Distrowatch Top 5 Distributions review: MX Linux

Mike Turcotte-McCusker
Oct 25, 2021
Updated • Oct 26, 2021
Linux
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It was suggested by some Ghacks visitors that I do a review of the current top 5 Distributions listed on the popular ranking (based on hits to the distrowatch site, not downloads) and information website Distrowatch; and I liked the idea, so this is my take on the current #1 spot holder: MX Linux.

MX Linux is a collaborative effort between the AntiX Linux distribution team and the MX Linux distribution team, based on Debian’s “Stable” branch. The About-Us page of the MX Linux website says, MX Linux began in a discussion about future options among members of the MEPIS community in December 2013. Developers from antiX then joined them, bringing the ISO build system as well as the Live-USB/DVD technology. The name “MX” was chosen to combine the first letter of Mepis with the last of antiX, thus symbolizing their collaboration.”

MX Linux ships with three environment choices:

  • Xfce – The flagship desktop environment
  • KDE Plasma
  • Fluxbox

For this installation and review, I opted for the Xfce version in order to get the full effect of what the team wants to present to users.

It should also be noted that MX Linux does not use Systemd, with the MXLinux website stating, MX Linux uses systemd-shim, which emulates the systemd functions that are required to run the helpers without actually using the init service. This means that SvsVinit remains the default init yet MX Linux can use crucial Debian packages that have systemd dependencies such as CUPS and Network Manager. This approach also allows the user to retain the ability to choose his/her preferred init on the boot screen (GRUB).”

My specs:

  • Ryzen 5 3500X
  • 16GB DDR4 3000Mhz
  • NVIDIA GTX 1660 Super
  • System installed on a SATA SSD

Installation

The MX Linux installation from a Live-USB that I created was a little surprising to me, as they used an entirely different graphical installer than anything I had seen before; and frankly, it was very dated looking and perhaps might come across as a little intimidating to users who are not overly familiar with installing Linux systems.

That’s not to say it was complicated, I found it very easy to use...But I’ve also been installing distributions like most people change socks, for nearly 20 years...However, I will say that it was very well documented with a lot of help-text all over the place, so reading along and following instructions or reading descriptions of what various menu items are, should still be fairly manageable. The installation itself had all the usual features, encryption options, automatic or self-partitioning, etc.

The installation itself once it started, was insanely fast...I went downstairs to get some water after it began, and it was done by the time I sat back down; no longer than 5 minutes, I would even say possibly 3-4 minutes. Overall, if you’ve installed an OS at least a few times in the past, especially any Linux systems, this should be manageable for you.

Included software and features

MX Linux has everything the average user will need to enjoy themselves, be productive, listen to music, watch videos, etc. From LibreOffice to Clementine music player, VLC, Thunderbird, Firefox...There is a little bit of everything, without having too much bloat where you need to start ripping apart your menu of useless items. Something that I was quite impressed with is that MX Linux comes with an absolutely massive suite of “MX” related tools, for nearly everything, such as:

  • MX Boot Options
  • MX Boot Repair
  • MX Conky
  • MX Codecs Installer
  • MX Cleanup (think CCleaner)
  • MX Live-USB Maker
  • MX Menu Editor
  • MX Network Assistant
  • MX Repo Manager

There is more, suffice to say there is an MX Tool for almost anything you can think of related to managing your system, and that’s nice...It shows the level of depth and care put in by the development team to make a cohesive, manageable, organized desktop system for all users. There was even a handy application for installing NVIDIA drivers.

Performance

Xfce is a very lightweight desktop environment, and the MX Linux system is designed itself to also be quite lightweight. With LibreOffice Writer, Firefox with 3 tabs open, a file browser, and the default Conky running with my three monitors connected, I averaged 3-5% CPU used with 1.5GB of RAM being used. Everything flew open right away, and I never encountered any hiccups or stuttering.

Final Thoughts

I didn’t like the layout of the main panel being on the side, and I’m not a big fan of Xfce typically...but once I organized things a little more to my liking, I found MX Linux was a pleasure to use, responsive, fast, and had more tools than you can shake a stick at...So new users will likely not need to use the terminal for anything really, it’s all right there in nice custom-made GUI tools, however, power users may also find the simplicity of some of these tools quite handy too.

Being based on Debian will also help to ensure that MX Linux stays rock solid stable, and there should rarely be crashes or broken packages. I would recommend MX Linux to anyone who cares more about stability than bleeding edge package updates, as well as people looking for a strong distribution that does not use Systemd.

