Great video. MX is solid. I've put it on some family member's machines and have had no issues with it. Also, is that a new camera? If it's a mirrorless or a DSLR camera, be sure to check the shutter speed. A general rule is you'll want to set it to twice the FPS that you record in. That's likely what's causing the motion blur.
19:42 PLEASE do NOT add Ubuntu repos in MX Linux. It will very likely lead to dependency problems sooner or later. It's one of the most common reasons people show up in the MX forums and ask how to resolve their problem. Usually you don't have much adequate options but to reinstall MX then.
I really enjoy the ease-of-use with MX Snapshot being able to save directly to a Ventoy USB stick, for easy installs of my customized desktop. The easy setup of BTRFS and the prerequisite @Home and @Root subvolumes in their installer, along with the seamless integration of Timeshift automatically recognizing the BTRFS protocol; is a luxury - as well as SO many other added benefits of this superior distro. Great job all around!
Fantastic video as always. ::::: FYI: that repo you had an issue with isn't ours. so whatever fix is required for it will be with that server, not anything we have. also FYI: i use systemd full time. we've tried to make things a little better support-wise for systemd since mx19. for instance, the installer supports systemd service command, among other things.
Thanks for a great OS. It has been on my media server/player ever since 17 with only one issue with the built in HDMI audio and you helped me fix it years ago... :-) Thanks for all the hard work you and your team has done! Yes I boot with systemD, life it just easier that way... Lol LLAP
@@BrucesWorldofStuff The problem with Linux is it's not beautiful 🤣 Is there any MX Linux flavor that it's not ugly? I want to try MX Linux but the appearance and the UI seem boring and not appealing...
@@SamirOumghar01 MX Xfce theme is not to bad out of the box compared to the Dev version... 🤔 So you want it all done for you? Where's the fun in that??? 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 LLAP 🖖
@@BrucesWorldofStuff I think that XFCE flavor is the flagship and the default version of MX Linux, so all thumbnails, screenshots and videos are showing the XFCE edition. Do you think that it's not ugly with modest UI ?! I don't want it all done for me, I want just an OS with pleasant UI and a minimum of appearance beauty... I know that Linux is not beautiful in general and also Debian is ugly because it's initially for servers but... now that Linux want to be a desktop OS alternative at least Linux developers should take graphical aspect in consederation...
I apologize for the motion blur that appears when I'm on camera. I have no clue why that happened. I did my best to fix it. Luckily I don't think it will happen again.
Thank you for a very positive review. Those new to Linux might also like to know about 'MX Tour', a simple application that introduces most of the basics of living with MX Linux, based on the installed desktop. MX Linux uses something called systemd-shim, to enable a lot of things that need systemd. Booting with systemd should not affect speed. (In fact, booting should be slightly faster.) The only limitation, as far as I know, is you can't use the great 'Live with persistence' features. With regard to versions, MX Linux usually creates point releases; upgrading to these takes place automatically through the normal process. The purpose of these is primarily to reduce updating for new installs. Updating between main versions is usually possible, with perhaps some minor optional user intervention, but if the Debian base changes, the recommended way is to re-install.
I was going to say the same thing but you said it all and a bit better than me... :-) I have MX as my media player and recorder of VHS tape project and it has been solid. It started as 17 something and I reinstalled it with 18 and it has been running all along just fine... :-) LLAP
Great review, Matt, thanks. As said in your KDE review: Plasma is a bit older on Debian. I am personally torn now between MX Xfce and Sparky KDE. The latter has 5.23; Alacritty, even Joplin in their own repo's..Plus an easy change to Xanmod or any other kernel you might like ;-)
Great review, Matt, I really enjoyed this video. I myself am using MX Xfce as my daily driver on my main computer and I really like it. It's rock-solid stable and with the great MX tools it feels like a real powerhouse for advanced users. The only downside is - as you mentioned - software availability, since it's based on Debian. But this is mitigated greatly by the MX test repo and flatpaks. The MX team does a really good job in providing packages which are missing in vanilla Debian. Most prominent example is Firefox, of which Debian ships the ESR version, but the MX team maintains the regular release for MX.
