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MX-17 Released!


sunrat

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I reckon this is in the running for the best distro ever award. I installed and used the RC-1 recently it it looks slick, runs efficiently and just behaves politely (mostly. I have one petty inconsequential gripe with Thunar, not MX's fault).

The added MX tools are excellent and the installer is a breeze.

Get MX-17, you'll be glad you did!

 

https://forum.mxlinux.org/viewtopic.php?f=131&t=43474

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I had MX-16.1 installed on my daughters old junk laptop and I have upgraded to MX-17. It was fast and easy - the installer is very slick. Everything worked out of the box.

I installed Chromium and I am posting from it now. Recommended distro for sure.

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I reckon this is in the running for the best distro ever award.

 

Looks great. I checked out the live session from a flash drive today (Sunday). Very nice.

 

Remember, "best" is always subjective; for me, MX is (and has always been) great to have in my toolbox, on a flash drive -- it's still my preferred distro for live sessions -- but they also ship tons of apps and tools that I don't want or need. Different users have different things they want out of a distro; for installations, I prefer a Debian netinstall (with Xfce) over MX, but that's just me. I do like MX for when I need a quick and easy installation, like when a used computer comes my way.

 

I've had MX-14 and MX-15 hard drive installations here in the past; no plans to install MX-17, but nothing's set in stone. Excellent distro, excellent release.

 

The default image viewer in MX-17 is Nomacs... First time I've seen or heard of that one. I like it. Found it in the Stable repos and installed it here in Stretch today.

 

Also, I thought it was pretty cool that MX-17 shipped with Firefox 57.0.2. First time I've taken a look at the "new" FF. I'm still using Pale Moon here, though.

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MX-17 is a good one to suggest for laptops and new users. It works well with just about any wifi card - including Broadcom. You don't have to install with a wire and tweak stuff to get wifi working. You can configure printers easily. It has nice artwork and the vertical menu is well suited to a laptop screen's real estate.

Even though it has lots of tools it isn't a resource hog. It's a Debian stable derivative so pretty solid.

I usually install Chromium, Abiword and Gnumeric and I'm good to go.

The only disadvantage I see is that for an upgrade to the next release you still have to reinstall from scratch.

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Good points, raymac46.

 

Nitpicking:

 

- Ships with only Xfce. Does the installer have any options for choosing a different DE, or a WM? I know one can be added post-install, and I think there is (or will be) an "unofficial" KDE version. With Debian, I can choose which DE to go with right from tasksel, but there's no option for something like Openbox. The Antergos installer let me choose to go with Openbox -- very nice.

 

- I wish it didn't take so long for the Stable-based release to come out. Stretch was released six months ago. Long before MX-17 was released, I'd hammered Stretch (with Xfce) into shape and got everything set up the way I like it.

 

That's some serious nitpicking, though, and both of those things take a lot of work. Also, I'm a BunsenLabs fanboy, kinda; BL ships with only Openbox, and the Stretch-based BL release still hasn't been finalized. These things are understandable, especially considering the size of the dev teams and so forth.

 

I hesitate to bring up those points because the pros definitely outweigh the cons, in my opinion.

 

You're right that MX isn't a resource hog even though it ships with so many apps and tools. Reminds me, there was a respin called MX-15 Core or something like that (MX-15_386_CORE_Nov_2016_v2.iso). I wonder what that was all about, and how that one turned out. I kinda wish more distros offered a way to install only the base system and then build from there. I guess that's why I lean more towards something like Arch, or a Debian netinstall -- they take much more work up front, but you end up with only what you really want, for the most part. But as I touched on before, there are times when the user wants to be able to get up and running quickly, with a complete, finished system. Just depends on the situation.

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I guess that's why I lean more towards something like Arch, or a Debian netinstall -- they take much more work up front, but you end up with only what you really want, for the most part.

 

I'm expecting somebody to mention Slackware. :)

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Well of course an experienced Linux user can do whatever they want.

MX-17 is designed to make it easy for a new user. It has a decent desktop environment that'll work on most machines. It's well behaved, stable and can do most configuration with its GUI (assuming you want to do more than the defaults.) I use it on my daughter's old laptop as a workroom distro that my wife is also comfortable with.

I also run Linux Mint, Arch and Debian Sid on other machines so I don't feel confined in any way with MX-17. I agree that Arch and Debian lend themselves more to customization.

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OK nothing is perfect. :w00tx100:

I did have to do some minor geeking it up with MX-17.

After I finished the install and rebooted I kept getting this notification window complaining the /home/demo/Downloads directory did not exist. I think it has something to do with a persistence option on the Live USB.

