I recently considered wiping 100% reliable, issue free Zorin OS from my Dell Latitude E6420 i7 8GiB Laptop and installing MX which would be a natural progression; having Antix-22 Full LXDE with Gimp, Drawing, LO, Hardinfo, OpenShot video editor, and Screencast Recorder added on my old 2008 HP G60 3GiB Laptop. (now SSD) Nice to be free of the unwanted and unnecessary layer of ubuntu and be to rid of snaps too

I was recently corrected by Anticapitalista telling me that rather than Antix being a cut down version of MX – Antix is a base constituent of MX. Okay – If you want to be pedantic - he should know..! But if you strip away the desktop from MX are you left with Antix? I soon discovered that the LXDE saga also pervades the MX forum and as with Loc-OS there is a LXDE spin of MX on SourceForge.

It is now available from https://sourceforge.net/projects/mx-res ... -20230205/ updated yesterday 11th February 2023. (Search MX forum for LXDE)

As to be expected some MX die hards point out that there is LXDE desktop ready to be installed from MX’s own installer app which they say works beautifully. This LXDE is also on Antix’s same programme installer but Anticapitalista insists on another method which I followed. Perhaps someone can explain this inconsistent approach?

This got me thinking – what is the purpose of MX…? My own setup of Antix-22 Full LXDE does everything a top Distro+DE should in a very fast efficient manner on my old HP and Dell i7 Laptops so why bother with MX? Watching the official videos on the MX website gave no further insight. Unless any LQ member can tell me different MX would appear to exist solely to facilitate a desktop version of Antix – offering up the usual two inefficient desktops; XFCE and KDE see screenshot below showing busy CPU and 492MiB RAM at idle. (Rows listed in descending memory.)

The undoubted popularity of MX hitting and remaining at the top of DistroWatch’s charts indicates that there must be something else to MX that continues to evade me? Can’t be MX Tools as Antix has same – the Swiss Army Knife of Linux as some describe it. Can’t be Apps as both distros have access to same. Can’t be efficiency with resources as Antix is a clear winner. So what is the elusive game-changer?


Antix has made it abundantly clear that there will be no official support for the LXDE desktop or any other. This reluctance or intolerance becomes clear IMHO, as it would break the pact with the former MEPIS fraternity and make MX redundant or irrelevant. Loc-OS has clearly demonstrated this; generating massive interest with Spanish speaking peoples and beyond with his super efficient Antix-LXDE based distro requiring only 71MiB RAM at idle. My own Antix22 Full LXDE spin or setup also confirms superb performance compared to my trials of MX live. Can’t see that a full installation of MX with either Xfce or KDE will improve anything. Hope some of our LQ forum members can elucidate?

As Anticapitalista has said “MX RAM usage is more than double antiX's at over 400MB RAM!”

Anyone like the taste of vanilla..? (Vanilla Software)
https://www.linuxquestions.org/quest...01#post6410801

https://i.imgur.com/txMaxQU.jpg Antix22-LXDE on same HP Laptop as MX live.

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I run MX fluxbox on a Dell 755 server and Dell XT2 Touchscreen laptop.

Run AntiX full on a Dell Candy chromebook and a Dell 4310 laptops. 2 motorcycle shop computers. IBM 57 and Acer T180 wireless dekstop computers.

Having this gear. I can tell there are lots of cooks involved in how MX is built vs how antiX is built.

Personally. I don't think a one man show desktop iso can compare to what is team built.
Having ran Slackel (one man show) which is Salix (team based) based. One needs to build on top of what is offered to meet druthers.

Mx needs little configuring. antiX needs a bit of massaging . The learning curve for XFCE MX is pretty simple because of a team which makes a lot of folks happy.

Being not abrasive on their forums. Shop computer I am on.



Nothings perfect.

Not sure what the purpose of your post is – as it does not address the question posed.
Don't think that waffle about MX being built by a team makes it better, holds water?

Suppose most LQ members will be familiar with the derogatory phrases of “designed by committee” and “too many cooks spoil the broth”…? I concur with both these well known adages.

Most LQ members will understand that the efforts of individuals on their own or as part of a larger team is no guarantee of success – just look at that US Aeroplane that nose dives into the ground – Er, twice – killing all onboard. A huge team effort ending in disaster and loss of life!
You know of the Harley Davidson Team who made that dreadful Shovelhead engine beset with a Wiki page of faults shoved into a chassis that weaved across the road like a puppy on a lead… OMG If these are examples of team players – IMHO you are welcome to keep it to yourself.

Getting back to one man computer software besides Anticapitalista take a look at... Daniel Micay, originally worked on CopperheadOS, Micay continued working on the Android Hardening project which was renamed as GrapheneOS and announced in April 2019.
According to Damien Wilde of 9to5Google, GrapheneOS released Android 12L for Pixels before Google did..?
In July 2022, Charlie Osborne of ZDNet suggested that individuals who suspect a Pegasus infection use a secondary device with GrapheneOS for secure communication. GrapheneOS is also endorsed by NSA whistleblower Ed Snowden.