Great review, watched all of it, interesting to learn about your take on it. No one (afaik) mentions the frugal install and persistence options, except for a few mx/antix forum veterans perhaps. They haven't really documented it in a way that clicks with me yet but the concept is intriguing, especially for older/slower hardware with 4 or even 2GB RAM. To trim it a bit more for low spec the MX-Base and MX-Workbench respins seems worth giving a go. Ie. squeeze all of it below 1GB and boot it into RAM.
I use Manjaro kde,Linux Mint Cinnamon,MX Linux xfce and Arco xfce on my desktop and merrily swap between them all the time.I find all of them stable and trouble free and have the advantage of Arch and Debian at my finger tips. Nice review of MX Matt keep them coming.
Systemd can be installed when you boot up, you will see an instruction with MX advance options. In there, you can start systemd before you boot into MX all the way. Also, you can make it permanent in MXtools/MX boot options. Password, boot to- pick sytstemd and enable saving last boot.
The instillation part approximately 1:43 minutes in your video. You will find the gparted icon next to the bottom slide control, so yes, MXlinux does have a way to gparted as a format tool. It will tell you this if you just hover over it with the mouse. Great video, have subscribed.
For slow mirrors, Open MX repo manager and manually set any us based repo, preferably salt lake one or Rochester one. You sound see a drastic difference in speeds.
Doing initial research on distros and desktop environments before I switch from Windows & this video was super helpful! I thought I'd probably end up going with Mint, but the more I hear about MX the more I feel like it was made for the Exact brand of fussy weirdo that I am, lol. Hugely helpful to hear a little about what it's like to use over a period of time (& not just "well, it has these features!" type stuff). Thank you!!
Which distro did you decide on. I started on MX and then Mint, POP OS, Manjaro, Endeavour, Fedora , Opensuse. Ended back on MX Linux and I'm very satisfied.
@@cantdance3077 I went with MX! It's only been a few months, and the only other distros I've tried are various flavors of Ubuntu (in VMs, for PPA reasons), but I like it a lot. Part of it is definitely that I LOVE how it leans into the whole snappy, pared-down thing (omg the default image viewer. that just. INSTANTLY opens a window that's EXACTLY the size of the file and does nothing else IT'S PERFECT), but it also seems to be maintained by pretty down-to-earth people & even when I was having THE dumbest Missing Drivers Problem* on earth I managed to fix it by reading through the MX and Debian forums for a while. And the snapshot utility really does rule. How was pop os? What made you try it out; what made you give up on it? I'd definitely like to take both it & manjaro for a spin sometime; manjaro's just for curiosity's sake but if I can get pop to play nice it seems like a contender for "OS on the living room PC that exists to play games and media". *I want it on the record that 1. YES graphics drivers but 2. no NOT Nvidia and 3. the problem ended up being that the??? ATI driver??? for X11 ?? is what was missing???? ?? ? I'm hexed.
MX Linux Xfce is my daily driver. I'm a basic user, less tinkering. MX forum is helpful, more communal than other groups. MX Fluxbox is used on my older laptop. Less resource hog. Regular laptop runs MX Linux nicely.
I think it's because I had the distro install it during installation in Arco and Manjaro comes with it installed by default. Something tells me its a dependency that isn't installed.
I second the part about the partitioning not being the best in the installer. I've installed dozens of Linux distros and never overwritten the wrong drive, but when installing MX I accidentally wiped my Windows install. Part of it was certainly me being careless, but the partitioning step laid out my drives (sda, sdb, sdc, etc) in a different order than ANY other distro. So I picked what I thought was the correct one based on the way they've always been listed on everything else.
thats why POP-os is the best distro i've found because it has the apps it has alacritty and most standard things you need. this has a few cool features but not having certain things are a game breaker.
