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MX-16 released!


sunrat

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I have a Toshiba 10 inch netbook that I take on holiday. It has been running Linux Mint 17 but rather than upgrade I just installed MX-16.

It features Xfce which I was using previously (this machine is pretty much memory and CPU challenged.) It also uses all the familiar Debian commands. Plus it looks really classy with its dark theme. I like the left side panel too as the Toshiba does not have a lot of vertical screen space. A keeper!

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My neighbor Charlie - who gave me the Toshiba when he got a Core i5 notebook - was over visiting today and wondered how it was going and how Linux looked. I fired up his old PC and he was blown away how fast and powerful it was with Linux. I didn't have the heart to tell him it was now running off an SSD. :bounce:

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securitybreach

My neighbor Charlie - who gave me the Toshiba when he got a Core i5 notebook - was over visiting today and wondered how it was going and how Linux looked. I fired up his old PC and he was blown away how fast and powerful it was with Linux. I didn't have the heart to tell him it was now running off an SSD. :bounce:

 

Hahaha, that's great

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I'm sitting in the new chair now and a lot more comfortable than I was earlier!

Me too. My wife wanted to upgrade our computer chair (the old one we had belonged to my late parents.) Rather than go through the hassle of shopping in office supply stores, I just checked reviews on Amazon and selected one that had tool less assembly.

It showed up at my front door, I brought the carton inside and opened it. All I had to do was snap the casters onto the base, set the chair on top of it and operate a lever which snugged the chair onto the base. 5 minute job - took longer to cut up the cardboard carton for recycling. The creaky old chair went to the basement for my second desktop.

Nice chair too - it got excellent ratings on Amazon.

Sometimes we just don't realize how disruptive Amazon must be for bricks and mortar retailers.

Edited by raymac46
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One of these days, I'm gonna' have to get me some of the new-fangled SSDs.

They are nice in a desktop where you can use them for the O/S and keep a larger HDD for data. However I found the most impressive gains in an old netbook that has a relatively slow CPU and less RAM than you can put in desktop. These netbooks typically have a slow 5400 RPM HDD so even the cheapest SSD will give a dramatic improvement.

It has turned what my neighbor thought was junk into a nice little laptop to take on holiday. Excellent for light web surfing and email and enough capacity to back up photos.

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bloodaxe@mx16reserve:~
$ inxi -F
System:    Host: mx16reserve Kernel: 3.16.0-4-686-pae i686 (32 bit) Desktop: Xfce 4.12.2
	   Distro: MX-16_386 Metamorphosis 12 December 2016
Machine:   Device: desktop System: Dell product: Dimension 4700
	   Mobo: Dell model: 0M3918 BIOS: Dell v: A03 date: 08/23/2004
CPU:	   Single core Intel Pentium 4 (-HT-) cache: 1024 KB
	   clock speeds: max: 2992 MHz 1: 2992 MHz 2: 2992 MHz
Graphics:  Card: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] RV730 XT [Radeon HD 4670]
	   Display Server: X.Org 1.16.4 drivers: ati,radeon (unloaded: modesetting,fbdev,vesa)
	   Resolution: 1280x1024@60.02hz, 1280x1024@60.02hz
	   GLX Renderer: Gallium 0.4 on AMD RV730 (DRM 2.39.0 / 3.16.0-4-686-pae, LLVM 3.8.1)
	   GLX Version: 3.0 Mesa 12.0.3
Audio:	 Card-1 Intel 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) AC'97 Audio Controller
	   driver: snd_intel8x0
	   Card-2 Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] RV710/730 HDMI Audio [Radeon HD 4000 series]
	   driver: snd_hda_intel
	   Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture v: k3.16.0-4-686-pae
Network:   Card: Intel 82562ET/EZ/GT/GZ - PRO/100 VE (LOM) Ethernet Controller driver: e100
	   IF: eth0 state: up speed: 100 Mbps duplex: full mac: 00:11:11:64:b7:7c
Drives:    HDD Total Size: 120.0GB (37.0% used)
	   ID-1: /dev/sda model: MKNSSDCR120GB size: 120.0GB
Partition: ID-1: / size: 20G used: 4.3G (24%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda1
	   ID-2: /home size: 33G used: 3.7G (12%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda3
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: No active sensors found. Have you configured your sensors yet? mobo: N/A gpu: 60.5
Info:	  Processes: 146 Uptime: 42 min Memory: 406.1/3038.0MB Client: Shell (bash) inxi: 2.3.5 

 

Did a fresh install from a live usb. Runs very nicely and looks pretty modern to me. Can not understand why it is not more popular. :breakfast:

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...

Can not understand why it is not more popular. :breakfast:

30,000 downloads in the first 3 weeks after release. Not exactly unpopular. ;)

 

Certainly not to be sniffed at. :cool:

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SimplyMepis was a very solid distro and I tried it out a few times although I never have been a KDE fan. However when Warren Woodford got out of the picture Mepis faded away with him. AntiX seems to have revitalized it as an Xfce distro with the help of the old Mepis community and that is a great thing to see.

However it probably has to re-establish itself as a go-to distro and it seems that is happening.