Now you

Have you tried MX Linux? What did you think of it? Let us know in the comments!

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Distrowatch Top 5 Distributions: MX Linux
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Distrowatch Top 5 Distributions: MX Linux
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A review of the popular MX Linux distribution.
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Comments

  1. hi said on July 10, 2023 at 6:50 am
    Reply

    MX linux is an outsading distro, as it is snappy and uses low system resorses. For those that want maximum compatibility and the newest softwares, you would have to go for the beta versions as the normal none beta version is based on debian 10

  2. Ben Geech said on January 9, 2022 at 7:54 pm
    Reply

    An amazing stable system that runs like butter on ancient systems. XFCE? KDE? Neither. I use LXDE. Light, fast. No flash, but great function. And function is what you need on ancients, never flash.

  3. fixitmanarizona said on November 25, 2021 at 3:50 am
    Reply

    I’m laughing so hard at the “Horror UI” user and replies.
    Apparently he doesn’t like people like me and would purposefully run me down with his fancy car, going 90 mph in a school zone, all the while gleefully mocking my choice of trousers, when he could be doing something productive.
    And yet, he says XFCE is designed for “old men in beige khakipants. That’s also their target userbase” Well, by golly, why is he even commenting on it? Does he make a habit of going to retirement homes and mocking the residents for having gray hair and having to use a walker?
    If that’s their target user base and they’re designing for us, that’s what the Linux community is for. I’m not going to force him to get a “normal haircut” and buy his clothes from the “old men” rack at Walmart, and sit in a rocking chair all day, instead of (I’m guessing) having his purple hair and wearing a $4,000 dollar pair of ripped jeans and a pink silk shirt (or whatever he prefers, and banging around town on his too-loud motorcycle.) Nor will I force him to use Windows 3.1 and give up his smartphone for a landline.
    I happen to prefer driving an old Chevy with roll-up windows and a stickshift, driving 10 mph below the speed limit, instead of a Cadillac Escalade 50 mph above any sane speed limit (or some new foreign jobby that tells you when your tires are low and your door is a glass vessel for holding jelly and even tells you when you’re drifting out of your lane) because I really don’t care how it LOOKS, I care how it WORKS (not by having to use some touchscreen, by the way) and that I can fix it myself without some fancy metric tools. And, it has worked fine for 25 years, why would I want to spend 10 years salary buying something brand new, untested, that breaks, that I would hate, that TELLS YOU by an annoying ding every three seconds that you “forgot” to put on your seatbelt? (I didn’t forget. I won’t be forced to wear one.)
    And, in fact, I’m very sad to learn that certain of my “old school” programs with GTK2 won’t work on XFCE 4.16 out of the box. I’ve spent too much time over the years– every time the latest and greatest OS comes out– to get the functionality back of the old OS I was perfectly happy with (but no longer was supported.) That would go double for MS OS’s past XP (the last I had to use, I have used 7,8, and 10 on other peoples boxes and detested the “modern” look they keep updating and that you CAN NOT get back to looking and working like XP or 2000. Talk about ugly (that is a subjective opinion, and not a non-biased objective opinion, which that particular user seems to have trouble understanding) and non-functional for me– tiny fonts, a UI consisting mainly of icons I have no idea what they mean, (They all look the same to me) and a file explorer that doesn’t actually tell you where your files are!)

  4. DirCmpUser said on November 2, 2021 at 8:23 pm
    Reply

    PCLinuxOS is another distribution (rolling, x64 only) I explored briefly a while back and it was immediately apparent that it has proven quality over time (established 2003); but will it stumble at the support/development continuity fence? I ask because a few days ago if you had reviewed the distrowatch comments you might have found one expressing concern about ongoing support resilience. I can’t find that comment now so I won’t repeat here on what it was expressed to be based but if true it is a concern that will affect all distributions except the biggest / most widely supported.

    Maybe I’m overstating that as an example of a concern but if you choose an o/s for performance but also stability it may come as a shock to have to move to (and configure) a totally different distribution if the updating support stops. The significance (or not) and likelihood of this as a risk is again something which should be borne in mind when selecting a distribution intended for daily productivity and/or multiple installations.