In terms of gaming, in my experience on Arch Linux is kinda great compare my experiences on Debian/ubuntu based distros. The only one that I kinda enjoyed on those distros was on PopOs, but for me Manjaro, Arco and Arch have been great to me, prolly because I installed steam using yay.
Years ago I started with Slackware. Then I didn't use Linux at all for awhile due to my job requiring me to focus on windows servers and workstations. When I came back, like many noobs, I used Ubuntu and Mint. Then I switched to Debian. I have tried a lot of distros since but I keep going back. Why? I think that after you work with a particular system for years, you have an investment in it. That investment being your time. Upgrades, tweaks, an occasional reinstall (ouch) and a lot of daily use. But like that old car you treasure, or that favorite hobby you have put a lot of money into, a distro becomes a part of your life. Can I switch to MX? Time will tell. Since it's Debian based and you gave it a glowing review, I will give you the benefit of the doubt. Stay tuned......
Okay it's 2 years later and you probably won't read this. But I installed the systemd package right after the initial initialization. That was 6 months ago. I have a long time friend who's used Linux since 1993. He's had no complaints about the systemd implementation. I've only used systemd which I picked up from the Raspberry Pi. So I can't vouch for how how its implementation. And I'm a fairly recent Linux user after decades on Windows.
When I reviewed MX for the first time, the systemd stuff was burried in the grub menu, and I never saw it. It was only afterward that I even knew it existed.
I don't have much experience with Linux, so... When you mentioned that you may have an older version of Python or Perl with MX Linux... can't you just update that to the newest version of Python, Perl, or whatever? Or, does the OS, or other software, use some of these programs too? If the operating system, or other software, does use them and that can be problem updating to say a new version of Python or Perl, can you just install the newer version in a directory somewhere and not add the Python or Perl installation to the path... and would that keep other software, perhaps like the OS, from using it?
I tried it but just did not like their anti-systemd stance. At this point that is just kinda silly and makes things harder because everyone assumes you are using a systemd based distro. Even my own apps I develop I assume systemd based systems now at this point.
I tried and tried to install linux wifi it does not work, most dongles wont work with 6 kernels ,all for nothing . Linux needs to fix not being able to connect any distro to wifi..one big let down thats what mx is.
Try it. It works on my MX system, it's worked on every unix-like system I've ever used since before there was a systemd.... and read the man pages, they explain this particular implementation
I have tried a LOT of Linux Distros the last 4 years-- arch, fedora, and the ubuntu debians stuff--- and I have to say-- MX IS BY FAR the absolute BEST -- PERIOD. Garuda Linux has redone their setup so it's a CLOSE SECOND-- but only because it's ARCH - which is NOt as good as Debian becuase of the trying to upgrade every 5 minutes which is NOT necessary-- for anybody- regardless of what the IDIOTS think. NEWER every five minutes IS NOT BETTER!!
Great video. MX is solid. I've put it on some family member's machines and have had no issues with it. Also, is that a new camera? If it's a mirrorless or a DSLR camera, be sure to check the shutter speed. A general rule is you'll want to set it to twice the FPS that you record in. That's likely what's causing the motion blur.
It is a new camera. But it’s just a Brio webcam. Idk what was going on. Works fine on Mankato with the same obs settings.
19:42 PLEASE do NOT add Ubuntu repos in MX Linux. It will very likely lead to dependency problems sooner or later. It's one of the most common reasons people show up in the MX forums and ask how to resolve their problem. Usually you don't have much adequate options but to reinstall MX then.
I really enjoy the ease-of-use with MX Snapshot being able to save directly to a Ventoy USB stick, for easy installs of my customized desktop. The easy setup of BTRFS and the prerequisite @Home and @Root subvolumes in their installer, along with the seamless integration of Timeshift automatically recognizing the BTRFS protocol; is a luxury - as well as SO many other added benefits of this superior distro. Great job all around!
Fantastic video as always. ::::: FYI: that repo you had an issue with isn't ours. so whatever fix is required for it will be with that server, not anything we have. also FYI: i use systemd full time. we've tried to make things a little better support-wise for systemd since mx19. for instance, the installer supports systemd service command, among other things.
