withered and died by now. The excellent build toolchain, the patient and generous support of the Developers and Packaging teams and the camaraderie of the User Forum are the most amazing pillars of support you could ask for. This ISO was about 99% complete when a change in the Liquorix kernel broke the build system, MX does not rely on Liquorix even though they do provide it as an alternative, the development team (notably dolphin_oracle and fehlix) dove in and made some pretty substantial changes to the build system and made it work again within a week! Pipewire which is an emerging new Audio server is not currently recommended for Distros based on Debian Bullseye and dolphin_oracle has provided a working alternative setup of it in the MX Test Repo for those who want to experiment with it. Stevo from the Packaging team has been so accommodating and helpful that MXDE-EFL is named after him! Huckleberry Finn has saved my life on the Forum more times than I can count… Thanks so much MX folks!!

Full announcement here for those who may be interested in context: http://www.bandshed.net/2022/12/15/avl- ... -released/

...And now back to our regularly scheduled programming...