    Incidentally the UK National Cyber Security Centre has a page “Device Security Guidance” including “Platform Guides” which for their Linux coverage means (apart from Android etc) just Ubuntu LTS. Getting on for two years ago I got a reply from them that they cover “the most common operating systems” so the absence of reference to any other distribution may be meaningless for that or just reasons of resources. Nevertheless for the technically primitive user there’s something to be said for “safety in numbers” and going with the herd.

    1. DirCmpUser said on November 2, 2021 at 8:26 pm
      Reply

      Memo to self: thanks Peterc! I was wrong regarding recollection of source.

  5. Peterc said on October 30, 2021 at 11:18 pm
    Reply

    MX is definitely on my short list, but with KDE rather than Xfce. And so is PCLinuxOS (also with KDE), now that founder Texstar seems to have survived his brush with cancer and has put together a team of trusted developers in case his health goes south again. Linux Mint has always been the most hassle-free distro I’ve used, but I wasn’t happy with how Cinnamon became less customizable (in 19.1?) to accommodate better fractional scaling (my eyesight requires full-height window decorations/controls), and now that I have a relatively new laptop, Mint’s older kernel gives me pause. Kubuntu feels very familiar, having both KDE and an Ubuntu base (for those convenient PPAs), but as a previous poster (and Linux curmudgeon Dedoimedo) have noted, it almost *always* has at least *some* annoying glitches with every release.

  6. DirCmpUser said on October 29, 2021 at 6:56 pm
    Reply

    MX like Debian itself is one of the diminishing band of distributions that still supplies a 32-bit version so enabling useful life extension at least of computers with the likes of 1-2GB RAM and celeron and other low grade Pentiums.

    Having the latest version of software surely depends on what you’re doing with the software concerned – Microsoft Word 97 still seems to work on one of my PCs not that I use it much since installing Libre Office on another oldie (which doesn’t really add any functionality vital to me I might add).

    Another thing of course is that old but functional hardware like scanners and more obscure items may have come only with drivers for the likes of Windows 2000 and XP so probably necessitating retaining a Windows partition – which makes installing a good distribution like MX problematic for the average user if indeed MX demands three partitions to instal. (Which I suspect is in fact not the case; swap can be dispensed with by use of a swap file, home can sit in root etc. No doubt when I get round to a final dual boot attempted install of MX soon I will find out for myself).

    Sometimes in a mood of particularly cynical reverie I wonder if the innumerable Linux distributions are funded by megacorp because this divide and rule routine surely detracts from effective maintenance and development of a core of Linux disitrbutions which could actually pose a competitive threat to Windows/Mac in the desktop space.

    In other words a huge amount of the distribution excess plurality is distraction and a timesink calculated to engender purposeless loyalties, like those to your fave soccer team.

    When you’re older, some of you may regret spending so much time on this.

    NB: the above reply is to no-one here in particular!

    1. Peterc said on October 30, 2021 at 11:33 pm
      Reply

      @DirCmpUser:

      How *dare* you dismiss my devotion to I’mBetterThanYouNix — which is *clearly* the best OS in the history of the universe, even though it requires advanced machine-coding skills to set up and maintain — as a “purposeless loyalty”? ;-)

      [Actually, your cynical reverie really resonated with me.]

  7. JuhaT said on October 27, 2021 at 1:03 pm
    Reply

    I have been running MX-Linux for two years (KDE version the last year) It is extremely stable and give no problems, but I am not very advanced user. But since I have a modern GPU (Nvidia Geforce 3060Ti) I couldnt install the MX-21 since the Noveau-driver doesnt support newer GPU’s and the Nvidia driver just wouldnt install, or conflicted with something.

    So I decided to go try Kubuntu again to see if it has improved since the last time I tried it. I was once again reminded how reliable MX linux is. In kubuntu there were one problem after another (waking up from sleep locked computer and sometimes even when rebooting. Some software refused to install right or start after installation, firejail and Megasync, for example even though they were from their repositories) I dont know how MX has managed to avoid all these problems (maybe because it is based on pure debian?), I just notice that I dont have any of the problems from Kubuntu in MX-Linux.

    So I decided not to give up on MX even though I got no help in their forum, and finally managed to install the Nvidia driver in the live USB (thanks to the persistent mode MX offer on the Live ISO) and THEN install it on hard drive.