Thanks for a great OS. It has been on my media server/player ever since 17 with only one issue with the built in HDMI audio and you helped me fix it years ago... :-)
Thanks for all the hard work you and your team has done! Yes I boot with systemD, life it just easier that way... Lol
LLAP
@@BrucesWorldofStuff The problem with Linux is it's not beautiful 🤣
Is there any MX Linux flavor that it's not ugly?
I want to try MX Linux but the appearance and the UI seem boring and not appealing...
@@SamirOumghar01 MX Xfce theme is not to bad out of the box compared to the Dev version... 🤔
So you want it all done for you? Where's the fun in that??? 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
LLAP 🖖
@@BrucesWorldofStuff I think that XFCE flavor is the flagship and the default version of MX Linux, so all thumbnails, screenshots and videos are showing the XFCE edition.
Do you think that it's not ugly with modest UI ?!
I don't want it all done for me, I want just an OS with pleasant UI and a minimum of appearance beauty...
I know that Linux is not beautiful in general and also Debian is ugly because it's initially for servers but... now that Linux want to be a desktop OS alternative at least Linux developers should take graphical aspect in consederation...
@@SamirOumghar01 There's a KDE version
I apologize for the motion blur that appears when I'm on camera. I have no clue why that happened. I did my best to fix it. Luckily I don't think it will happen again.
you are a Linux 💎
Looks like it kept dropping to 24 frames, still a good review Matt.
No biggy man... I just thought that I had to much Jim Beam in my Coke... LOL
LLAP
Thank you for a very positive review.
Those new to Linux might also like to know about 'MX Tour', a simple application that introduces most of the basics of living with MX Linux, based on the installed desktop.
MX Linux uses something called systemd-shim, to enable a lot of things that need systemd. Booting with systemd should not affect speed. (In fact, booting should be slightly faster.) The only limitation, as far as I know, is you can't use the great 'Live with persistence' features.
With regard to versions, MX Linux usually creates point releases; upgrading to these takes place automatically through the normal process. The purpose of these is primarily to reduce updating for new installs. Updating between main versions is usually possible, with perhaps some minor optional user intervention, but if the Debian base changes, the recommended way is to re-install.
I was going to say the same thing but you said it all and a bit better than me... :-) I have MX as my media player and recorder of VHS tape project and it has been solid. It started as 17 something and I reinstalled it with 18 and it has been running all along just fine... :-)
LLAP
Great review, Matt, thanks. As said in your KDE review: Plasma is a bit older on Debian. I am personally torn now between MX Xfce and Sparky KDE. The latter has 5.23; Alacritty, even Joplin in their own repo's..Plus an easy change to Xanmod or any other kernel you might like ;-)
Great review, Matt, I really enjoyed this video.
I myself am using MX Xfce as my daily driver on my main computer and I really like it. It's rock-solid stable and with the great MX tools it feels like a real powerhouse for advanced users. The only downside is - as you mentioned - software availability, since it's based on Debian. But this is mitigated greatly by the MX test repo and flatpaks. The MX team does a really good job in providing packages which are missing in vanilla Debian. Most prominent example is Firefox, of which Debian ships the ESR version, but the MX team maintains the regular release for MX.
Great review, watched all of it, interesting to learn about your take on it.
No one (afaik) mentions the frugal install and persistence options, except for a few mx/antix forum veterans perhaps. They haven't really documented it in a way that clicks with me yet but the concept is intriguing, especially for older/slower hardware with 4 or even 2GB RAM.
To trim it a bit more for low spec the MX-Base and MX-Workbench respins seems worth giving a go. Ie. squeeze all of it below 1GB and boot it into RAM.
ooh! Love the new logo!
Thank you for sharing your hands-on experience. I'm considering to use MX Linux also.
I use Manjaro kde,Linux Mint Cinnamon,MX Linux xfce and Arco xfce on my desktop and merrily swap between them all the time.I find all of them stable and trouble free and have the advantage of Arch and Debian at my finger tips. Nice review of MX Matt keep them coming.
