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MX Linux

MX-21 beta 1 now available for testing purposes

by

July 28, 2021

MX-21 beta 1 iso images for testing
–direct download:

32 bit Xfce with debian standard 5.10 kernel sha256_checksum md5_checksum signature

64 bit Xfce with debian standard 5.10 kernel sha256_checksum md5_checksum signature

MX-21 beta 1 is now available for testing. MX-21 is built from debian-bullseye and MX repositories.

Things that are new in the beta 1:

New and updated applications
New installer partition selection area, including some lvm support if lvm volume exists already
New UEFI live system boot menus. Now you can select your live boot options (persistence, etc…) from the boot menu and submenus rather than using the previous console menus.
Xfce 4.16
User password (sudo) for admin tasks by default. You can switch this in mx-tweak->Other tab.
Many small configuration changes, particularly on the panel with new default panel plugins.

With this beta 1 release, we are particularly interested in testing the new UEFI live system boot menus as well as testing the installer. Virtualbox testing is welcome, but we are looking for edge cases on real hardware for the most part.

Known issues:

  • the wallpaper is a little busy and the current conky gets washed out a little. looks better on some screens than on others. That will get worked out after default wallpaper is chosen.
  • 32bit iso only : there is an error message when you boot the iso in virtualbox. also the virtualbox guest additions are not pre-installed on the 32 bit iso.
  • MX Package Installer: test repo and backports tabs will not display anything, for obvious reasons, the repos don’t exist or are empty at this time. Feel free to test popular application installations though.

KDE/plasma, AHS/xfce, and fluxbox based releases are also planned.

Feedback for testing should be via forum post here: MX-21 beta 1 feedback thread

Be sure to include proper system data, including the output of quick-system-info.
If posting nvidia-installer (ddm-mx) issues, please post the contents of /var/log/ddm.log.
If posting remaster issues, please include the contents of /var/log/live/live-remaster.log
If posting installer issues, please include the contents of /var/log/minstall.log
If posting issues with MX-PackageInstaller “Popular Apps”, please post contents of /var/log/mxpi.log or /var/log/mxpi.log.old (whichever contains the log of your issue).

Thank you!

Dolphin Oracle (on behalf of the MX Dev Team)

66 thoughts on “MX-21 beta 1 now available for testing purposes”

  2. Do you think MX Linux 21 will be released well before thanksgiving day 2021?
    Will KDE version of MX Linux also be updated this year with the Plasma v.5.22 version ?

    Reply

    • It is not possible to give firm dates. Debian 11 doesn’t go Final until August 12th, then there will be lots of testing needed.
      The KDE version is likely to be whatever Debian goes with.

      Reply

  3. i am a network engineer from india, i have facing issue for installing GNS3 in mx 19, kindly resolve this issue in mx 21 and hindi language not working fine in web browser like debian stable or Ubuntu.
    gns3 link:- https://www.gns3.com/

    thank you

    Reply

  4. Very impressive D.O. and Dev Team!

    Thought i was going to be in for some ho-hum time… ha!
    Kept me going for almost an hour!!
    Love the wild flower theme!
    Can even move conky from external monitor to laptop one via alt+select !
    Have long dropped Firefox as default, but that might be about to change…
    Even KDE might take the side for a while!
    So far so good on a dual boot situation, Win 10 UEFI.

    Reply

    • updates will happen automatically, and I’m tracking manual changes, but the final decision on “officially” updating from beta has not been discussed. our past has been upgrading from RC.

      Reply

  7. Booting from live USB (EUFI) seems fine, but the first thing I noticed after changing Conky to my favourite Gotham theme is that it uses a lot more RAM – like almost double of my installed MX Linux 19.4. It doesn’t matter on this box because it’s a Ryzen 5 3600 with 16 GB RAM, but that’s a pretty big hike for people on older hardware with limited RAM. And the default Root password which is usually ‘root’ doesn’t work, and yes I changed or tried to change the option in MX tweak/other, but it asks for the root password after pressing apply, where again ‘root’ doesn’t work thus completing the circle of misery.

    Reply

    • the gui authentication prompts are asking for the user password by default, which was mentioned in the blog post. the default user password is “demo”. this is also shown in the welcome screen.

      using the user (sudo) password for admin prompts by default is new to mx-21.

      Reply

      • OK, thanks. I’m allowed one blonde moment after 20 years of using Linux ;o

        I’m back in 19.4 (AHS) now and even with Firefox running, it’s barely using more than 1 GB of RAM (1.03) Yet 21 went up to 1.2 GB of RAM at one stage with no browser running. It doesn’t affect my main machine, but I resurrect old hardware quite frequently and prefer MX to Antix which is a bit too overloaded on menu items and a touch confusing for Linux newcomers.

        Reply

    • eventually there might be a “at your own risk” upgrade path from mx19, but not for beta. besides one of the main testing things we are interested in is UEFI live booting and the live-usb menu usage and the installer changes, neither of which would be testable on an upgraded system.

