this post was submitted on 25 Apr 2024
70 points (100.0% liked)

Linux

1259 readers
71 users here now

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

Rules

Related Communities

Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
AgreeableLandscape@lemmy.ml
nooter692@lemmy.ml
MarcellusDrum@lemmy.ml
cypherpunks@lemmy.ml
cyclohexane@lemmy.ml
d3Xt3r@lemmy.nz
70
How is MX Linux reigning #1 on Distrowatch? (lemm.ee)
submitted 7 months ago by zyratoxx@lemm.ee to c/linux@lemmy.ml
46 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Please don't get me wrong, this is not meant to be rude slander. MX Linux is not a bad Distro at all (even tho I've always opted for Debian instead) and peops are free to use what suits them best.

But compared to other Distros (like Arch, Fedora, Ubuntu, Debian or Mint) there doesn't seem to be much excitement about it. I hardly see articles about MX and I have barely seen people outing themselves as MX users which makes me wonder:

Are MX users just low key quiet, am I escaping their presence or is there a different reason for MX' high HPD score?

Btw: feel free to take a shot every time I write MX :p

top 46 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] d3Xt3r@lemmy.nz 98 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (2 children)

Because:

The DistroWatch Page Hit Ranking statistics are a light-hearted way of measuring the popularity of Linux distributions and other free operating systems among the visitors of this website. They correlate neither to usage nor to quality and should not be used to measure the market share of distributions. They simply show the number of times a distribution page on DistroWatch was accessed each day, nothing more.

So people see it on the list and click on it wondering "what the heck is this MX Linux thing". And that boosts the ranking. And now that it's at the top, it attracts more curious clicks, thus it continues to remain on top.

[–] Shareni@programming.dev 25 points 7 months ago (2 children)

And now that it's at the top, it attracts more curious clicks, thus it continues to remain on top.

That's exactly how I learned about MX and started using it.

[–] boredsquirrel@slrpnk.net 11 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

"You know what MX stands for?"

"Maestro Xylophone?"

"Mix King"

gif

[–] Shareni@programming.dev 10 points 7 months ago

Massacre Xenos

[–] Frederic 5 points 7 months ago (1 children)

lol same, around 2018 IIRC, I was tired of Mint/Cinnamon, I wanted something simple, check DW, download MX, never looked back.

[–] Shareni@programming.dev 2 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

It was around the end of last year for me. Got truly sick and tired of using Arch and derivatives for 2+ years and having them crap out all the time. Went through a bunch of distros, but MX felt the best and had the best support for xfce. Slapped nix on top to install userland packages, and it's pretty damn good.

[–] zyratoxx@lemm.ee 1 points 7 months ago

Definitely, but still those hit per day numbers gotta come from somewhere. There is of course the possibility to mess around here but I don't want to make accusations out of the blue when there may be that huge fanbase that's just keeping it low >.<

[–] ares35@kbin.social 46 points 7 months ago (4 children)

they count clicks on a distro's page on their site, not usage or anything else.

if they dared put hanna montana linux on there, it would be the perpetual #1 listing.

[–] lattrommi@lemmy.ml 13 points 7 months ago (1 children)

now is my chance to brag that I've been running HML on a eee pc netbook that's mounted on a wall in my bathroom, for about 4 years now, as a music player and in case of emergency internet searches when showering and it does its job wonderfully.

[–] jjlinux@lemmy.ml 7 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

Hey, my wife wanted me to tell you that you're not welcome in our house, because now I'm about to do the same in our bathroom (with another distro, of course) 🤣🤣🤣

[–] cerement@slrpnk.net 4 points 7 months ago

going for the UwUntu experience

[–] zyratoxx@lemm.ee 1 points 7 months ago

Or AmogOS

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Deebster@programming.dev 20 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Distro watch rankings are just which page gets the most hits. Get a bunch of different IPs to load LemmyLinux and it'll be number one (and then actual people will click on it to see what it is and why it's number one).

[–] kionite231@lemmy.ca 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Wait do we really have a distro called LemmyLinux??

[–] Deebster@programming.dev 1 points 7 months ago

As far as I know I made it up, but I stand ready to be surprised!

[–] zyratoxx@lemm.ee 2 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

I too had the thought that some people might mess around with the hpd numbers but I don't want to make accusations without solid proof ^^

[–] Deebster@programming.dev 2 points 7 months ago

Back in the naughties PCLinuxOS was at #1 and people suspected them of cheating. I'm sure some people do try to game it, but there's plenty of organic and bot traffic to compete with.

Besides, I think the popularity thing's kinda backwards - I'd never visit Ubuntu or Fedora because I know what they are, but I'll be clicking on something novel out of curiosity.

