MX Linux Now Has a KDE Plasma Edition, First Beta Is Available for Testing

MX Linux KDE

The Debian-based, systemd-free MX Linux distribution now has an official edition with the modern and powerful KDE Plasma Desktop environment.

MX Linux is known as a very lightweight, stable and fast GNU/Linux distribution. It’s always based on the latest stable Debian GNU/Linux operating system release and uses the lightweight Xfce as default desktop environment.

The latest release, MX Linux 19.2 “Patito Feo,” arrived earlier this week based on Debian GNU/Linux 10.4 “Buster,” the Xfce 4.14 desktop environment, Linux 5.6 kernel, and Mesa 20 graphics stack.

Probably not many know that MX Linux is derived from MEPIS Linux, which used KDE as default desktop environment. To my surprise, the MX Linux devs announced today that they’re working on a KDE edition, probably at the request of numerous users.

“This will be first officially supported MX/antiX family iso utilizing the KDE/plasma desktop since the halting of the predecessor MEPIS project in 2013,” said the developers. “Adding KDE/plasma to the existing Xfce/MX-fluxbox desktops will provide for a wider range user needs and wants.”

And the first beta release is already here. Based on the Advanced Hardware Support (AHS) ISO of the MX Linux 19.2 release, the KDE edition ships with the KDE Plasma 5.14.5 desktop environment from Debian Buster’s repositories.

Of course, it includes the usual MX tools that are present in the flagship Xfce edition, along with non-KDE applications like the Mozilla Firefox 78 web browser, Mozilla Thunderbird 68.9 email client, GIMP 2.10.12 image editor, and LibreOffice 6.1.5 office suite.

If you want to take it for a test drive, you can download the ISO image right now from here. However, please check the announcement page above for the known issues with the beta release and keep in mind not to use it on a production machine. Report bugs or give feedback to developers here.

Last updated 4 years ago

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