We should turn the clock back to 1936 when that brilliant individual Alan Turing invented a hypothetical computing device that came to be known as the ‘universal Turing machine’. The legacy of Alan Turing’s life and work did not fully come to light until long after his death. His impact on computer science has been widely acknowledged: the annual ‘Turing Award’ has been the highest accolade in that industry since 1966.
We could then fast forward to Sir Clive Sinclair; the inventor who brought pocket calculators and the earliest accessible cheap computer: ZX80, was also available in kit form. Then there was Alan Sugar who in 1968, aged 21, set up Amstrad with £100 of Post Office savings. In 1980, Amstrad was listed on the London Stock Exchange and during the 1980s Amstrad doubled its profit and market value every year. By 1984, recognising the opportunity of the home computer era, Amstrad launched an 8-bit machine, the Amstrad CPC 464; selling over 2 million in Europe.

I could easily compile a long list of brilliant individuals just from Great Britain, say starting - Without Isaac Newton this small manor would be just another Lincolnshire farmhouse - but in 1665 the plague sent him back from university to this place where he was born. For 18 months Newton worked in solitude, experimenting obsessively, laying foundations for the science of today. Splitting light, theories on gravity, physical forces etc...

I surmise that teams of people never have a collective thought or idea whereas brilliant individuals can change the world with a single idea or create good software operating systems.

Perhaps with your knowledge and experience you could tell our members what MX has besides two DEs that Antix does not..? Or why the MX team continue to make MX less efficient with every release whereas my own Antix-22 Full: 5.10.142-antix.2-amd64-smp arch: x86_64, with substantial extra software now comes in at 150MiB RAM used at idle and 32bit Loc-OS uses just 71MiB as tested in independent reviews.

MX Linux 19.2 KDE VS XFCE - RAM Usage - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sexm8jw0x8A

MX Linux 21 KDE vs MX Linux 21 XFCE RAM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFog3BLp_0s

Not sure why you chose to include a screenshot of Antix21/22 rather than a MX screenshot? However it saves me the bother of making a screenshot of the update download showing identical packages being used from the MX-packages/Antix source; answering the title of my Topic: MX – is it just Antix + Desktop?

Having wiped the window manager icewm that you favour, along with all the other window managers, file managers, Rox filer etc from my system; Synaptic then purged them all from my system leaving just LXDE and Openbox. Updates are now quicker as only openbox menu has to be written – wonderful

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MX Linux is the equivalent of a Linux MS Windows, its primary purpose is attracting newcomers to Linux, but having enough depth to keep regular users more than happy.

AntiX is a totally different concept, it's main purpose is to keep older machines running, but has enough about it to be used by people who appreciate it's structure & philosophy - (not political attitude, which puts some shallow people off it).

The major difference is that AntiX uses Window Managers, & MX uses a Desktop Environment; this will account for the difference in ram usage, to a degree.

There are many distros available with differences, your job is to choose the right one for your own purposes.

(I believe the reason why AntiX doesn't offer LXDE as a ready solution is the simple fact that it is a Desktop Environment - the distro uses & supplies Window Managers.)

1 members found this post helpful.

Thanks for excellent input – it is hard to take issue with anything you have written.

It would seem that you agree that MX has DEs and Antix is WM driven but is that all that can be said? What about installed packages, software and utilities. I cannot separate them at that level – can anyone?

I would disagree with you on this as Antix could not be more clear -

Quote from mission statement: antiX offers users the “antiX Magic” in an environment suitable for old and new computers.
Also: A further feature of antiX is that you can install kernels from a variety of sources including Debian, MX Linux, siduction and liquorix. This is especially useful if you have a new box as newer hardware is more likely to be detected and work with newer kernels.

So from the outset antiX is clearly aimed at new hardware as well as the old.

There is no need or requirement to “appreciate it's structure & philosophy.”
Just get in there and enjoy this most efficient of Distros

AntiX then states under System Requirements: antiX should run on most computers, ranging from 192MB old systems with pre-configured 128MB swap to the latest powerful boxes.

I hope that has cleared this misapprehension?

If my computer has 2G RAM or more I will go MX anytime, just for the 'convenience' it has over Antix (or any distros I have used up to now like Ubuntu, Mint).
For anyone who is more or less intimidated by command line (me), use or add software in MX is a piece of cake.
Try (newbies only please) to make UFW work in antix, or install Nvidia drivers, fcitx ...

I was using AntiX Base, after the demise of #!, (crunchbang linux), from version 13, up until 19, but found increasing numbers of items finding their way into the menus - I like clean simple menus - so went over to Devuan, which is a bit 'heavy' for my needs, but serves them well enough to stay with it.

(My other O/S is NetBSD, where I use a simple Window Manager, CTWM, with just the programs that I need to run.)

1. UFW - Read the FAQ (on the desktop) or in a terminal sudo ufw enable
2. Nvidia drivers - Use the exact same app that MX uses
3. fcitx - yes a bit more complicated, but 90% is the same as MX ie install it via Package Installer

Not quite sure what you mean...

https://imgur.com/a/2g7A565 Devuan and Antix22-LXDE menu structure example

As you can see the menu structure of Devuan and Antix are very similar as makes no difference. Think that Antix22 Full - Swiss Army Knife of utilities adds to the length of some menu categories – longest shown - but does not detract from the distro’s efficiency at 150MiB.

Just installed Debian+LXDE but not as efficient as Antix-22 Full and that's before adding Gimp etc
311MiB vs 150MiB

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You just proved my point!!!