MX-Linux 21 "Wildflower"

[Jason]

For about the last two weeks, I've been using the latest version of MX-Linux which is based on Debian, instead of the usual Ubuntu for most distros. Its historical lineage is derived from combining the defunct MEPIS Linux with Anti-X.

It has flavours that use several desktop environments (DEs) but I'm using the default spin which includes Xfce desktop environment which performs well for older or memory-limited desktops.

It's supported until June 2024 so I'm guessing it's based on Debian stable.

I'll have to say more about it later (if there is interest. For now, I'll mention some key strengths:


1. It feels faster than Linux Lite although I don't know why. Both use the Xfce DE.

2. I wasn't sure about having a taskbar on the left. I know I could have changed it but I forced myself to use it and I can see some benefits.

3. Like Ubuntu MATE, it has its own software manager (MX Package Installer) which includes commonly installed software. Unlike Ubuntu MATE, it has many more choices. Synaptic is also installed for you gurus.

4. Updates are less frequent than Linux Lite which makes sense if it is based on Debian stable.

5. I haven't tried it but it has a tool called Snapshot which creates an ISO of your present system setup so you skip the normal reconfiguration after a fresh install. It's similar to an imaging tool like Clonezilla.

6. It has a LOT of specialty MX tools (under MX Tools), substantially more than Linux Lite.

7. The MX Package Installer includes more programs than you'd expect.

For example, it has the option to install many alternative browsers to the usually installed Firefox such as Brave, Falkon, Firefox-ESR (an LTS version of Firefox for enterprise environments), Chrome, Opera, Palemoon, Vivaldi, and Waterfox G3. I haven't even heard of a couple of them!  Had I known the option to install was here, I could have skipped the terminal-only instructions on their website.


More later... if you want more, that is. I'd like to cover the heart of MX-Linux, the MX Tools.

The attached screenshot shows MX Package Install and MX Tools and of course, the unrivalled Brave browser!

[fox]

Yes, I would like to hear more. I had the previous version of MX Linux on my xps laptop as a secondary distro. I found that booting into it was slower than Ubuntu, but maybe the new Debian-based version is faster. I was using the xfce version as well.

Jason,I'm happy to see that you are finding some benefits of having the dock (taskbar) on the left. This is one of the things I really like about Ubuntu gnome. The MX version of the dock isn't as nice as that of Ubuntu gnome though. The bottom part is squishy.

[Jason]

I thought it was always Debian-based.

Regarding the "squishy" icons do you mean how small they are as compared to the top icons? Because you can adjust that:

Right-click on the Panel and go to Panel Preferences and then Items and select Status Tray Plugin (double-click or single-click and hamburger). See attached.

If you mean squishy as in too tight vertically between icons, I'm not sure how to fix that separately. But if you downsize the icons, you'll have more space between them vertically.

[Jason]

Okay, I just discovered that if you go to Panel Preferences -> Items -> Status Tray Plugin -> Behavior and put a check in it and click to Adjust Icons Automatically if you've increased the width of the Deskbar, then it t should space out the icons to look more like the top launcher icons.

Attached is a picture of what my screen looks like with the Deskbar which I thickened and the options shown that I'm using in the Status Tray Items screen window. The icons are still bigger which is subtle for me but might be more noticeable if your bar is thick like Ubuntu-thick. But you could play around with different settings like choosing the size of the icons instead of automatic.



Update: I mangled the instructions a bit when I first posted this so it's fixed now.

[fox]

Thanks, Jason. I'll have to try that.

[Jason]

I realized that the instructions I posted weren't very clear so I updated them and added a couple of screen captures to aid. The first one is just to show what my Deskbar looks like. I think I increased its thickness by 50%.

I doubt you can get it to look as good as Ubuntu's dock (is that the name?) but you can make it look better than the default. It's hard to adjust the desktop look with Xfce to look consistent (compared to Gnome, Plasma, etc.) but it's a lot easier than with LXDE or other lighter desktop environments which really look clunky today.

[Jason]

Check this out (attached). I did my best to make it look like the Ubuntu dock. But Because the bar is so thick, I can't show the system tray because I can't get the scrolling (if there is even such a thing) to show much more than the icons you see. It'll appear if you have it turned on. You just won't be able to see all of it as the bottom icons will disappear off the screen. If you have a higher solution than my poor man's ultra-HD screen, you can probably fit it all. Regardless, while the tray was there, it didn't look squishy.

Now I just have to figure out how to reset the Deskbar back the way I had it! I should have backed up my dot-files!

[fox]

I just tried it on a live MX 21 disk. I didn't know about that setting. It works well. In fact MX Linux is very responsive on a live usb. I'm tempted to use it in place of Linux Lite as the secondary distro on my xps 13.

[Jason]

Cool. I'm glad it works. I was able to get back to my original desktop, well the one that MX Linux starts with. I lost my own customizations which weren't a lot anyway. I just renamed the folder ~/.config/xfce4 to ~/.config/xfce4.bak and rebooted.