I fixed it by going into the Terminal and using sudo mkdir to create a /home/demo and then a home/demo/Downloads directory. After that the notification went away when I rebooted. :clap:

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raymac46, see posts #256, #257, and #258 here: https://forum.mxlinu...=demo&start=250

 

Same issue? But I don't know if that issue was ever really fixed. I think it goes back to well before MX-17, too.

 

As I recall, if you set up your flash drive for persistence, you still have the option to log into a session that doesn't have persistence, right? I'm guessing that the installation should be done from there to avoid the /home/demo problem. Although simply creating /home/demo/Downloads is an easy enough workaround. Will that directory actually be used for anything, though?

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@saturnian I believe I tried to save the live info with the wifi password prior to installation (not that it did anything about it.) This probably introduced a user named demo into the setup. I doubt the /home/demo/Downloads directory will get used for much but with a 500GB hard drive I am not worried about capacity.

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  • 1 month later...

PbZTaZL.png

 

Here is MX-17 running on a 16 GB Patriot USB. The host is darn old almost obsolete and only has 2 GB of ram it could do with an upgrade to 4 or 6 GB's. Despite the hosts age MX-17 runs sweetly and I have not run into any problems yet.

I have installed the 74 system updates and Keepassx and made a few tweaks and will try the remaster tool to see if I can keep the changes. I would have used persistence but have run into some problems on the several tries I made. It seems that you have to apply the system updates to use persistence from what I read over at the forums. Thought this did not help my efforts. I think my problems are caused by having the stick formatted with Fat32 which I need as I want to try out the stick on a UEFI pc as well as legacy ones.

Whatever the cause I have given up on persistence for the time being and am of to try a remaster.

 

:breakfast:

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Saturnian wrote:

With Debian, I can choose which DE to go with right from tasksel, but there's no option for something like Openbox. The Antergos installer let me choose to go with Openbox -- very nice.

 

You are correct about Debian, but I've installed lxde in Debian installer, which pulls in openbox as wm. When you login, naked openbox is an option, although lxde is default. You still have lxde cruft, so maybe not ideal for you, but certainly quick & easy.

 

You can probably also select lxqt as DE option, but I've seen lxqt use openbox, xfwm4, and kwin as default wm in different distros. Not sure what Debian lxqt uses. Same problem with lxqt cruft though.

 

Perhaps a NoX install is your best option, and then install xorg, openbox, etc... to finish it off. A little more work, but perhaps exactly what you're looking for?

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You are correct about Debian, but I've installed lxde in Debian installer, which pulls in openbox as wm. When you login, naked openbox is an option, although lxde is default. You still have lxde cruft, so maybe not ideal for you, but certainly quick & easy.

 

Yes, LXDE does bring in Openbox. Just wish there was an option for only Openbox, like in Antergos. On the other hand, the Openbox option in Antergos doesn't give you a "stock" Openbox setup -- it includes customizations from Antergos. Which is good for those who want to be up-and-running right away, I guess.

 

Perhaps a NoX install is your best option, and then install xorg, openbox, etc... to finish it off. A little more work, but perhaps exactly what you're looking for?

 

Yeah, the way to get only Openbox in Debian is to deselect all desktop options (select only standard system utilities) and then install openbox, xorg, etc. later. That's what I did when I installed the system I'm typing from right now (it was a netinstall, done way back in March 2017, when Stretch was still in Testing).

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Well I ran the remaster tool and it worked . So I now have a MX-17 on a stick with some of my own tweaks. Not quite as neat as having persistence but at least it has made the Live USB very useful.

After the remaster and before a reboot I tried to make a second usb from the running usb with the Live USB Maker tool. This ran and completed but said it had completed with errors. When I tried to use this usb it would not boot.

So I am going to try the Live USB Maker tool again now that I have rebooted the remastered usb install.

 

:breakfast:

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So I seem to have sorted out how to remaster a Live USB which is great as I now have a backup os on a stick with a functioning Keepassx.

 

I can not seem to get persistence working.

 

I did use the SnapShot tool to make a .iso of the running system. This did boot up and seems to work well. I have set up the Live USB with UK English but for some strange reason the SnapShot booted up with US English so I had to alter that with the boot menu. Apart from that strangeness my tweaks and extra programs carried over ok.

So as I have spare usb's I think I will use the SnapShot tool as a backup tool. When I make some major changes to my main MX-17 usb I'll run the SnapShot tool. It might be a weird way to get a backup but at least I'll have one. I may have another crack at persistence someday.

 

All I have to do now is test this usb set up on a couple of pc's an if all goes well my next project is to rescue my poorly Arch install. I hope I can as I do not feel up to doing a fresh install at the moment.

 

MX-17 is flying along on this old host so I guess it will really burn rubber on my other two working pc's as they are much younger and much more powerful.

