Distrowatch may still rank by number of clicks on a distro on their site. I have been convinced for a number of years that MX Linux has maintained its top position there because people click on it wondering what the heck it is, keeping it at the top in a self-perpetuating loop.
This is neither an endorsement nor a criticism of MX Linux, by the way. Maybe it’s awesome. I’ve just never used it, and probably never will.
I chose it for one of my systems because I wanted a Debian based distro with KDE Plasma desktop. It just works and is easy to use.
Why not kubuntu or… Debian??
I’m using MX Linux AHS for yyyeeeaaaarrrssss as my daily desktop for personal use and work development.
It is based on Debian, systemd optionnal, packages always up to date, no flatpak, I only use .deb
What I like is it simply works. From USB install using LUKS/btrfs without messing anything, to using Xfce with minimal GUI, everything works, no drivers problem, etc.
Yes MX Linux is awesome.
My minimal desktop, no icons, just a bar at the bottom with menu/applications/system tray icons
Weird AI wallpaper flex but ok
No it’s made by a human artist
I installed MX a bit over a year ago when my patience with ubuntu finally ran out. It’s great, running with plasma 5 on a pretty old laptop. Up to date repo mostly accounts for the stable-but-slow debian repos. One of the biggest plus points is the community forums - active, engaged, and helpful, far more so than I’ve experienced in many other distro communities. Can recommend.
packages always up to date
What? Last I checked it wasn’t a rolling release, so how are packages up to date?
For instance whenever there is a new Firefox, it takes a few hours or max a day to have the new .deb, and you have access to test repo and backport ; if needed flatpaks and snap but I never used them.
It’s not a rolling release, I updated from MX18 to 21 23 25, but pretty easily.
OK for a non rolling release such updates are usually only for a few selected packages. AFAIK Ubuntu did something similar years ago. But most likely you are still on older kernels and drivers and 80% of everything else.
It’s not necessarily a bad thing, because the idea is to minimize breakage. But I think your claim “up to date packages” is overstating it.nope
Linux mxMag 7.0.14-1-liquorix-amd64 #1 ZEN SMP PREEMPT liquorix 7.0-17~mx25ahs (2026-07-02) x86_64 GNU/Linux
Uhmm no?
Scoring Fedora and Debian like that tells me everything I need to know about their little dog and pony show
Wrong metric
Then I don’t know what op is on about
It’s really one of the most solid distros
What even is that?
X11?
MX Linux. It’s a distro I know solely from the fact mentioned in OP. I’ve never heard anyone mention they use it, outside of this exact sort of conversation where one or two pop up.
yeah it’s weird. I know of MX Linux simply because of the distrowatch thing but I never hear of anyone actually use it UNTIL posts like this come up about MX Linux on distrowatch and then the comments will be “I’ve used MX Linux for years and I love it, it’s awesome” annnnnnd then never a peep until the next post about distrowatch and mx linux comes up.
On Mastodon my feed is pretty much tailored to strictly linux stuff from everywhere and again, never ever see a mention of MX Linux until someone posts about distrowatch.it’s so odd.
One of these days i’ll get around to actually trying it.
Maybe it’s so great that the users are content enough to not brag about it unprompted? Which would be very strange for Linux
hah that’s my point and that’s why I find it weird. People are very opinionated about what distros they use but you never hear about MX Linux users until a post about Distrowatch pops up. maybe it is that great that users don’t feel the need to brag about it.
The hipster subculture never left Linux.
Now I need to distro hop so everyone knows how avant-garde I am.
But the thing is, while DistroWatch ranking isn’t an actual popularity ranking, it might give some indication that the distro has a lot of interest in it. But you almost never hear about it. It’s a strange situation.
I think nowadays it’s at the top of DistroWatch page hits because people check it out because it is at #1, perpetuating the situation.
I saw it in the wild at a university computer lab once.
MX Linux
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