[–] Shareni@programming.dev 19 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Are MX users just low key quiet, am I escaping their presence or is there a different reason for MX' high HPD score?

That's definitely a factor. People write and talk about new and exciting stuff, MX is neither. There's no point in writing an article that goes: MX experience - same as a year ago because nothing changed, see ya again in a year.

[–] oo1@kbin.social 7 points 7 months ago (1 children)

i think xfce people in general don't fuck around with all that distro gobshitery. it's fast, works and isn't fancy.

gnome and kde people more likely to want to show off all the bullshit effects they're wasting all that ram on.

You wanna know what my ram has in it . . . data, glorious data.
Albeit being inefficiently monged into terrible statistical models by some shitty code i wrote.

[–] Shareni@programming.dev 3 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I especially like it because it's trying to follow UNIX philosophy. All of its tools are separate and you can use them outside of Xfce or replace them altogether. For example KDE is still not at the point that you can launch the panel outside of it.

gnome and kde people more likely to want to show off all the bullshit effects they're wasting all that ram on.

It's not that much lighter than them though. KDE has gotten really close, and truly light DEs like LXDE and LXQT destroy Xfce on that front.

[–] entropicdrift@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 7 months ago

Agreed, LXQT is the shit if you want a slow machine to go faster and look decent while doing it.

[–] zyratoxx@lemm.ee 2 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Still more informative than every "Chrome Unboxed" article ever lol

[–] green_witch 14 points 7 months ago (2 children)

MX Linux is my daily atm. I tend to hop around every few months (normally I use Mint.). Honestly, I'm enjoying it far more than Mint and don't see that changing.

Dunno about what's up with distrowatch; just chiming in as that one MX Linux person.

[–] sexy_peach 5 points 7 months ago (2 children)

What do you like about it?

[–] Naminreb@kbin.social 5 points 7 months ago

MX Linux is simple and just works. The XFCE version is pretty light and snappy and the utilities, which it shares with AntiX, just work.

I’m a newbie at Linux, because my personal, very old 2012 computer just can’t work Windows 7…Windows was eating up all resources. I got MX Linux in a USB (2.0) and it just runs in that old hardware.

Ended up switching to AntiX, because it manages memory even better (runs with as little as 256 MB of RAM) and it recognized everything. AntiX is like installing Debian with a bit of utilities loaded. If you add the FT10/Tint2 bar, it feels as if you have a Desktop Manager, instead of a Windows Manager.

My 4GB RAM, old AMD64, Radeon computer, with an old rotational Hard Drive, just goes. Starts faster than my Laptop computer with 32GB RAM, Intel I7 with an SDD and it just has a good feeling about it.

MX Linux on a USB and persistence is working on any other computer I have. And you can focus on the important stuff: using your computer, instead of messing around with the setup constantly.

[–] green_witch 4 points 7 months ago

Just about everything, really. I'm not a Linux wizard or anything, just to preface.

I like the amount of control it lets me have over everything while also not allowing me to "accidentally" the whole everything. I like that it's fast and not resource intensive. Love that I can run it on my crunchy old netbook, and yet also my gaming desktop. Also like that it's Xfce which I'm fond of.

I guess most of that can also apply to many other distros, too. To summarize, suppose I just prefer it.

[–] zyratoxx@lemm.ee 2 points 7 months ago

Nice to finally meet you folks :3

[–] janNatan@lemmy.ml 12 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

I decided to fully convert to Linux on my living room PC because I was convinced these random display drops I was getting were being caused by Windows. (I was right.)

I had a drive that I wanted to leave alone, because it had my videos and music and such. I wanted to try a new (to me) distro, so I just started using high rated ones I found on distro watch. The first two I tried (I honestly forget which) would NOT leave my video drive alone during installation (even with advanced options). The third one was MX, and it successfully installed while leaving my video drive alone. I liked that. I am used to xfce, and I like some of the custom little tweaks that MX adds to it, like easily making custom folder themes. I like that it can install .deb files and pretty much everything I've tried to run so far has worked.

So, yeah, that's why I like MX. I have since installed it on my laptop, my office PC, and my husband is dual booting it. It even runs his v-tube software, which blew us away. I know most of this isn't unique to MX, but it just seems to work really well for us.

[–] zyratoxx@lemm.ee 1 points 7 months ago

Tysm for sharing your story :D

[–] boredsquirrel@slrpnk.net 6 points 7 months ago (2 children)

No shit how? I actually used it because of damn distrowatch, it is solid but damn Debian based. Had to switch because the Nextcloud version was outdated and didnt work with an updated server.