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SimplyMepis was a very solid distro and I tried it out a few times although I never have been a KDE fan. However when Warren Woodford got out of the picture Mepis faded away with him. AntiX seems to have revitalized it as an Xfce distro with the help of the old Mepis community and that is a great thing to see.

However it probably has to re-establish itself as a go-to distro and it seems that is happening.

 

I tried Mepis way back and also used AntiX but only as a fall back to get me out of a scrape. Both were pretty neat. :breakfast:

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AntiX is a great distro for those old 32 bit netbooks of mine that have limited memory and power. It's very lightweight, and no systemd if that is important to you.

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Nice distro.....loaded it to a flash drive. Works very well...fast. The old Dell laptop that I use for watching movies has Mint installed on it....I may have to think about changing it over to MX-16...

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Someone gave me an old Compaq Presario f700 (1 GB of RAM) a few months ago saying it wasn't working anymore but I was welcome to play with it if I wanted to. I had never opened one before so I wanted to see what the components look like. I don't know if it's because I pushed the memory stick in some more or something else or what I did but all of a sudden it worked again. (My friend repairs computers so he is not missing it).

The first thing I did was to replace Windows Vista with a Linux distro but whichever I tried I ended up with a 3 panes (or panels?) desktop. I couldn't find a way to stop the boot so I could add something at the bottom like "vga=..." or something similar.

Last week I downloaded MX-16 and installed it on my own computer and really liked it so this morning I decided to install it on the notebook and guess what? I now have a fully functioning laptop. The battery doesn't hold the charge anymore but if I keep the machine plugged up it is working just fine. I can go online and it has an either 120 or 160 GB hard drive so I could save all or business data on it and keep the machine in another building in case something happened to our house (fire, etc.)

I had used Mepis several times mostly has a live-cd to repair a broken grub or similar problem and had always liked it. MX-16 looks beautiful, is fairly fast even on a small processor.

Edited by réjean
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Minty Fresh on an aging Dell lappy is a thing of the past. The old girl is now sporting a brand new look...MX-16. Can't get updates or packages yet, no wi-fi at the marina. :( Next thing I need to do is reinstall mx-16 w/persistence on the thumb drive.

Have a good weekend.

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UEFI boot works fine on my system. Additionally to the advice in the wiki, I had to change one setting in the boot setup menu to "Other OS" from "Windows".

For some reason GRUB did not install properly and defaulted to KXStudio GRUB, from which I could boot MX-16. That was easily fixed by reinstalling GRUB from the booted MX.

Main points are -

- GPT partition scheme unless you want to use Legacy (CSM) boot.

- Disable Secure Boot

- Disable Fast Boot

- Check for Windows-centric settings.

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https://mxlinux.org/wiki/system/uefi

 

This deals more with installation, but I would assume if you have an option for boot priority (F12 or F8) you'll be able to get a USB stick running.

UEFI boot works fine on my system. Additionally to the advice in the wiki, I had to change one setting in the boot setup menu to "Other OS" from "Windows".

For some reason GRUB did not install properly and defaulted to KXStudio GRUB, from which I could boot MX-16. That was easily fixed by reinstalling GRUB from the booted MX.

Main points are -

- GPT partition scheme unless you want to use Legacy (CSM) boot.

- Disable Secure Boot

- Disable Fast Boot

- Check for Windows-centric settings.

https://mxlinux.org/wiki/system/uefi

 

This deals more with installation, but I would assume if you have an option for boot priority (F12 or F8) you'll be able to get a USB stick running.

 

Thanks guys. My pc is set up for dual booting with linux. I am trying to run MX-16 as a LIVE USB on it which is not working. Your information has I think helped. The version of MX-16 I have is a 32Bit as that is all the Dell can run and so that is what I have on the usb. Seems that 32Bit versions need LEGACY bios and my Skylake pc is set up as UEFI.

So I will have a fiddle and see if i can get this to work.

 

MX-15 32-bit UEFI Installation

Scenario: All Linux Environment

Use Steps 1 & 2 for installation preparation.

Step 3: Linux Installation

The MX-15 32-bit Linux installer requires the following UEFI firmware configuration. Make your changes by access your UEFI firmware Setup utility.

  • Legacy BIOS Boot ON. Enable BIOS compatibility boot mode (e.g., CSM, Legacy BIOS OPROM).


 

 

:shifty:

Edited by abarbarian
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Just set up MX-16 in a Virtual Machine as a guest on Windows 10. It looks terrific. All the Guest Additions were set up so I got a full screen right out of the box.

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Figured out how to get my usb-c showing up in the boot menu for my Skylake mobo. Wrote the MX-16 to the usb and when I try to use it it stalls and shows a warning,

 

"isolinux.bin missing or corrupt"

 

tried writing the image to the stick twice and the .iso passes its MD5 check.

 

What am I missing folks. Apart from several grey cells. :hmm:

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Well guys I used the "dd" command, same one I use for all similar tasks.

 

I'll give it another whirl. I only want to see what MX-16 runs like from a usb-c/3 usb stick on a modern Skylake set up just out of interest. :breakfast:

 

I think I will try another download of the 64 bit to see if that cures the problem.

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