MX-16 well worth a try.

[Abarbarian]

MX-16 Xfce: very close to the ideal

The MX Linux distribution is a relatively new name in the Linux world. However, its predecessors MEPIS and antiX were both popular some time ago. I even reviewed SimplyMEPIS 11.0 KDE back in 2012.

I am not very sure what MX means. Is it a reference to Mexico? Or to Moto-cross? Of just a hybrid of Mepis and antiX? You can comment your ideas below.

Debian Stable is the backbone of this distribution. It is Debian 8 Jessie version that was used as a base for the latest MX release.

MX-16 is the name of the latest principal release of this operating system. It was released in the middle of December 2016. There are also monthly sub-releases for those who want to have a fresher version of the ISO, which will require fewer updates after installation.

The usual Dark Duck style article.

Interestingly in the comments section,

Nikos8 February 2017 at 20:58
Besides estetic changes. What is the difference between MX 16 and Debian+XFCE?

Chris Whelan8 February 2017 at 21:14
A lot of optimisation to enhance performance, and a number of tools to make life easier for common tasks that those less familiar with Linux often struggle with.
On low to mid specification systems it is noticeably faster than, say, Mint Xfce.

 

[floppybootstomp]

MX revisited.

Had a yen to install Linux on an old machine, just for the hell of it really. This is the system best I can remember:

Asus A7V8X-X Socket A motherboard.
AMD Socket A CPU, I think it's 1.2Ghz but not sure.
1Gb RAM
Radeon AGP Graphics card, 128Mb memory
IDE/PATA DVD-RW
IDE/PATA DVD-ROM drive
A floppy disk!
80Gb IDE/PATA Hard disk

First I installed Linux Mint 18.2 Cinnamon 32 Bit and it ran, but slowly. This OS comes pre-installed with Firefox browser but wouldn't connect online.

Went to Distrowatch and read about several distros and eventually settled for MX 16.1 and Linux Lite as best suited for older machines. Downloaded both, checked both MD5 sums and burnt each one to DVD (my old system probably doesn't support booting from USB stick).

Installed MX16.1 32 Bit and then proceeded to download an install lots of updates. Sound not working yet but this OS, on this machine, is fast - very snappy and outperforms Mint (on this machine) by a country mile. Easy to find my way around this OS I noticed.

Tried connecting online via Firefox and it's not having it at all. Found package manager and installed first Opera and then Google Chrome and neither browser would connect me online. Then saw a lightweight browser name Quozilla (I think) was listed so I installed that.

This browser did at least start but each time I tried to connect to established sites it just crashed.

There is an alternative version of MX16.1 that they say may be suited better to older systems and it lacks or has a different version of a certain piece of the kernel, I can't remember what but I may try that.

Despite my failure to connect online with this older machine using 2 different Linux OS's I will say that I found MX a joy to use, very intuitive and really quite fast.

Next (tomorrow) I'll try Linux Lite.

 

[Abarbarian]

@floppybootstomp Try running

"inxi -F"

and you should get

"Network: Card: VIA VT6102 [Rhine-II] driver: via-rhine"

If no inxi then try

"lsmod"

and see if the module is loaded. You should see mention of

"via-rhine"

You could also try running

"/sbin/lspci | grep -i net"

which should output something like

"00:12:0 Ethernet Controller : VIA Technologies, Inc. VT6102
[Rhine-||] (rev 78)"

I think that your ethernet controller is a VIA VT6102 and its module name is via-rhine which needs to be loaded for internet to work.
If you have the module and it is loaded then possibly you need to set up whatever Network management program MX-16 uses.

I do not have a MX-16 running at the moment but the above should help you on your way.

Have I ever mentioned that I really like MX-16 ?

 

[Abarbarian]

@floppybootstomp

I am just back from a three day marathon to York to pick up the last of me mums stuff. Having a dodgy leg and towing a trailer with large flat sheets on it at this time of year made the trip rather taxing. So I found the excellent MX manual on line and it has a very nice Network section that should get you up and surfing with little bother.

https://mxlinux.org/user_manual_mx15/mxum.html#toc-Subsection-3.4

 

[floppybootstomp]

Thanks for the tips and links sah, I'll give 'em a go.

Since the above post I tried Linux Lite and I was quite impressed with that also.

I've also found a document in my old records listing this machines specs and the Socket A CPU is actually 2.1Ghz which is almost respectable.

I couldn't get online using Firefox or Chrome in Linux Lite either but found the Tor browser in the repository which was a surprise so I tried that and did manage to get online. However, I couldn't get through to a torrent site but that didn't overly surprise me.

I was thinking of trying Win XP and seeing if there were problems gaining online access with IE but will eventually reload MX and try your console commands. If I gain a greater understanding of the situation I'll post here.

 

[Abarbarian]

Thanks for the tips and links sah, I'll give 'em a go.

Since the above post I tried Linux Lite and I was quite impressed with that also.

I've also found a document in my old records listing this machines specs and the Socket A CPU is actually 2.1Ghz which is almost respectable.

I couldn't get online using Firefox or Chrome in Linux Lite either but found the Tor browser in the repository which was a surprise so I tried that and did manage to get online. However, I couldn't get through to a torrent site but that didn't overly surprise me.

I was thinking of trying Win XP and seeing if there were problems gaining online access with IE but will eventually reload MX and try your console commands. If I gain a greater understanding of the situation I'll post here.

Hi Flops , just had a look at your post 22 where you say you installed and then downloaded updates. I thought you had problems with connecting to the internet but if you downloaded updates that will not be the case so my suggestions might just be rubbish in solving the problem.
I would have a look at that wiki link first.
I'm of to fall asleep in front of the tv as i am proper cream crackerd and not thinking straight it seems.
Best of luck with the penguins.