Systemd can be installed when you boot up, you will see an instruction with MX advance options. In there, you can start systemd before you boot into MX all the way. Also, you can make it permanent in MXtools/MX boot options. Password, boot to- pick sytstemd and enable saving last boot.
The instillation part approximately 1:43 minutes in your video. You will find the gparted icon next to the bottom slide control, so yes, MXlinux does have a way to gparted as a format tool. It will tell you this if you just hover over it with the mouse. Great video, have subscribed.
For slow mirrors,
Open MX repo manager and manually set any us based repo, preferably salt lake one or Rochester one. You sound see a drastic difference in speeds.
Doing initial research on distros and desktop environments before I switch from Windows & this video was super helpful! I thought I'd probably end up going with Mint, but the more I hear about MX the more I feel like it was made for the Exact brand of fussy weirdo that I am, lol. Hugely helpful to hear a little about what it's like to use over a period of time (& not just "well, it has these features!" type stuff). Thank you!!
Glad it helped! Have fun switching!
Which distro did you decide on. I started on MX and then Mint, POP OS, Manjaro, Endeavour, Fedora , Opensuse. Ended back on MX Linux and I'm very satisfied.
@@cantdance3077 I went with MX! It's only been a few months, and the only other distros I've tried are various flavors of Ubuntu (in VMs, for PPA reasons), but I like it a lot. Part of it is definitely that I LOVE how it leans into the whole snappy, pared-down thing (omg the default image viewer. that just. INSTANTLY opens a window that's EXACTLY the size of the file and does nothing else IT'S PERFECT), but it also seems to be maintained by pretty down-to-earth people & even when I was having THE dumbest Missing Drivers Problem* on earth I managed to fix it by reading through the MX and Debian forums for a while. And the snapshot utility really does rule.
How was pop os? What made you try it out; what made you give up on it? I'd definitely like to take both it & manjaro for a spin sometime; manjaro's just for curiosity's sake but if I can get pop to play nice it seems like a contender for "OS on the living room PC that exists to play games and media".
*I want it on the record that 1. YES graphics drivers but 2. no NOT Nvidia and 3. the problem ended up being that the??? ATI driver??? for X11 ?? is what was missing???? ?? ? I'm hexed.
@@dovedozen POP OS was pretty cool except I'm just not a fan of the Gnome desktop.
You ought to try out Mint, MX, Pop, and Zorin. These tend to be the best for those coming from Windows.
It's summer 2023, and a new MX is out with somewhat up to date Plasma. Time to look at it again!
MX Linux Xfce is my daily driver. I'm a basic user, less tinkering. MX forum is helpful, more communal than other groups.
MX Fluxbox is used on my older laptop. Less resource hog. Regular laptop runs MX Linux nicely.
Great video man keep it up
That's weird, I never had any issues with proton on any of the arch-based distros, neither on vanilla arch. It just works flawlessly
I think it's because I had the distro install it during installation in Arco and Manjaro comes with it installed by default. Something tells me its a dependency that isn't installed.
@@TheLinuxCast Yeah, could be, I dont use the arco-meta steam package, it installs a bunch of Nvidia crap automatically.
Proton always wirk on all arch/debian based distros for me
Manjaro needs that imaging tool. MX snapshot.
Thank you for talking to us, and thanks for speaking very practcally, and speaking clear Englisch!!!
I second the part about the partitioning not being the best in the installer. I've installed dozens of Linux distros and never overwritten the wrong drive, but when installing MX I accidentally wiped my Windows install. Part of it was certainly me being careless, but the partitioning step laid out my drives (sda, sdb, sdc, etc) in a different order than ANY other distro. So I picked what I thought was the correct one based on the way they've always been listed on everything else.
Nobara project is out.
Yes...next question ?