 

:breakfast:

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root@mx1:/home/demo# inxi -Fm
System:    Host: mx1 Kernel: 4.13.0-1-amd64 x86_64 bits: 64 Desktop: Xfce 4.12.3
	   Distro: MX-17_x64 Horizon December 15, 2017
Machine:   Device: desktop System: Gigabyte product: N/A serial: N/A
	   Mobo: Gigabyte model: Z170X-Gaming 7 v: x.x serial: N/A
	   UEFI: American Megatrends v: F6 date: 12/16/2015
CPU:	   Quad core Intel Core i7-6700K (-MT-MCP-) cache: 8192 KB
	   clock speeds: max: 4200 MHz 1: 4000 MHz 2: 4000 MHz 3: 4000 MHz 4: 4000 MHz
	   5: 4000 MHz 6: 4000 MHz 7: 4000 MHz 8: 4000 MHz
Memory:    Array-1 capacity: 64 GB devices: 4 EC: None
	   Device-1: ChannelA-DIMM0 size: 8 GB speed: 2800 MHz type: DDR4
	   Device-2: ChannelA-DIMM1 size: 8 GB speed: 2800 MHz type: DDR4
	   Device-3: ChannelB-DIMM0 size: 8 GB speed: 2800 MHz type: DDR4
	   Device-4: ChannelB-DIMM1 size: 8 GB speed: 2800 MHz type: DDR4
Graphics:  Card: NVIDIA GP104 [GeForce GTX 1070]
	   Display Server: x11 (X.Org 1.19.2 )
	   drivers: modesetting,nouveau (unloaded: fbdev,vesa)
	   Resolution: 1920x1200@59.95hz, 1920x1080@50.00hz
	   OpenGL: renderer: Gallium 0.4 on llvmpipe (LLVM 3.9, 256 bits) version: 3.3 Mesa 13.0.6
Audio:	 Card-1 NVIDIA GP104 High Def. Audio Controller driver: snd_hda_intel
	   Card-2 Intel Sunrise Point-H HD Audio driver: snd_hda_intel
	   Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture v: k4.13.0-1-amd64
Network:   Card-1: Intel Ethernet Connection (2) I219-V driver: e1000e
	   IF: eth1 state: down mac: 40:8d:5c:e0:e4:aa
	   Card-2: Qualcomm Atheros Killer E2400 Gigabit Ethernet Controller driver: alx
	   IF: eth0 state: up speed: 100 Mbps duplex: full mac: 40:8d:5c:e0:e4:ac
Drives:    HDD Total Size: 761.7GB (0.7% used)
	   ID-1: /dev/nvme0n1 model: SAMSUNG_MZVPV256HDGL size: 256.1GB
	   ID-2: /dev/sdb model: MKNSSDCR240GB size: 240.1GB
	   ID-3: /dev/sda model: Crucial_CT250MX2 size: 250.1GB
	   ID-4: USB /dev/sdc model: Patriot_Memory size: 15.5GB
Partition: ID-1: / size: 26G used: 1.3G (6%) fs: overlay dev: N/A
	   ID-2: swap-1 size: 1.59GB used: 0.00GB (0%) fs: swap dev: /dev/nvme0n1p7
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 29.8C mobo: 27.8C gpu: N/A
	   Fan Speeds (in rpm): cpu: N/A
Info:	  Processes: 224 Uptime: 4:51 Memory: 2589.8/32127.9MB Client: Shell (bash) inxi: 2.3.54 

root@mx1:/home/demo# hdparm -Tt /dev/sdc

/dev/sdc:
Timing cached reads:   38252 MB in  2.00 seconds = 19152.09 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 128 MB in  3.02 seconds =  42.40 MB/sec

root@mx1:/home/demo# hdparm -Tt /dev/nvme0n1

/dev/nvme0n1:
Timing cached reads:   38922 MB in  2.00 seconds = 19489.64 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 4450 MB in  3.00 seconds = 1482.91 MB/sec

root@mx1:/home/demo# hdparm -Tt /dev/sda

/dev/sda:
Timing cached reads:   39408 MB in  2.00 seconds = 19731.47 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 1224 MB in  3.00 seconds = 407.68 MB/sec

 

I must say MX-17 runs very well indeed from a usb stick on my Skylake pc. An it is only a usb-2 stick I think not a usb-3 one. I ran some hdparm tests from within the live environment on the usb , ssd and nvme drives.

 

:breakfast:

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Well I seem to have finally got persistence working on this stick. Have no idea how as I have tried at boot up and whilst running with no success. I got persistence for /home working but persistence for root would not take until I booted yesterday and tried again.

I have been updating the system and remastering so I guess one of the updates fixed some small glitch. Or maybe the gremlins are on holiday.

This is a very nice os I am suitably impressed. :breakfast:

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