Re: [PLUG] Suggested distro for a new Dell 2-in-1? Anyone heard of "MX L

Re: [PLUG] Suggested distro for a new Dell 2-in-1? Anyone heard of "MX Linux"?

On Thu, May 12, 2016 at 1:41 PM, Greg Helledy <gregsonh@gra-inc.com> wrote:

I use Linux Mint 17 on my main desktop at home, and in a VM at work. I've been a KDE user since forever and Mint has put effort into making KDE work well (unlike on Debian, which I used for many years despite KDE being an afterthought there).

I'm quite happy with it but am not sure what to put on a piece of new hardware I've treated myself to. The two reasons Mint isn't the automatic choice are:
1. In order to have any chance of having all the hardware work (like automatic screen rotation), I'm going to need a very recent kernel. Mint 17 has me on a 3.19 kernel, which I know won't be new enough. The kernel installer (I do love the Mint tools) does offer 4.2 and 4.4 releases I could try.
2. To a lesser extent, I'm concerned about the spread of systemd, which Mint includes, from Ubuntu and Debian.

Poking around, I came across a distro called MX Linux, which is kind of a joint venture between AntiX and Mepis. It's on a list of non-systemd distros:
http://www.gabordemooij.com/index.php?p=/escape_from_systemd

I've been playing around with it in a VM and it seems ok, but I'm hesitant to consider a small distro I've never heard of before. Has anyone ever used MX Linux?
http://www.mepiscommunity.org/mx/
It installs a backported Debian 4.4 kernel.

I spent time playing around with PC-BSD in a VM, and it seemed fine although I never got to the point of understanding how the linux compatibility worked. Unfortunately, my fun came to an end when a new version was released (I had downloaded 10.1, the updater suggested I upgrade to 10.2). I said ok, the system deleted 800+ packages (I assumed to replace them with newer versions) and stopped. I now have no GUI and no idea what to do. I think I'd better stick with linux as I don't have the time to learn a new OS to the point of being able to repair stuff like this.

--
Greg Helledy
GRA, Incorporated
P: +1 215-884-7500
F: +1 215-884-1385
www.gra.aero
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