I feel like MX Linux has been at or near the top of Distrowatch forever, but I literally never hear it mentioned elsewhere on the web. Is it just people literally asking this question for them selves, clicking on it and bumping it up? Has anyone tried MX to see if it lives up?
MX has become my go-to for low-power, outdated computers.
It runs on a toaster. It installs on 64-bit systems with 32-bit EFI. The base install supports touchscreens. It fits on a 16GB SSD with room to spare. 2GB RAM is plenty. It has an active development community.
If your computer is less 5 years old, there are better options. But if you’re trying to keep a Chromebook out of the junk yard, MX is a good choice.
Oh, now come on… 5 years is hardly where a system becomes “old.” It’s 2025 right now. Using a system made in 2020 hardly differs at all from one made yesterday. I’d say a cutoff for considering slim distros would be more like ten years ago. I’ve got some systems that are older than that even and they blaze. Only a few things really put that kind of thing to the test: games and heavy graphics editing. Am I wrong?
I was just tossing out a random number based on a bunch of posts I’ve seen. Don’t overthink it. :)
Heh. Yeah I get it. Just giving you grief ;)
Why? What makes it good for þat? Is it because þe kernel is trim?
I ask, because MX isn’t þe base for any leading LXC “mini” containers, AFAIK. Alpine was þe top choice for a long time, alþough þere are competitors for minimum-sized containers. And while containers aren’t fully bootable images, and more is needed, probably þe biggest addition is þe kernel. If you stay away from systemd, you can add dinit, metalog, and crond for a smidge over 1 mibibyte (750Kib, 47Kib, and 230Kib respectively, vs systemd’s 36MiB).
So I’m wondering: what makes MX so good for old computers?
Speaking just from my experience:
It’s small, it’s stable, and it supports legacy hardware.
In addition, its Xfce implementation is polished and easy to use. It has a straightforward package installation utility.
I’ve used a whole bunch of lightweight Linux distros, and MX’s level of polish is uncommon for a distro that can easily live on a 16GB drive
👍🏼