Dedoimedo: MX Linux MX-23.6 Libretto review

[Gandalf_The_Grey]

Conclusion

I am becoming more and more pleased with MX Linux as times goes by. Here's a small distro team that has found its sweet spot, working on a nice, solid project that feels reasonably polished and well put together, with only a minimal set of bugs and problems. Size and resource wise, they sure aren't behind the big names in this regard. But they offer more in others, including more care, more user-friendly approach, a better default array of programs, and they are quite keen on frugality. Old hardware, 32-bit builds, and init. These are important elements, which we must cherish. The modern world is intended for the rich "Californian template user" who can frivolously replace their devices every three years. Nope.

But beyond this slightly dystopian take, on a purely technological level, MX Linux is a good distro, with decent hardware and software support, and lots of neat extras. With the combined promise of LTS from Debian and Plasma, it is a serious contender for everyday use. In fact, I am going to install it on my Nvidia-powered Y50 laptop. 'Tis an old beast, but it's got hybrid graphics, 4K screen, and with SSD, this should not matter. For that matter, MX Linux, due to its frugality, might even give this machine an extra speed kick. This should be a fun and interesting experiment. After all, should the "big distros" decide to go too corpo, knowing there are nice, lean, init-powered distros out there is a good, comforting thought. But that's something we need to test. Meanwhile, MX Linux 23.6 Libretto is quite lovely. Try it.

MX Linux MX-23.6 Libretto review - A bundle of awesome

Detailed, enthusiastic review of MX Linux MX-23.6 Libretto Plasma edition, tested in a dual-boot configuration on a laptop with AMD processor and integrated graphics and NVMe storage, covering fast installation and live session save, look and feel, some small customization, software management...

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[Gandalf_The_Grey]

Dedoimedo: MX Linux 23.6 on a Nvidia-powered laptop, behold results!

Conclusion

The test with MX Linux MX-23.6 Libretto on an Nvidia-powered machine, or to be more precise, on an old system with hybrid graphics, wasn't as groovy as I'd hoped for. There were many cool and nice things. The speed, the customization. The rich repertoire of programs, the useful helper utilities. The Nvidia driver setup was quite all right, but the missing PRIME commands make me fret and wonder.

On top of that, there were lots of niggles and bugs in the system. The stubborn Bluetooth, the menu favorites. What makes these issues doubly worse is that Plasma is Plasma, but as I've shown you many many times before, there's often little consistency among distros, whether different editions of the same underlying platform, or different implementations of the same desktop environment. This is long-term worrying.

And so now, I must do another experiment. Restore the Kubuntu installation on this box. But now, I'll be starting with the LTS .2 release, which should contains numerous fixes and improvements. In particular, I want to re-focus on performance, Nvidia support and how one can go about using non-repo software. Anyway, back to MX Linux, the results are solid, but not perfect. I think it will take a little while longer before MX Linux becomes ubiquitously good for everyday use on any which hardware. On that note, take care.

MX Linux 23.6 on a Nvidia-powered laptop, behold results!

Review of MX Linux MX-23.6 Libretto Plasma edition, tested on a laptop with hybrid Intel-Nvidia graphics and 4K display, covering ultra-fast installation, look and feel, visual customization, everyday usability, boot speed and desktop responsiveness, proprietary drivers setup, probles with the...

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