Interesting. I daily drive Manjaro KDE and Steam is preinstalled. Proton Experimental works out of the box for Hades ✌️
I’m testing MX Linux 21 on Debian testing.🤠
No breakage So far. ( two weeks)
MX reviews were good enough for me to stop suggesting *Buntu and Mint and instead ask people to go with MX. :)
MX doesn't have an inbuilt up grader. You have to install it again when the latest version comes available.
thats why POP-os is the best distro i've found because it has the apps it has alacritty and most standard things you need. this has a few cool features but not having certain things are a game breaker.
In terms of gaming, in my experience on Arch Linux is kinda great compare my experiences on Debian/ubuntu based distros. The only one that I kinda enjoyed on those distros was on PopOs, but for me Manjaro, Arco and Arch have been great to me, prolly because I installed steam using yay.
Years ago I started with Slackware. Then I didn't use Linux at all for awhile due to my job requiring me to focus on windows servers and workstations. When I came back, like many noobs, I used Ubuntu and Mint. Then I switched to Debian. I have tried a lot of distros since but I keep going back. Why? I think that after you work with a particular system for years, you have an investment in it. That investment being your time. Upgrades, tweaks, an occasional reinstall (ouch) and a lot of daily use. But like that old car you treasure, or that favorite hobby you have put a lot of money into, a distro becomes a part of your life. Can I switch to MX? Time will tell. Since it's Debian based and you gave it a glowing review, I will give you the benefit of the doubt. Stay tuned......
So?
Do this with kde neon(maybe even testing or unstable if you want a more rolling release system)!
Okay it's 2 years later and you probably won't read this. But I installed the systemd package right after the initial initialization. That was 6 months ago. I have a long time friend who's used Linux since 1993. He's had no complaints about the systemd implementation.
I've only used systemd which I picked up from the Raspberry Pi. So I can't vouch for how how its implementation. And I'm a fairly recent Linux user after decades on Windows.
When I reviewed MX for the first time, the systemd stuff was burried in the grub menu, and I never saw it. It was only afterward that I even knew it existed.
Other Debian based distros to try - Siduction(like Manjaro) and PureOS.
I don't have much experience with Linux, so... When you mentioned that you may have an older version of Python or Perl with MX Linux... can't you just update that to the newest version of Python, Perl, or whatever? Or, does the OS, or other software, use some of these programs too? If the operating system, or other software, does use them and that can be problem updating to say a new version of Python or Perl, can you just install the newer version in a directory somewhere and not add the Python or Perl installation to the path... and would that keep other software, perhaps like the OS, from using it?
I tried it but just did not like their anti-systemd stance. At this point that is just kinda silly and makes things harder because everyone assumes you are using a systemd based distro. Even my own apps I develop I assume systemd based systems now at this point.
I tried and tried to install linux wifi it does not work, most dongles wont work with 6 kernels ,all for nothing . Linux needs to fix not being able to connect any distro to wifi..one big let down thats what mx is.
I cant install mx because I have Windows 10 and EFI and GRUB after installation doesnt boot.
Q: if MX is based on Debian stable, wouldn't Steam and Kdenlive be the stable versions if they're included in the MX repos?
I don't know which repos they come from, but I'd think that would be true. That's why I used the flatpaks.
Did you try DWM on MX?
No. I had bspwm installed. But I've installed DWM on it before. Works the same as it does on Debian.
crontab -e is all you need to use cron on MX, or about any linux system
Doesn't that rely on systemd?
Try it. It works on my MX system, it's worked on every unix-like system I've ever used since before there was a systemd.... and read the man pages, they explain this particular implementation
MX Linux is boring
I have tried a LOT of Linux Distros the last 4 years-- arch, fedora, and the ubuntu debians stuff--- and I have to say-- MX IS BY FAR the absolute BEST -- PERIOD. Garuda Linux has redone their setup so it's a CLOSE SECOND-- but only because it's ARCH - which is NOt as good as Debian becuase of the trying to upgrade every 5 minutes which is NOT necessary-- for anybody- regardless of what the IDIOTS think. NEWER every five minutes IS NOT BETTER!!