  8. Tim said on October 26, 2021 at 1:45 pm
    Reply

    Honestly, I like MX Linux, it always comes stable and you can trust it. On the other hand, I wouldn’t call XFCE itself lightweight anymore, and all the distros that use XFCE 4.16 are not as light as their former iterations were. MX Linux XFCE seems to be middleweight. I can see the same when I use my personal favorite, Linux Mint. Its Cinnamon version (20.1) is actually faster than the one with XFCE 4.16 underhood. Strange, but that’s how both versions feel (I know, subjective since I haven’t put them to any serious test). MX Linux is really nice, tho. Its KDE version doesn’t give me as many bugs as other KDE distros, in fact I experienced very few and minor bugs while using it. If you are looking for a distro to run from your pendrive, then MX Linux won’t fail you with its stability and a wide range of preinstalled apps.

  9. Paulson said on October 26, 2021 at 4:27 am
    Reply

    Before I get into my comment, I just wanted to say that while I don’t love XFCe personally, I simply don’t use it. I don’t dislike it to such an extreme extent that I’d rather it not exist. It obviously plays a big role in the Linux DE landscape and I think everyone, including those like myself that don’t use it would all be worse off of it were suddenly abandoned, development stopped or it otherwise ceased to exist. Plus, MX Linux offers KDE Plasma as an option, so I’m not sure what all the hubub is about.

    I used MX Linux exclusively for a while several years back and as you mentioned, I absolutely loved the suite of MX tools. What I loved less was the older packages. Saying goodbye to MX tools was tough but it turns out that I’m much happier in a rolling release, “bleeding edge” distro. Sure, breakage it’s going to be more likely in an environment like this as compared to something like MX Linux/other Debian based distros but for my taste, I’d rather have to address the occasional (but more infrequent than many might think) breakage if that means my packages will always be up to date and not, in some more extreme cases, several years/many releases old as unfortunately is the trade off you have to come to terms with to enjoy the comfort of a metaphorical security blanket that a rock-solid stable Linux distro provides. Of course, this comes down to personal preference and is highly subjective and THERE IS NO RIGHT ANSWER.

    anyone interested in trying out a newer rolling release/Arch based distro that also features it’s fair share of useful tools might want to give Garuda Linux a spin. There are very few DEs that don’t have their own release, even since more obscure DEs/window managers have their own.iso available, although some have been relegated to “community spin” status for one reason or another. There is a gamer edition for Linux gamers, a Blackarch edition for the hacker segment and for those that consider any amount of included software as bloat, there’s a no frills, (completely) bare bones edition, though this one is not supported in the forums so if you need help, you’re entirely on your own, with Arch wiki being your only friend in the world. Speaking of, it’s got an excellent forum/community support/devs.

    Ok, mini rant over. I’m just happy to have finally found my home after distro hopping for ages.

    PS – in the last year or so its popularity has surged. It was no where to be seen on DW’s top 100 distro list when I started using it however last I checked(a couple of months ago) it was around the #20 spot, I think having climbed as high as #12 at one point. Selfishly, I hope it drops back down, at least a little, as the surge in popularity has made the forums a much busier affair.

    1. Anonymous said on October 27, 2021 at 3:23 am
      Reply

      Garuda forked the MX tools, look at the code and copyright notice at the top of the source code. They were caught forking tools and removing copyright notices and not copying left.

      Most of their tools come from other places but they just change them up a bit. Nothing wrong with that, except when you try to hide it.

  10. beefy said on October 26, 2021 at 3:47 am
    Reply

    For those hating on XFCE’s look, try:

    https://old.reddit.com/r/unixporn/

    And you can search exclusively for XFCE designs here:

    https://old.reddit.com/r/unixporn/search?q=%5Bxfce%5D&restrict_sr=on&sort=relevance&t=all

    Find something pretty that you like and look in the original post and/or comments section where people usually share their designs. XFCE can really look beautiful, but it’s up to the user to spend a little time choosing something they like.

  11. Anonymous said on October 25, 2021 at 11:49 pm
    Reply

    I’m considering moving to Linux. But the distro I choose will need to look good. Many distros seem to meet this requirement:
    https://itsfoss.com/beautiful-linux-distributions/

  12. Rich Robson said on October 25, 2021 at 7:40 pm
    Reply

    I tried MX (+ a million other distros) and it was OK. I’m a die hard fan of Debian, currently using Bullseye. Debian just works and works and works. IMO, the stability of Debian far outweighs the lack of a few bells and whistles that other distros might have. In fact, I’m not sure what other distros do that Debian doesn’t do. I guess maybe some obscure stuff, but for day to day use (programming, surfing, document creation, etc) the only difference I see is that Debian works 100% of the time.

