*Not my desktop.
I've always been a fan of Linux and it's many flavors. The last few years though, I have been stuck using OS X and Windows (ew) due to work and other circumstances. I've always kept a dual-boot of Ubuntu to play around with though. Recently, I was given a Lenovo laptop for free and it is a couple years old. The specs on it aren't horrible, but I would assume it doesn't run the Windows 8 it came with all too well. So, I started my journey into the many Linux distro's looking for one I'd like to use full-time.
I started out giving the lighter-weight flavors of Ubuntu a try (Lubuntu/Xubuntu). Don't get me wrong, they are decent distro's but something just didn't feel right to me about them. The performance was a little less than I would expect given the desktop environments each of them used.
I then moved on to give KDE's plasma a try with Linux Mint. I have to say that the new KDE Plasma DE is beautiful and by far my favorite DE for Linux. If I was using a slightly more powerful computer, I would definitely run KDE, but probably on a different distro than Mint. Maybe Manjaro?
Anyways, to the point of the article. I was doing a bit of research and stumbled upon some great reviews of MX-17 by MX Linux. This is a community based distro made by the former devs of MEPIS and AntiX. MX-17 is a Debian based distro. In my experience with Debian based distro's, they're usually rock solid as they have a long shelf-life.
MX-17 also runs the XFCE desktop environment which is lighter than KDE, GNOME, Cinnamon. Since installing MX-17 I've noticed it runs alot smoother than the XFCE Ubuntu flavor and seems to be far quicker as well. My fans aren't kicking on super high when running multiple programs and it is not getting hot either.
Another nice feature of MX-17 is the MX Tools that it comes with. There is a lot you can do with this actually and I'm not going to explain everything. But, it is one of the few distro's that lets you import the live boot changes directly to your install should you choose to install it. It also allows you to install audio codecs, NVIDIA drivers, repair boot, manage users (with tons of extra features for user management), take bootable snapshots and much more.
MX also seems to be excellent on battery life. I haven't fully tested this out yet, but the little time I have spent off of my charger, I have used far less battery than I would have typically.
Overall, MX-17 has been perfect for me thus far. If you are looking for a Linux distro for an older computer or just want a distro that is rock solid and gets the job done, MX-17 is that distro. I originally wrote it off because of their poor website design and lack of name recognition, but man was I wrong. At least give the live boot demo a try and see what you think!
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