The popular and easy Mepis distro, whose slogan was "It just works", has reappeared under a new name. The group on the forum remained, and the offshoot minimalist AntiX has been developed for years. The two have linked together to create MX Linux, and it has been reviewed in Distrowatch today. It sounds as if the old values have been maintained, and the new creation follows in the old footsteps. As well, it appears to run well on older equipment. Looks promising.
http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20170109#mx
And their forums seem to be quite active.
https://forum.mxlinux.org/
Sweet! If you try it, let us know. In the meanwhile, I'll check out the review.
Installed it in Virtual yesterday. Bit confusing finding my way until I realized that everything is right there! Just click the icon at bottom left and "it's just there". Whatever you need.
Used 45g of storage, 2g ram, 2 cores. Added updates, qBittorrent, Kpat., codec packages (one click).
Sound works. Sees windows shares on host through local network. I had forgotten how good Mepis was.
Music software is Clementine which I like. (Also VLC is there too.) Rest of the software is the usual suspects.
Jeez, I wonder why they changed it... 2016-17 - "The year of rebranding"...?!
That's as bad as Patrick Volkerding jumping from v4 of Slackware to v7, just because everybody else had put out that many more new versions...
Mepis' default desktop was KDE; MX16 is xfce. I saw that review when it came out. It looks promising. Harry, maybe you can present it at one of our upcoming meetings. Or are you in North Carolina now?
Read the review, on Distrowatch. Nice detailed review. MX Linux looks to be worth checking out.
Thanks for the heads up, Harry!
Bob asked, "Jeez, I wonder why they changed it... 2016-17 - "The year of rebranding"...?!"
Mepis has been dormant for a few years. The designer has dropped out, got sick, got old???? But the community stayed together, and they kept the old release sort of running. Meanwhile, in Greece, Anticapitalista created an offshoot called antiX, that is very light for old computers or people who want a stripped down OS.
Anticapitalista got together with the core group from Mepis and used the philosophy of the original designer and the skills of Anticapitalista and the others to rebuilt a more modern Mepis, though the roots of MX are obvious everywhere.
I assume that MX is a short way of writing Mepis plus antiX.
A more thorough review has surfaced for MX. His conclusion:
"A most worthy combo. All in all, 9.5/10. Warmly recommended for testing and sampling. "
Here's the site: http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/mx-16.html
I've been familiar with both for years, but never distinguished origins; I thought AntiX was a 'low-rent' version of the bigger Mepis. And Mepis was one of the first two "weird" names I heard as I became aware of Linux through Steve Dotto, the other, of course, being Ubuntu.
Kind of a shame it evolving as it is, but that still beats abandonment... Long may it continue!!
Found this on the web: "Back in the day, I loved MEPIS. It was a great desktop distribution. But its founder, Warren Woodford, couldn't make it pay so he's gone on to other projects, and the community he left behind hasn't been able to keep improving it. It really is a shame, but sometimes one person really is essential to a project's success, and that has proven to be the case with Woodford and MEPIS."
But apparently this is not totally true since the community and Anticapitalista have created Linux MX. And it seems pretty good. Hurrah for open source software. We build on the shoulders of those who went before us.
Found by accident a brand new MX review. It gets quite high praise.
"MX Linux makes transitioning from just about any desktop operating system simple. Although some might find the desktop interface to be a bit less-than-modern, the distribution’s primary focus isn’t on beauty, but simplicity. To that end, MX Linux succeeds in stellar fashion."
Apparently, like Mepis, everything is there, and everything works. Which is hugely good. Maybe for beginners?
https://www.linux.com/learn/intro-to-linux/2018/4/mx-linux-mid-weight-distro-focused-simplicity
Quote from: buster on April 13, 2018, 11:26:53 AM
Apparently, like Mepis, everything is there, and everything works. Which is hugely good. Maybe for beginners?
Have you tried this version, Buster? Good to know that somebody has actually tried the recent version to make sure it's as friendly as they say. Even as a VM.
I thought there was a reason that I chose not to add it to the list of easy distros though I don't recall why now. I'll have to do some searching but definitely willing to reconsider it.
Brian? Bill? Thoughts?
I didn't use it after testing because I had so many other good choices. But unlike some of the other
distros, there's very little to worry about after the install. 'It just works'. But, like Bill, I think I prefer Mint Cin. And I'm used to Mint.
You might note that it uses, like Linux Lite, Xfce. So it should be good for geriatric computers.
LX Linux sits 10 on the Distrowatch hit parade, and Linux Lite is high too at 19.
Installed MX Linux in VMWare. Took a bit of time for me to get used to where things are. After awhile it settled into a pretty good system. Here are some features that make it good for beginners or maybe not.
#1. You find the shutdown by right clicking the desktop and selecting logout.
#2. Pretty well everything can be found in the menu, from monitor resolution to codecs installer to software and boot repair.
#3. They have their own software installer and Synaptic.
#4. Music handled with Clementine, a lighter version of Amarok. Good choice.
#5. Everything so far has worked right after the install.
#6. Firefox and Thunderbird are default.
Last time I installed it I couldn't get the guest additions for VMWare. They didn't seem to be in the repositories when I searched. So I had to resort to the primitive command line and use: sudo apt-get install open-vm-tools open-vm-dkms. Ancient method but it worked. But with one caveat - drag and drop from virtual to host rates perfect, from host to guest requires copy paste. No biggy I guess.
One other great thing. The distro is built on Debian stable, but newer software is brought in and continually updated in a rolling release style. AND! And when you get your iso, you can get the latest 17.1 release with all the updates included once a month. So my install only had a few updates.
Very good I would think for say an old laptop. And probably beginners who haven't got used to Ubuntu derivatives. I'll use it for awhile and get back to you.