MX Linux Forum

Hi,

For the last month or so I've been experimenting with the Moksha Desktop Environment which is a fork of the Enlightenment E-17 branch and is most notably the attractive Desktop Environment in the popular Bodhi Linux Distribution. Moksha is a bit more refined than Enlightenment and has some improvements and buggy features stripped out. Moksha is also very notable for being super resource friendly while at the same time providing a nicely composited UI experience, it's super light (+/- 200Mb of RAM) on 32bit hardware. Bodhi Linux is actually working on a Debian-based set of ISO's loosely called 'deBodhi' so I have been mixing their Debian sources with MX Linux and some of my own customizations from AV Linux but there are many flies in the ointment (I've been driving poor @dolphin_oracle nuts!). I don't want to reinvent Bodhi, they are doing a phenomenal job on their own! But I do see the potential for a combination of Moksha and the MX Toolset being a very potent mix! I think having clean MX Packaging of Moksha and it's modules would be a much more viable solution than creating a Frankendebian blend of Bodhi and MX.. What I have running as a prototype functions but there is a lot of glue and duct tape involved..

Screenie of prototype: http://bandshed.net/images/screenshots/ ... _07_21.png

Issues encountered with blending deBodhi and MX as separate projects..

- Moksha leans heavily toward systemd, for MX it needs to work smoothly with both sysvinit and systemd
- There are messy Repository conflicts especially with Firmware packages between Bodhi and MX
- PipeWire is a challenge to get working as Moksha currently has a hard dependency for PulseAudio that has to be hacked around.. *fixed
- System power actions (ie shutdown, reboot, suspend) are problematic with sysvinit *workaround being tested
- External disk mounting is problematic with sysvinit.

Interestingly 'Artix' which is an Arch based non-systemd Distro has Moksha and it's modules completely packaged so there seemingly are some ways to get around the systemd reliance..

Packaging Challenges:

- Moksha for MX should probably use the current EFL (Enlightenment Foundation Libraries) libraries in Debian as it's base, Bodhi packages these differently as 'libefl'.
- Moksha would also need it's modules packaged which are modular bits that add various important functions.
- Moksha has several UI themes made for Bodhi that are made to work with it, at least some of them would need to be included and un-branded (I could help with this)

Anyway, maybe this is a ridiculous thing to ask but I thought I'd put it out there and guage what the community interest may be..? As it is on my test bench it's an interesting garage project but not fit to distribute..

Here is the page for Moksha itself but hopefully much of the actual packaging structure and dependency info could be crossported from the 'deBodhi' Repository packaging... I have some skills putting ISO's together but unfortunately I'm not a Coder or good with modifying sources beyond a rudimentary level but I could help with the visual MX-ification or perhaps even better "debranding"

https://www.bodhilinux.com/moksha-desktop/
PACKAGE FOLDER SOURCES: https://github.com/BodhiDev/bodhi7packages

*ADDED NOTES!

Bodhi has a specially patched arandr version which saves the resolution settings directly to Moksha startup, this would be wise to include:
https://github.com/BodhiDev/bodhi7packa ... r/bookworm

I wouldn't be interested in it since I like XFCE so much but I would recommend you post a poll so people can vote on if they are interested in it or not.

I mentioned on another thread here that I am interested on anything that involves Moksha, mainly because it uses minimal resources and is not hard to learn how to use.

MX Linux XFCE is my favorite desktop and what I will always use for my Main computer (main being whatever is my newest).

Many people, myself included, do not throw away computers and have older computers in active use that need something that uses the least amount of resources as possible, but still want some sort of desktop. I know there is MX Fluxbox, which is great, but I have found Moksha more intuitive to use assuming one is a new user to them both. AntiX is excellent, but not usable for people who need at least the option of systemd.

What would be great is if MX Linux could make the MX-CLI respin an official version (with lots of notices that should be used by experts or developers only). Would allow making various respins using customized versions of desktops/windows managers easier as there would be a stable base that would be guaranteed to be maintained at the same level as other versions.

Sparky Linux offers MinimalCLI as an official version which is very convenient, as I know it will be maintained to the same standards as their other versions. https://wiki.sparkylinux.org/doku.php/sparky_cli An official release of MX-CLI could be even better.

No matter how you go about it, if you and others are willing to put in the time, I am sure there would be others in addition to myself who would enjoy using a version of MX Linux with Moksha. I would volunteer myself, but don't have the skill level yet to be much help.

Hi,

Any other voices of interest in this? It is not a small request so if there is a will to see it happen we need to hear from interested parties..

For illustration purposes I would be willing to share a snapshot of my "out of Bodhi experience" for general tire kicking of what a Moksha on MX ISO would be like, this would probably only be best tried live or in a VM and not used for a 'production' install..

I'm in love with XFCE and it being a flagship DE was one of the big reasons I chose MX.

If something were to happen to XFCE, my second choice would probably be LXQt. Moksha isn't even on the radar.

vm_x wrote: Thu Feb 08, 2024 2:39 am I'm in love with XFCE and it being a flagship DE was one of the big reasons I chose MX.

If something were to happen to XFCE, my second choice would probably be LXQt. Moksha isn't even on the radar.

Indeed, LXQt would be cool!

Given Bodhi are going Debian, I would think adding it as an option for MX users wouldn't be a problem. Chances are, they've already done a lot of the hard work needed to make it compatible.
I understand the dilemma over systemd/nonsystemd, however there are apps which seem to work ok with one and not the other, and vice versa. ( a bit like X and Wayland? )

In these days of more powerful computers become more widely affordable and available for nerds like us, the notion of working to make a desktop environment as light and efficient as possible seems almost superfluous, but when those increased cycles can be put to use running more sample libs (for instance), and the software required to use them, then the addition of one of the most efficient and lightweight DEs Linux has, seems like a good thing.


So many choices, and only one lifetime to conduct experiments and test.....!

@vm_x

Ooops, I see some of the replies seem to be in response like I am suggesting Moksha as an official or replacement DE for MX, I suppose my original post title might suggest that but of course that's not what I mean at all and I've changed it..

MX has Budgie, Cinnamon and other DE's available as options although it will never use them in it's supported versions, I'm only seeing what the interest is in Moksha as an installable option..

@AVLinux

No, I wasn't suggesting anything like that, I was merely giving you feedback to this:

Any other voices of interest in this? It is not a small request so if there is a will to see it happen we need to hear from interested parties..

My take was: If we were to have another optional DE, I'd vote for LXQt maybe, and I'm completely uninterested in Moksha.

vm_x wrote: Thu Feb 08, 2024 11:23 am @AVLinux

No, I wasn't suggesting anything like that, I was merely giving you feedback to this:

Any other voices of interest in this? It is not a small request so if there is a will to see it happen we need to hear from interested parties..

My take was: If we were to have another optional DE, I'd vote for LXQt maybe, and I'm completely uninterested in Moksha.

OK, good, thanks!

I see LXQT indeed is not listed in MXPI popular apps, as I recall @Stevo did package a refresh of LXQT but that was probably before MX-23 was released so those packages are likely not in MX-23 Repos.. Anyway probably best to create a new LXQT topic and Package request so it isn't buried here.