MX Linux 19

Just to keep things fresh and frosty... I have reinstalled MX Linux (breaking my Windows 10 Installation in the process... oh well).

As it has always been, it is a fine distribution.  I ran into issues attempting to install as a reiser4 file system, so allowed it to shift to ext4.  That's fine, it just adds a little more stress to the SSD that is my system disk.

I got NVIDIA drivers and other non-free drivers installed right away (as MX makes it super simple to do) and even got liquorix kernel 5.3 installed... that did break my NVIDIA graphics but I just reinstalled with the latest version (when you activate NVIDIA it asks "The main version we have or another, newer version?"  Initially I selected the main version, so it was an older driver that did not jive with the kernel).

MX does a great job of populating its default theme throughout most apps.  My browsers, editors and other apps all have that same, grey-ish feeling.  I like it.

Xfce 4.14 is nice, visually nothing much is apparent but it does have some fresh options and integrations.  Reminds me, the newest default theme has fine borders around it now, making it easier to resize windows.  That was always a pain with MX.

Runs smoothly, all my favorite development and gaming applications work, it is snappy, customizable, just a great overall distribution.

Oops! I did it again...

I can't believe I used that as the title to this post...

Anyway, so I ran MX for a total of a few hours and realized... I've actually become attached to GNOME.  I can't believe it really.  When GNOME 3 came out I was totally turned off by it.

Now I have actually become fond of it, even though it sucks up RAM like crazy.

Sooooo... I am running Manjaro 18 Gnome version.  Closer to Pop!_os.  Still have the latest Pop!_os image downloaded and ready to burn... just in case.  :D  I am thinking of poking around for "the best gnome implementations" for linux distros.

But I like Manjaro because it has some pretty huge repositories, allows for the latest drivers (MX is still behind on Nvidia drivers), and it generally looks nice.

So we shall see... if anyone has any recommendations let me know.

Oops!

Soooooooo maybe I broke my Pop!_OS build.

Actually, I thought I was more clever than everyone else out there who has tried this but... I tried anyway.  I tried building in NVidia drivers to a low latency kernel that I installed.

Yeah.  No go.

So in order to start from scratch I decided to install the latest BETA version of MX Linux (if you look back in my blog you will see I used it for awhile and liked it a good bit, still do).

I may yet go back to Pop!_os... remains to be seen.  I really did enjoy it.  MX Linux, if you remember, is an XFCE, debian-based distro.  It is known for being nimble but attractive.

So, for the moment, or until further notice anyway, I will be back on MX, albeit on their beta 18 version.

Well that was a fun excursion... back to our regularly scheduled show.

I enjoyed playing with Mandriva beta 6 for ... a whole day.  The 4.19 kernel and other subsystem components were simply not quite ready and weird issues popped up left and right.

EVEN SO, I will say this, it was VERY pretty to look at (I've never seen XFCE look so nice) and fast... it was very snappy.

So I shifted back to my now current love/stand-by in the linux world, MX Linux.

It is a rock-solid distribution and pretty darn configurable.  I mixed and matched the standard theme with some different icons and window manager widgets and have something that is quite nice to look at, still XFCE quick, and stable as can be.

I also wanted to re-iterate how helpful the MX Linux community was when I needed help with my natural scrolling issue.