[–] Shareni@programming.dev 3 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Had to switch because the Nextcloud version was outdated and didnt work with an updated server.

And there was no flatpak, snap, or appimage?

Half of my packages are from nix unstable. Stable base + bleeding edge userland.

[–] boredsquirrel@slrpnk.net 6 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Yes there was but I was literally installing a distro recommended on Distrowatch, so you can estimate my knowledge back then.

[–] Shareni@programming.dev 4 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I'm currently running MX because I went to DW and checked what's popular. It wasn't the only one I hopped through, but that's how I first learned about it.

Did you check out the MX package installer at any point? It's got flatpak integration, but I'm wondering if it's obvious for beginners.

[–] boredsquirrel@slrpnk.net 3 points 7 months ago

I have no idea, I may have to give it another try.

Currently experimenting with atomic CentOS though, and rpm-ostree always wins

[–] zyratoxx@lemm.ee 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I mean, if it is just the client app you could see if the Flatpak version works better. ^^

[–] boredsquirrel@slrpnk.net 2 points 7 months ago

The Flatpak lacks Filemanager integration but thats pretty okay

[–] DmMacniel@feddit.de 4 points 7 months ago (2 children)

I never encountered MX. What is it's usecase?

[–] Shareni@programming.dev 4 points 7 months ago

What is it’s usecase?

Improved Debian for desktop

[–] zyratoxx@lemm.ee 1 points 7 months ago

It's a lightweight distro mainly for old or cheap hardware. It comes with a lot of tools pre-installed and is very conservative towards updates.

[–] spacetff@lemmy.ml 3 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Easy & quick install. I don't recall the last time anything went wrong. Great performance with lots of useful tools developed by MX team. sysV by default - init freedom... you can boot systemd if desired and interesting... there's an UNOFFICIAL init-diversity respin with 5 inits: sysVinit, systemd, runit, s6 & s6-66 selectable at boot menu:

https://www.antixforum.com/forums/topic/mx-23-2-init-diversity-respin/ https://forum.mxlinux.org/viewtopic.php?t=79448

Been exclusively running MX with Openbox (OB) since early 2019 on my 6 home systems All run great without any issues.

Also remotely support 3 senior, 70+ (one is 85) , users. In 2021, using 'live' DVD, switched them to MX from Linux Mint with their assistance to initially install/config SSH, then used SSH & VNC to finish MX install. Took about 45 minutes per system. These seniors are just users, not in any way computer nuts; email, web, simple games (Mahjong, solitaire, etc.) and occasionally LO Writer & 1 uses LO Calc for home budget. They all adapted to MX quickly over a couple of days. I rarely get any support calls and they faithfully do upates without prodding from me. The Calc user occasionaly calls for assistance with... well... Calc.

I also run 3 MX VMs: 1 for banking, 1 for paying bills, 1 for managing investments, each is used specifically/exclusively for intended purpose. NO web browsing, games or installs, downloads only from sites relative to VM - account statements from bank on banking VM, etc.

Discovered MX-18.1 in 2019 by chance while on a rare 'excursion' into distro hopping. Installed MX & OB in a VM (good ol' Virtualbox) in about 20 minutes, including the time adding/editing my OB config from my daily driver at the time, CrowZ. After a few days, switched all my systems to MX and haven't considered using any other distro since.

I've tried many distros over 15 years. My favorite distro is #! (Crunchbang) which sadly is no longer available. When #! ended I switched to CrowZ, a Devuan spin using OB - obviously I prefer OB.

So yes, I like and run MX exclusively although I would switch to #! if the 'original' #! project ever resurrects.

Blue Skys, Green lights to all...

[–] Frederic 3 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Low key quiet I guess, I used Linux with various distro, Ubuntu from maybe 2010-2014, Mint Cinnamon 2014-2018, then since 2018, MX, I don't rant about it because it just works, simple, efficient, Xfce, no snap/flat. I have a simple desktop with a taskbar à la Windows XP, meaning a menu button, window buttons, and the icon/hour. My latest install was LUKS+btrfs, it went like butter.

Everything works, is up to date, never break.

[–] zyratoxx@lemm.ee 1 points 7 months ago

Ah, thanks for sharing your journey :D

[–] j33pfan@lemm.ee 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I've been running MX Linux on two different computers for maybe 5 years or so. One a desktop and one a laptop. It just works for me. I've tried a ton of other distros, and this is the one that has had the least issues for my hardware.

[–] zyratoxx@lemm.ee 1 points 7 months ago

I'm glad you found your Distro! :3

[–] zyratoxx@lemm.ee 1 points 7 months ago

Thx for sharing your story :3