  13. Doctor Trousers said on October 25, 2021 at 6:45 pm
    Reply

    It’s nice to see a distro opting for Clementine as the bundled music player. Linux Mint is my OS of choice, and will likely continue to be, but the music player that they continue to insist on including is broken, as is the one that Ubuntu bundles with their main distro.
    It seems like so few people these days are actually bothered with having large, locally stored digital music collections that the music player is barely an afterthought to the big distros. As it happens I no longer use Clementine myself, but only because I switched to Strawberry, which is a fork of Clementine, functionality pretty much the same app, but works better, gets more updates and is noticeably less resource hungry on lower spec machines.

    1. MdN said on October 26, 2021 at 3:24 am
      Reply

      Clementine is great, using it on Kubuntu. It has way too many options, but once I set it up I’m just using it without even thinking about it. Back in my Xubuntu days it was Audacious, but they seem to have messed up something where the commands don’t show properly in my panel like every other player including Spotify in the browser. Oh well. Clementine works perfectly.
      Locally stored music still rules, thanks to Bandcamp.

    2. Max said on October 25, 2021 at 9:36 pm
      Reply

      You might want to check out Harmonoid https://github.com/harmonoid/harmonoid
      Developed by a very talented young man who is working his butt off to make it the best local music player, not only for linux but other platforms as well. Big things ahead in the upcoming version.
      Another one recently available for linux is Dopamine https://github.com/digimezzo/dopamine

  14. Dustie Rose said on October 25, 2021 at 6:31 pm
    Reply

    I have tried almost every Linux version, usually when they release a new version. Mx Linux, PCLiniuxOS, Manjaro, etc.
    I do not like the XFCe personally. What I do know with owning several computers, laptops as old as 2007; most distros work differently depending on the manufacture. My old Sony VIAO, ca 2010 had windows 7. I now run MxLinux on it beautifully. My VIAO prefers versions without SystemD.
    Pure OS is another distro that is beautiful, works great on older hardware. I love the KDE U.I, they have really done their work on it.

    My Lenovo works beautifully with a newer hybrid I am using on two different laptops. link below:
    https://sourceforge.net/projects/linuxfxdevil/files/).
    This one has Cinnamon ISO, another that Windows ll UI look.
    So far both seem to work great on laptops that are 5-6 yrs old. I always read that XFCe desktop was used for older hardware on several tech advise forumns. As they say, “to each their own.”

    Dustie_Rose

    PS- KEEP UP WITH THE FANTASTIC ARTICALS, THEY ARE A LIFELINE FOR ACCURATE INFORMATION AS ALWAYS!

    1. duke said on October 26, 2021 at 9:07 pm
      Reply

      I was friends with Ian Murdock…Been running Debian flavors such as Xandros,Saline, MX, Sparky and Crunchbang sine 1997.Never looked back other than a couple of Macbooks I used when travelling.Now I have a POS Toshitter Saddlecrap with LMDE4 on it.

  15. Boris said on October 25, 2021 at 5:45 pm
    Reply

    @Henk thank you for the comment to Horror..
    Long time MX user here, one on an old 1GB T60 laptop and a sluggish hp pavilion. Just love the stability. As for the ui or DE – I guess I’m getting old, I love it.

  16. Max said on October 25, 2021 at 4:56 pm
    Reply

    I am a Windows user who mainly relies on Google products. I have been checking out several Linux distributions in the past week, and MX Linux was the one where I felt comfortable with. Common software was provided or ready to be installed. Simply using Chrome and synchronizing my bookmarks, extensions, etc was working out of the box – several of the other distros already failed there.
    A great step to be an OS for everybody.

  17. Reza Javadzadeh said on October 25, 2021 at 4:40 pm
    Reply

    MX is good but I couldn’t get Nvidia driver working for cuda, I had it working on Manjaro and Ubuntu. I think MX is more than one step behind Ubuntu but it’s catching up.

    I also agree that XFCE is too old and static to be a flagship. On the contrary KDE, Deepin, Budgie,Gnome are alive DEs but since they’re not flagshipped, they are prone to Bugs and crashes in non-LTS versions or rolling distros like Manjaro.

  18. allen said on October 25, 2021 at 4:17 pm
    Reply

    Systemd… created by people who really love the way Microsoft Windows was designed to boot. Simply not having it there makes things better. But then, I’m a Unix guy.

