Non-Mint: MX Linux or Pop!_OS?

[sampoodle]

New-to-me spare desktop, (Lenovo M83, i7-4770, circa 2013) needs a Linux OS.
I already have Mint on a daily desktop and laptop, working well for my casual needs, so I am looking for something a bit different for the new box.

MX Linux or Pop!_OS?
Note: I like smooth updates.
And some day, in my remaining lifespan, find a solid distro with a novel look, not gonna happen here...but a girl can dream...!

[BwingBob]

New-to-me spare desktop, (Lenovo M83, i7-4770, circa 2013) needs a Linux OS.
I already have Mint on a daily desktop and laptop, working well for my casual needs, so I am looking for something a bit different for the new box.

MX Linux or Pop!_OS?
Note: I like smooth updates.
And some day, in my remaining lifespan, find a solid distro with a novel look, not gonna happen here...but a girl can dream...!

With that machine you should be able to run pretty much any distribution you want and with Virtualbox or Qemu you can spin up any distro you want to trial run.

I have not tried MX Linux in a while so I cannot comment on it. I am using POP_OS! on my desktop (Thelio Mira) and my laptop (Dell Inspiron 5510) and POP is working fine on both. On the Thelio I installed the Cinnamon desktop for my wife to use and she seems to be happy with it, working without issue.

Since you seem to be looking for a novel desktop you may want to consider Spiral Linux since Spiral has ISOs available in several different DEs. With spiral you basically end up with stock Debian with which ever DE you want. I am experimenting with Spiral inside a VM and it seems pretty nice. I have not done it yet, but from the web it seems to be pretty easy to upgrade to Debian testing which gets you pretty close to a rolling release.

Good luck, Have fun
Bob

[MiZoG]

If you care for the looks, Pop OS.
if you care for the substance - not that there is anything essentially wrong with Pop OS- I'd personally feel a "power-user" on MX. KDE is the best of their 3 variants imho.

[sampoodle]

Not sure, is MX Linux a rolling release, and does it behave, generally?

EDIT: it s not, apparently.

[MurphCID]

I have used both, and must say that POP!_OS is slightly more polished, but unless you want an old and ugly Cinnamon you get Gnome/Cosmic. MX you get xfce, KDE or Fluxbox. There are a lot of things I really like about MX but it tends to be Debian stable with all that implies such as an older kernel unless you get the AHS version. POP has a really great firmware update feature, especially for System 76 hardware. POP does not come with Synaptic installed, you have to add it. BUT it also does not come with snaps, instead flatpaks. MX Tools are very nice and handy. Plus it has a pre-configured Conky which is attractive. In the end it comes down to personal preference. Neither one is bad, and both are very stable. I have not tried Steam on MX, but on POP, I had issues.
YMMV.

[Hawaiihemd]

In my experience you can't go wrong with both.

Having a Mint machine already, I would probably choose PopOS for cool looks and the option to switch window tiling on and off when convenient.

[Hoser Rob]

POP_OS is Ubuntu based while MX is Debian Stable based. So MX would be good is you like "smooth updates". Debian Stable doesn't get nearly as many updates as Ubuntu or most others, which is why it is so stable (Red Hat is the only one more stable). A rolling release like Arch gives you tons of updates, which makes it relatively unstable ... the inherent stability of Linux is highly over rated.

Put it this way. With Debian Stable or Red Hat you'd pretty much have to do something yourself to break it. A rolling release like Arch will happily break itself regularly after an update.

I'd also recommend the KDE spin of MX, that's what I use as my main Linux. The Xfce version is good too

They also have a Fluxbox version. I tested that in a live USB boot and it took up as much RAM as Xfce or KDE, which IMHO is a bit ridiculous for just a window manager.

[sampoodle]

Well, I went with MX XFCE version, after brief try of Pop!
MX 23 looks way better than when I tried it, some years ago. Oddly neither Pop nor MX23 detected a linksys WUSB6300 USB wifi stick (I found the fix command here!).

Maybe KDE would have been better choice, who knows? I will try it on an older spare laptop I got from neighbor.

[Hoser Rob]

Well, Xfce looks better than it used to. And Thunar is a lot better. It's still not my fave but it really used to stink.

[Petermint]

Uses for a different Linux distribution:
* You have a Raspberry PI
* Your spare machine is so old it boots from 8" floppy disk.
* You have a Raspberry PI
* You have a machine so new, the CPU silicon is still warm from when they based it.
* You have a Raspberry PI

I had the so old case and the recommended Linux for fossils distribution had a poor support forum and almost no documentation. In fact the only real documentation was how to download.

I also hit the too new case a couple of times and the recommended distributions were difficult. Almost useless for diagnostics.

The experiments with different Linux distributions were fun. Like my friend test driving a Fiat 500. They had one with a sunroof open so he could fit in the car.

[JerryF]

...
MX Linux or Pop!_OS?
Note: I like smooth updates.
...

Unfortunately, I don't have experience with either but do know this:

MX Linux is based on Debian Stable
Pop!_OS is based on Ubuntu

Either one should give you "smooth updates".

[Pierre]

since I've got MX-Linux installed on some machines,
and since I've also played around with OpenSuse & Peppermint, amongst others.

my vote would be for an MX-Linux System.

[sampoodle]

I did install MX Linux, happy so far!

[Night Wing]

I've got 4 computers (2 desktop towers, 2 laptops). One desktop tower and one laptop run Linux Mint. The second desktop tower and the second laptop run MX Linux.

MX Linux is a very good linux distro. I've been running MX Linux for over one year now. I see no need to change from MX Linux either.

[old_noob]

MX is taking over my computing life; only have 1 machine still running Mint but the forums here are better. I have found Pop to have scaling problems with older hardware but my case might be unique. I'm also becoming slightly disenchanted with Ubuntu in general. I still love you, Ubuntu, but there is someone else...
Xfce has been my go-to for many years but MX KDE is very nice.
Spiral looks interesting. Did an install today but did not get further.

[Petermint]

Dear Ubuntu. I saw you with Snap. I can see you are serious. We are over.

[george7-cal]

I tried MX-23.1_x64 Fluxbox from a CD without installation but did not liked it. It is light and found everything in my desktop, but all menus and buttons are in odd places. Couldn't find volume control on desktop and was not able to open my movie files and I gave up. I'll stick with Mint, have it on 3 PCs.
Maybe is OK if this is your first ever Linux or is a only option available.

[all41]

since I've got MX-Linux installed on some machines,
and since I've also played around with OpenSuse & Peppermint, amongst others.

my vote would be for an MX-Linux System.

I agree. MX21 is definitely a contender. I use both the standard MX21 (Xfce) and
the new plasma version 23.1 Libretto. My only gripe is the branding of every utility
with MX prefix--like they own it or something.

edited to correct versions--shout out to Night Wing for noticing

[Night Wing]

I use both the standard MX21 (Xfce) and
the new plasma version 21.3 Libretto.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you transposed some numbers concerning what version Libretto is. It is now at (23.1).

[all41]

I use both the standard MX21 (Xfce) and
the new plasma version 21.3 Libretto.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you transposed some numbers concerning what version Libretto is. It is now at (23.1).

Exactly correct. Thank you for noticing. I will edit to correct. Do you use it too?