Fedora is the top of the chain outside of actual individual projects for each piece of software, and kernel.org.
Manjaro was supposed to be more stable since it delayed the updates from Arch in theory. In practice this often results in breakages of varying degrees that they try to fix before it hits their “stable branch” but often fail. Additionally Manjaro in the past it has been a bad actor towards it’s community and since the same people are still involved I steer clear of it as I have since about 2019 ish, but the development had started to change maybe a year or two before this. This is part pushed my daily driver adoption of Fedora and eventually my entire production stack. If you can’t trust a distro to take care of it’s own business why would you trust it to take care of yours.
EndeavourOS is where a lot of the testers who left Manjaro landed. It directly updates from Arch repos with some added tools for making it easier for newcomers to learn to use. Additionally it adds some theming. If you remove the EndeavourOS repo you essentially have an Archlinux install that was done via a GUI. I have tested every release since it started, and many while it was still Antergos. The developers at EndeavourOS have never given me any reason to distrust them, and the community is one of the most active and helpful out there.
They both use the linux kernel. Arch is more in line with the rest of the linux ecosystem and has the best documentation avialable. It tends to put things where everyone else puts them instead of doing uniquely bad/stupid things (sorry about that spent some time dealing with basic container images for Debian only to discover they don’t ship with Certificate Authorities because APT uses http instead of https by default). Honestly not much outside of being comfortable u sing linux. You will spend a lot less time looking for answers than you would with Debian, because once again the documentation is accurate and concise.
Years ago, I was a Mepis user. So, using MX intrigued me. I downloaded an iso (get the Advanced Hardware Support version) and have it running on a persistent USB drive. It’s working great. Good battery life. On the initial bootup, everything was tiny, hurting my old eyes. I would recommend this article: High Resolution Displays – MX Linux to fix font and icon size. Personally, I used Rufus to create an iso, but then I created a new USB once I was in MX using the MX Live USB maker. Upon booting, you need to do some advanced settings. If you are installing on an SSD, then it should be easier. I haven’t messed with the fingerprint reader because it’s linked to Windows. I also haven’t checked out the mic or camera yet. Everything else works fine. Btw, I have the Framework 13 Ryzen 5.
Great! Thanks very much Michael for the input. I should have my framework up and running in the next few days, so I am very thankful for the tips on what to do first. I shall report back on my progress soon. Thanks
I’ve been using MX since yesterday and am really enjoying it. It feels like home. I’ve been using Fedora on a computer at work for the past year, and it’s just fine. Certain things are easier with Fedora, but it seems easier to figure out with MX and get the packages I use. I’ve been using Xfce. At some point, I want to try KDE. If I remember correctly, with Mepis we could have several desktop environments, and I would switch between them at first before I settled on KDE. This weekend, I’ll try to get Redshift set up.
I too have been using xfce, but thought I might give KDE a shot as well. Fingers crossed it all goes smoothly! I’m planning on trying a few different distros in a VM, but which VM to use is the topic for another post I hope you get redshift set up nice and easily.
I’ve been using MX on my production machines since '17, and solely on my FW laptops since '21, and it’s been smooth sailing and a wonderful experience over the last couple years. As you were thinking, you’re definitely going to be better off running AHS XFCE, or the KDE version (which is always AHS). It’s not to be considered a “bleeding-edge” OS by any means, but definitely ahead of what regular MX/Debian are running. You’ll be getting access to much more up-to-date firmwares and drivers along with access to the latest Debian kernels. I think it’s going to be difficult for you to be disappointed.
I upgraded my '21 11th gen 13-inch to the new Ryzen motherboard and have been running MX23 KDE on it and have been extremely happy with it, and just installed kernel 6.6 from the AHS repos last night. I’m a self-employed InfoSec engineer, and MX has never let me down when it comes to stability and “ability” on my production machines, and with the Debian base, I have easy access to all the software I need for accessing and working on client’s networks. I have no reason to move to any other distro (except for gaming, which I use Arch-base distros for, but that’s not on my production machines).
Thanks very much for sharing your experience. I think you have just persuaded to try KDE right off the bat! I have regular Mx xfce running on my old laptop, so will be good to be able to compare them side by side, before making a final choice.
I haven’t tried many other distros, but of all I have tried I like Mx the most. Even if I do some VM distro hoping, I can see myself always running Mx somewhere!
I’m an old fuddy-duddy who’s still perfectly fine with Manjaro KDE, which has served me well for many years…but of course that’s far from “cool” anymore. Garuda and EndeavourOS are neat to play with, but as of now, I don’t have a justification to move.
My philosophy having tried many distros over the years:
stick with what is popular. Niche distros have smaller userbase and developer base. If the distro maintainers broke something, good luck getting support.
don’t fall into the configuration trap (e.g. no arch and absolutely no gentoo) - you probably bought this laptop for doing productive things, not tinkering (party pooper, I know).
unless you are going to run Clear Linux (don’t), the choice of distribution doesn’t really matter in terms of performance.
caveat to the above: there is some minimal hardware compatibility differences but you should choose the distribution primarily based on philosophy. Ubuntu tends to have “the latest and greatest” (debian if you like apt but want something a bit more stable), while Fedora and OpenSUSE tends to be a bit more conservative (read: stable) in the software that is available. Worth noting that Fedora is upstream of RHEL which is a legitimate business product. Draw what conclusions you will.
if you are lazy get a rolling release of your preferred distro to avoid having to reinstall (ever).
desktop environment is all that matters. KDE is beautiful.
It also depends on your goals and needs. I need hardware pentest capabilities which arent really available except debian or arch based systems so have a look what software is available. Best to boot it up inside a VM and install your daily used programs and see if its work for you.
For everything else, @SoldierSvejk summed it pretty good
I must say that when I was distro hopping many years ago, I ended with Mepis because it just worked. I’m happy to say that the same is true for MX Linux. It’s working great on my AMD Framework. Finding the packages I need to get work done is very simple. It’s been much easier for me to set up and use than Fedora. It also has some great tools here is great documentation that is (mostly) up to date. I would get confused with documentation on Fedora because it didn’t translate between versions. Finally, some great tools have also been built into the system. I think that MX is a solid choice for someone looking to get work done.
I hope you get redshift set up nice and easily.