  19. MX USER said on October 25, 2021 at 2:13 pm
    Reply

    First, don´t judge any distro by the environment. XFCE out of the box is UGLY. But it doens´t take much to make it look the way you want and is light and stable.

    Second, I agree that MX is very solid. I have it running non-stop on one of my machines. No issues.

    The down-side is that it is not very up-to-date with the newest/latest software versions. But that’s why it is so stable.

    Being Debian-based, you can find/install pretty much any Debian/Ubuntu software out there.

    Very good distro for those who prefer stability and ease of use.

  20. Anonymous said on October 25, 2021 at 2:12 pm
    Reply

    I never tried MX Linux although I have an old version on flash drive. I will be interested in your review of POP!OS as I have seen good things about it.

  21. Paul(us) said on October 25, 2021 at 1:52 pm
    Reply

    No, I have never used MX Linux.
    It feels like a Linux version that I want to give a try.
    Also thanks for pointing me to it and also to DistroWatch.com

    I really missed this kind of quality Linux articles and mostly helpful comments.
    I feel my one personal Linux development is now going the way I like it to be which is much faster than the last few years, when there where no Linux articles at all at ghacks.net.

    1. Klaas Vaak said on October 25, 2021 at 2:14 pm
      Reply

      @Paul(us): Ghacks is not the only source of Linux info. In fact, Distrowatch has very interesting articles, and you can find the basics about just about any distro.

  22. will said on October 25, 2021 at 1:29 pm
    Reply

    PCLinuxOS is my own personal favourite having distro hopped round the world and back again. Each to their own in the end but this Distro is easy to install,a rolling release and non-systemd.
    The main man is “Texstar,” wonder where he’s from ! Very helpful community,excellent monthly magazine and remasters and re-installs of your own system made easy by use of MYLiveUSB or ddCopy.Check it out if you like and make up your own mind.

    https://www.pclinuxos.com/

    1. duke said on October 26, 2021 at 9:08 pm
      Reply

      Tex does excellent work. Very nice packaging system and a few of the guys do nice spins. Openbox is a nice spin

  23. anona said on October 25, 2021 at 1:23 pm
    Reply

    KDE > Xfce, Mate, Cinnamon, LXQt > Gnome

  24. Alan Rochester said on October 25, 2021 at 1:15 pm
    Reply

    A common mistake.

    Distrowatch does NOT show the Distros in terms of popularity. It shows “Page Hit Ranking”.

    If I use Distro XYZ and I am satisfied with it I have no reason to look at any pages on Distrowatch and affect Page Hit Ranking.

    1. Mike Turcotte-McCusker said on October 25, 2021 at 7:47 pm
      Reply

      I never said it was popularity ;)

      I said “the current top 5 Distributions listed on popular ranking and information website Distrowatch”. I am aware it is hit based and not based on downloads / popularity.

      But thanks for your comment!

      1. Norio said on October 26, 2021 at 6:05 pm
        Reply

        Hi, Thanks for your informative article!
        I noticed that there is a “ranking” or review-based sorting available at https://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=ranking
        A couple other views are also available.

      2. Alan Rochester said on October 25, 2021 at 10:26 pm
        Reply

        If it is a “popular ranking” website, by what criteria does it “rank”? Other than Page Hits?

      3. Mike Turcotte-McCusker said on October 26, 2021 at 5:44 am
        Reply

        It is a popular site, that does rankings, is what I was saying, not that it ranks popularities.

      4. MdN said on October 26, 2021 at 3:38 am
        Reply

        For some reason people use DistroWatch to determine… Popularity on DistroWatch. I wonder if there’s a way to find out which distributions are actually used the most. Maybe the number of Facebook followers?
        Ubuntu 1.2 million
        Linux Mint 138K
        Manjaro – 27K
        MX Linux – ehhh. A few thousand.
        OK, it’s just Facebook, no authority whatsoever, but then the same can be said for DistroWatch rankings. Everyone I know uses Kubuntu or KDE Neon (31 and 13) and never go to DistroWatch and don’t use Facebook.

      5. Peterc said on October 28, 2021 at 2:46 am
        Reply

        @MdN:

        Plenty of people — and perhaps *especially* the kind of privacy- and security-conscious people who use Linux — avoid Facebook like the *plague*, so yes, the number of followers a given distro has on Facebook may not be the best yardstick for popularity.

