MX Linux 23 Beta Now Available

A much easier way to run Debian with a lot of nice tools is MX Linux, and with Debian 12, Bookworm, due to be released on June 10th, the first Beta of MX Linux 23 based on Bookworm is now available. I was running the Beta version of Debian 12 and I didn’t have a single issue, so the Beta of MX Linux should be pretty stable. Consequently, I switched my Debian 12 to Sid (Unstable), which is the latest development packages for Debian and it’s been stable as well (Debian branches are Stable, Testing, Unstable/Sid – Sid being a reference to the movie Toy Story and the neighbor kid that broke his toys). After running versions of Arch Linux that are running the latest packages, I now prefer to run rolling release distributions with current software from developers. Debian Sid (Unstable) is pretty close to Arch being much more current than Debian’s Stable branch, and in essence a rolling release except for a short time leading into a new release of Debian. MX Linux isn’t a rolling release, but the Beta is pretty up to date at the moment and a great distribution to run, and it’s No. 1 on Distrowatch for good reason.

You can see below that MX Linux is running the newest LTS, Long Term Support, Linux kernel 6.1 (latest released Linux kernel is 6.3), and KDE Plasma 5.27.5. Looking at the Debian notes, they’ve upgraded KDE to 5.27.5 from 5.27.2 for the new release of Debian 12 Bookworm, pulling it in even though they had previously locked packages for the release. So the new version of Debian and MX Linux will have the latest version of KDE as the 5.27 branch is the end of the road for KDE 5 with only bug fixes coming, as the KDE Team has devoted themselves to the upcoming KDE 6.0 version which has a lot of work to be done.

Some of the MX Linux tools listed below.

https://mxlinux.org/blog/mx-23-libretto-beta-1-now-available-for-testing-purposes/

MX-23 “Libretto” beta 1 now available for testing purposes

May 28, 2023

MX-23 beta 1 iso images for testing
–direct downloads:

Xfce:
32 bit Xfce with debian standard 6.1 kernel sha256_checksum md5_checksum signature
64 bit Xfce with debian standard 6.1 kernel sha256_checksum md5_checksum signature

KDE/plasma
64 bit KDE/plasma with debian standard 6.1 kernel sha256_checksum md5_checksum signature

Fluxbox:
32 bit Fluxbox with debian standard 6.1 kernel sha256_checksum md5_checksum signature
64 bit Fluxbox with debian standard 6.1 kernel sha256_checksum md5_checksum signature

MX-23 beta 1 is now available for testing. MX-23 is built from debian 12 “bookworm” and MX repositories. As in past releases, the MX will default to sysVinit but systemd remains an option for installed systems.

As well as a ton of under-the-hood work, here are some items that are new in MX-23 beta 1:

The Installer now supports swapfiles as well as swap partitions. The “regular” auto installation will default to swapfiles. There are many other installer changes, including gui adjustments, setting of some debconf value to make legacy grub-pc updates more seamless, various fixes for grub install functions and cleanup of “dump” entries that might be clogging up a user’s nvram. There is also additional help guidance right in the installer gui. We are also interested in testing of the –oem option, which allows for user creation on first boot after installation.

The live boot menus now have a more obvious “check media” function right in the top level menu. The media will be checked and boot will continue if things look good.

Major Desktop versions
Xfce 4.18
Fluxbox 1.3.7
KDE/plasma 5.27

MX Tools: Many mx apps have been updated with bug fixes and enhancements. All tools now launch with individual policy kit configurations rather than using the blanket mx-pkexec from past releases. mx-pkexec is not preinstalled.

The very popular MX Snapshot has received a lot of attention to help users customize their snapshot boot options while automatically filtering out option sthat might prevent the created live system from starting up on different machines.

MX-Updater now uses nala for the backend by default.

All releases use pipewire & wireplumber instead of pulseaudio.

UFW firewall is enabled by default.

There are many new configuration options for the fluxbox release, as well as special “appfinder” configurations for rofi (replacing xfce4-appfinder). the fluxbox release relies much less on Xfce applications, but retains thunar for the file manager. mx-tweak’s theme module now has support for theming on fluxbox.

The KDE/Plasma received several tweaks to the settings to deal with new configuration options available in plasma 5.27. Root actions remain in dolphin, including root dolphin instances via the root service menu actions.

With this beta 1 we are particularly interested in testing the installer, including traditional ext4 and btrfs installations, as well as bug hunting the mx-tools, especially mx-packageinstaller->popular apps entries.

Known issues:

  • The wallpaper is a special beta wallpaper and will not be in the final background set.
  • MX Package Installer: test repo and backports tabs will not display anything, for obvious reasons, the repos don’t exist or are empty at this time. Feel free to test popular application installations. There has been a lot of work in the popular applications section, but its likely some problems still exist.
  • Due to an upgrade to idesk, mx-idesktool on the fluxbox release may not be full functional, particularly when dealing with svg icons. This will be addressed.
  • debian-bookworm-updates repo is disabled on the beta releases as it is not currently being used. However, it is safe to enable and will be enabled by default on future releases. Beta users are free to enable the repo either by editing /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian-stable-updates.list or by using mx-repo-manager.

Feedback for testing should be via forum post here: MX-23 beta 1 feedback thread

Be sure to include proper system data, including the output of quick-system-info.
If posting nvidia-installer (ddm-mx) issues, please post the contents of /var/log/ddm.log.
If posting remaster issues, please include the contents of /var/log/live/live-remaster.log
If posting installer issues, please include the contents of /var/log/minstall.log
If posting issues with MX-PackageInstaller “Popular Apps”, please post contents of /var/log/mxpi.log or /var/log/mxpi.log.old (whichever contains the log of your issue).

Thank you!

Dolphin Oracle (on behalf of the MX Dev Team)