You’re probably the first person ever to daily drive MX Linux, the most popular distro according to distrowatch
Used MX Linux one time then it promptly shit the bed for reasons unknown. Fedora Kinoite and have been trouble free since. I could break an anvil tho…
what do you like about it?
i ask because i need to switch distros and i’m looking for ideas besides the usual recommendations.
Not OP, but I’m really enjoying it because it’s light and stable, and the set of MX tools it comes with are great. Their backup tool is so good that as my old laptop started to die I was easily able to transfer my entire setup to a totally different computer and pick up exactly where I’d left off
… Their backup tool is so good that as my old laptop started to die I was easily able to transfer my entire setup to a totally different computer and pick up exactly where I’d left off
you must have read my mind because this is exactly why i’m on the market for a new distro. lol
i put fedora on my laptop w the intention that it’ll be temporary so that i’ll have something i can trust right now and knowing full well that fedora iterates quickly. their migration tool has never worked for me and now i have to update again. i’m looking for something that has a longer term iteration like debian has, but shorter than debian.
there are distros that run on debian sid, if you prefer debian as a distro, but want a more up to date experience.
im running pika os, because it offers up to date gaming tweaks, but doesnt force you to update as often. keep in mind: that os is not something i would recommend for a environment where stability is the goal, because there are only a few maintainers. its just an example of debian sid!
i suspect that i’m looking for something that doesn’t exist; the iteration has be less frequent than fedora, but more frequent that debian.
someone else recommended a rolling release so i think i’ll give that a shot.
It’s super light. Unlike Fedora or other distros I’ve tried, it doesn’t play weird with my mobile hotspot.
MX is great. The MX tools are very useful and Sysvinit isn’t as difficult to use as I had assumed. It runs great on an old thinkpad of mine. Seems like a very viable option for people looking to self-host on older gear.
does it use Systemd or not? wikipedia was unclear :
MX-25 “Infinity” was released on 9 November 2025 and was built on Debian 13 “trixie”.[32] Standard kernel is 6.12.43 with Liquorix 6.15 for the Advanced Hardware Support “AHS”. New is the deb822 sources format. The installer can “replace” an existing install and offers zram swap. Support for Secure Boot. KDE is version 6.3.6 with both Wayland and X11 sessions available. All releases are available with Systemd. The Xfce, Xfce-AHS, and Fluxbox releases are also available in sysVint variants.[33] MX-25.1 With the release of 25.1, Dual Init is now again possible.[34] This includes both systemd and SysVinit[35] init systems on the same ISO.[1]
During the install of MX Linux, you can choose between systemd and init. The installer actually boots up and lets you select your preference, which is a great feature. I personally went with the systemd option because I don’t know much about init, but it really comes down to personal preference.
fantastic, ever since the Dylan debacle I was looking to at least try a non systemd distro, I will try to install it in a few months on my trashtop we use for kids vids
what do you like about it?
MX Linux is great for resource management on my Dell E5470. While the switch to Thunar from Fedora/Debian had a slight learning curve (especially the Shift+drag mechanic), the customizability via GTK themes is excellent. The biggest win for me is the hardware compatibility—it handles my mobile hotspot flawlessly where other distros like Fedora and LMDE struggled. It’s stable, light, and just works I personally use it as my Daily Driver at the moment because I’ve yet to find a better distro that doesn’t eat my resources and disconnect my mobile hotspot but I’ve been messing around with NixOS in a VM it might be my next one this is like my fourth or fifth distro.
LxQt my beloved
This is XFCE.
I used to love the minimalism of lxqt over xfce until I learned that QT is proprietary and GTK is open source, therefore I’m with now xfce for life.
Qt is not proprietary if you use it for an open source project, they have an open source license if you are an individual who doesn’t use it for profit.
Edit: KDE also is built on top of Qt
I still need to try this.
I downloaded and started seeding it when there was a post about it a few weeks back but haven’t had time to try it.
I assume the ISO live boots from a USB so I can poke around without installing? Surely.
I’ve got an old laptop that I kept windows on for the once every few years I had to use windows but I don’t think it’s supported anymore and I’d actually use it occasionally if I put Linux on it ;)
I’m only used it as installed onto a USB, and in fact I chose it for that reason, so my experience isn’t ideal because of that USB drive speed but it’s a great lightweight OS that looks nice out of the box. Lightweight doesn’t have to look clunky or feel strange or unfeatured. I recommend it if there are reasons that lightweight is important (old hardware, low-end hardware, portable OS, … )
Is this distro somewhat beginner friendly? I’ve used Zorin and a little bit of Mint before.
To be fair, at this point any distro is beginner friendly.
Just stay away from Gentoo, and from arch if you don’t want the maintenance burden.
That’s good to know. I think my question comes from struggling to figure out Endeavour, switched back to Zorin (at the time) pretty quickly lol.
I’d say it’s beginner-friendly. This is only my fourth distro, so I’m still relatively new, but it wasn’t that hard. If you can manage to get past the installer, it’s actually very straightforward. Most stuff is already configured; it’s pretty cool.
Cool, thank you for sharing! Will definitely give this a spin.
edit: which desktop environment are you using here?
Hell yeah! Nice.