      6. Anonymous said on October 26, 2021 at 11:46 pm
        Reply

        http://iso.linuxquestions.org/

        and

        https://linuxtracker.org/

        However I am not convinced that what they publish is the actual truth.

      7. T said on October 26, 2021 at 2:00 pm
        Reply

        MX Linux may have so many downloads due to the fact that it is supposed to run from a pendrive, perhaps as a sort of an extra system that you resort to when you need stability and privacy, but can’t give up your main OS (Windows?). It comes with so many useful apps that once you’ve plugged it in, you may have your work done easily. As a main OS it is just as reliable and useful.

  25. Horror UI Terror said on October 25, 2021 at 11:36 am
    Reply

    I think it’s hysterical that in 2021 some still ship XFCE as their FLAGSHIP DE. BY GOD it looks crap. I’m sure it performs amazingly and is stable and yada yada.. but sweet baby Jesus that thing looks awful. Designed by old men in beige khakipants. That’s also their target userbase. Whenever you want to show a Windows user the wonderful alternative Linux, do NOT whip out XFCE, MATE or Cinnamon as your flagship choices, you’ll get laughed at and probably smacked across the face as well. KDE or Zorin, those are your choices. Elementary is still a garbage OS and nobody knows what the hell Deepin are doing..both are like some sexy pretty girl, but a little weird in the head and dumber than a sack of dumb. Not exactly wifematerial.

    1. JRE said on October 30, 2021 at 2:40 pm
      Reply

      @Horror UI Terror It is obviously you have unintendedly describe yourself as a obvious Windows fanatic disciple that you-think-cannot-live-without. Linux users are open-minded and respects multiple options on DE, distros, etc.

    2. Ryan F said on October 26, 2021 at 4:28 pm
      Reply

      > KDE or Zorin, those are your choices.

      I am so glad our lord and savior Horror UI Terror has bestowed upon us their extremely professional and eloquent knowledge of the only two choices in the world that people are allowed to have for the desktop environment in their niche operating system. I feel like my spiral into despair and depression is saved thanks to the enlightening information you’ve provided me. XFCE and Cinnamon shall victimize me no more, and I will go door to door proclaiming the good news of KDE (or Zorin, I guess) until everyone has been successfully converted. Thank you, lord Horror UI Terror! You’ve literally saved my life.

      1. Ryan F said on October 26, 2021 at 4:34 pm
        Reply

        I apologize for my previous comment. It was knee-jerk and completely counter-productive, I regretted it as soon as I made it, and I would delete it if I could.

        KDE is my favourite desktop environment anyway. I just don’t see the need to shame others for having another preference, even if it’s one I don’t understand.

    3. Tim said on October 26, 2021 at 2:09 pm
      Reply

      Appereance can be changed tho’ I don’t understand why the XFCE developers insist on keeping it stale when so many interesting themes are available. As for KDE, it’s very promising but buggy. And you seem to underrate Cinnamon, which is a pleasure to use.

      1. Horror UI Terror said on October 26, 2021 at 3:53 pm
        Reply

        Agreed. Since there are numerous nicer themes than the default, I cannot understand why developers choose awful defaults, same thing applies to Linux Mint. It’s always the same “change it”.. NO! YOU CHANGE IT! It needs to be PLEASANT out of the box, it really does, if you want new users. Apparently you don’t. I sometimes think that maybe they just don’t give f**k how things look, but after spending YEARS fighting the khakimen I have come to the conclusion that they don’t SEE it. They can’t see the boring old blandness, it doesn’t register in their heads. Total and complete UI blindness. That’s also why they wear beige khakipants, it’s psychological thing. The individual who chooses default wallpaper for Linux Mint, he/she is clearly blind or in a very scary emotional place. They announce new amazing features and then they slap on THAT wallpaper and the LOVELY theme that looks like somthing found on the bottom of an ashtray.. Year after year after goddaaaamn year. Look at our latest and greatest ATROCITY! Ain’t it NICE!!!????? ummm yeah it’s khakitastic. Oh and just so you know, the only buggy KDE is old KDE, never ever use old KDE. Always stick with bleeding edge Plasma, that’s where the magic happens.

    4. Johanna said on October 25, 2021 at 7:03 pm
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      Your witty criticism of Xfce and other DEs sums up my feelings as well.

    5. Anonymous said on October 25, 2021 at 3:31 pm
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      I think you ought to grow up,you sound like an adolescent !!!

    6. Anonymous said on October 25, 2021 at 2:15 pm
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      @Horror UI Terror, you’ve obviously never learned how to configure XFCE. ‘nough said.

    7. Klaas Vaak said on October 25, 2021 at 2:13 pm
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      @Horror UI Terror: interesting to get your view on XFCE. Nevertheless, you present your view as the only viable view, as if other views are those who don’t know what they are talking about.

      FYI, there are plenty of users out there, not just on MX, who very much like XFCE. Also, the light weight makes it ideal for giving old computers a new lease of life.

    8. Henk said on October 25, 2021 at 2:08 pm
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      @Horror UI: I’m sorry, but I feel your reaction is typical for the counter-productive infighting among many Linux adherents: frequently, brutally and unconditionally criticizing other people’s OS and desktop preferences. Shouldn’t we stop being this childish? Shouldn’t we begin to mutually respect and understand other people’s different choices, if only just a little bit?

      To achieve some gradual growth of general Linux acceptance among a wider public, many things still have to be done. And one of those things is, surely, that Linux people finally stop denigrating each other’s choices in pointlessly aggressive ways. Discuss pros and cons if you like, but in a factual and informative way.

      So when it comes to various Linux desktop UI alternatives, I beg you, please try to be just a little more tolerant.

      1. Chris Parsons said on October 25, 2021 at 6:01 pm
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        Amen to that. It is an operating system. It is designed to sit behind the scenes and enable you to do your work. It is not a lifestyle choice. Your friends will remain your friends even if you choose the ‘wrong’ desktop.
        We live in an ever-shallower world where form dictates to function.

    9. thebrowser said on October 25, 2021 at 12:43 pm
      Reply

      I think you might like Archcraft as it has a really nice looking UI (with additional built-in alternatives) right out of the box.

  26. ryuk said on October 25, 2021 at 11:33 am
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  27. Shmu said on October 25, 2021 at 11:05 am
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    I am a fan of MX, although I don’t like the lack of upgrade paths. Generally, when a new version of MX comes out, you are looking at a reinstall.
    Sometimes you can try an unsupported and hacked upgrade with no guarantees of satisfaction.
    On the other hand, each version is supported for years, you so don’t really need to upgrade — and even if you do, you can keep your home directory and install the new version on top of it.

    1. Anonymous said on October 27, 2021 at 3:37 am
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      If you looked you would see they have migration and upgrade paths documented several places on their website wiki. It’s not one click easy, but documented well, and it’s easy enough. The wiki overall isn’t the greatest but it’s something.

  28. Devastator said on October 25, 2021 at 10:34 am
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    I think, MX Linux is overrated.
    I prefer rolling realeases. I don’t want to wait a year or more for important kernel update.
    For linux gaming i choose Manjaro, over other distros.

    1. Anonymous said on October 27, 2021 at 3:33 am
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      That’s an uninformed statement, they have an the lastest updated kernel 5.14 version and will have 5.15 soon enough.

      The MX team constantly updates kernels and applications. It’s not rolling release due to the base remaining Debian stable so things like libc probably won’t go into their stable Repo. But they already have over 700 updated or unique applications in their Repos for MX-21 according to Repology. These are latest or just under the latest versions of the applications. They were the first to replace youtube-dl with yet-dlp and update yourubedl-gui, check the developer’s GitHub. Plus they are tested through and through to not break anything.

      You could kind of consider it a “rolling stable”.

      The people who use MX know these things, everyone else just thinks and says “stable”, “outdated”, “ewww”, but really it’s not true.

    2. Robin Hould said on October 25, 2021 at 7:40 pm
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      MX Linux “IS” a rolling release and by no no means is it “overrated” …..

      1. foolishgrunt said on October 26, 2021 at 5:20 pm
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        Citation? Based on Debian Stable would imply that it is *not* rolling release.

      2. Anonymous said on November 3, 2021 at 6:30 am
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        Cool

  29. Aaaa said on October 25, 2021 at 10:06 am
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    Non-systemd Devuan is the best alternative to Debian.

  30. Anonymous said on October 25, 2021 at 7:42 am
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    EndeavourOS with Xfce is the best.

    1. beemeup5 said on October 30, 2021 at 4:48 am
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      For old, crappy netbooks, AntiX can’t be beat. (not to be confused with Artix)

    2. Top said on October 25, 2021 at 3:24 pm
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      Absolutely.
      Artix is great too.

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