      Reply

  9. Will there be any possibility of OpenZFS support for the root partition (i.e. from the installer)? That would be a huge help!

    Reply

  11. Ok… I’ll be testing this next week…
    at least 5 desktops in a high school (now 14 desktops with MX 19.4 on it) . they can help us testing it.

    Reply

  14. Is MX 21 compatible with Secure Boot? I mean, I want to dual boot with Windows 11. The live CD could be incompatible, but then I wish to turn on Secure Boot in the first boot to real usage. Is it possible?

    Reply

    • try to boot a live or your old mx 19 version to see what typing in a terminal
      sudo os-prober
      does.
      If it does return a win 10 among the entries, then report a bug against the newer grub in mx, also you might try grub-mkconfig, which would print a configuration that includes win10. You can use that configuration in place of your own /boot/grub/grub.cfg

      It is a delicate operation but not a difficult one.

      Reply

  17. MX is my principal linux distro since MX 17. I love almost everything. I think that would be a good idea remove the water mark from wall papers…. by the way, beautiful wallpaper is this.

    Reply

  20. Hi,
    MX Linux is my favorite distro easy to use like a Linux newbie. BUT!
    PLEASE make the Realtek RTL8821ce WIFI Driver out of the box. I’m using two HP Laptops with this WIFI card and I have to install the drivers always from Github after a new installation, this is a bit boring.
    Nevertheless MX is still my daily workhorse.
    You made a good job.
    ps. In Kubuntu the Driver works out of the box.

    Reply

  23. Installed on HP6610F-Athlon2 desktop without any surprises. Updating regularly. Worked “right out of the box.”

    Reply

  24. I am using Mx Linux 19.4 on my laptops and it all works well. I use this for all my work also was able to install wine with some difficulties but it all works well as I am able to run Photoshop on my Linux environment. I love MX 19.4 I hope it is just as good with the new release. I have no intentions on installing version 21 as the my current version does an excellent job. Maybe in the near future when I obtain a new laptop I would install the new version, but for now I will retain my existing version as I have done considerable tweaking of the operating system to run the applications that I wanted to run without any issues.

    Reply

  25. I’m a web developer, most of time I work with php but I can’t able to install mysql-server, phpmyadmin!! there show an error!
    on my old computer mx work great but problem happen when I use browser…. sometime the browser get freeze for 2-5 seconds….& it happens continuously….. I’ve tried firefox, chrome, many more… but nothing solve!
    also the fonts is not show clear on as show on windows!
    I love mx linux than others….. only these 3issues force me to leave mx distro….
    I hope, these issues will be fix on up coming update

    Reply

  26. just installed mx-21 on my old test laptop. DELL inspiron 1545.
    installation went well. all works great. found and installed my epson wf-2510 all in one printer, works well

    Reply

  28. MX è stata una bellissima scoperta, complimenti! Ora sono su 19.4, quando si aggiornerà alla 21? e come sarà possibile farlo senza reinstallare tutto?
    Grazie e ancora complimenti

    Reply

    • Hai bisogno di una nuova installazione per MX 21 (dato che sono basati su versioni diverse di Debian (10 e 11).

      (Ma come già sapete: Puoi tenere la tua cartella /home e rimetterla dopo l’installazione. Inoltre se vuoi puoi installare e usare aptik (sia sulla 19 che sulla 21; prima e dopo l’installazione) per fare una lista dei pacchetti installati e per installarli automaticamente… )

      Reply

    • My understanding is it’s named after the year of release. MX Linux 19 was release in 2019. Since this is released this year (2021), it’s called MX Linux 21

      Reply

    • You need a fresh installation for MX 21 (since they’re based on different Debian versions ( 10 and 11 ) )

      (But as you might already know: You can keep your /home folder and put it back after installation. Also if you like you can install and use aptik (both on 19 and 21; before & after installation) to make a list of installed packages and to install them automatically.. )

      P.S. Yes, the numbering is just about the release year: 21 for 2021 …

      Reply

  30. hola señores desarrolladores MX, he provado la beta_21 en mi vieja laptop (vieja en el sentido de que la adquiri en el 2012, pero tiene boot uefi) y el arranque da error panic al finalizar la carga de datos y no me proporciona ningún dato del origen del error.
    Bueno la logre iniciar con el cd de supergrubdisc y la senti muy pesada en levantar aplicaciones (como la maquina tiene E1 1.45Ghz a 2GB RAM soldado), se tarda mucho a levantar thunar, aunque si levanto rapido el escritorio(4 segundos medidos), uno una ssd de 250GB solo para el sistema y 6TB HD externo usb.
    Yo recomendaría revisar la flutuación de carga entre aplicaciones, para que se pueda adaptar al hardware a usar y con eso se ahorran mucho trabajo en optimizaciones.

    Reply

  37. Testing 21-beta1 (from USB-stick, XFCE) on an Acer Laptop TMB118-M (Pentium silver/4GB/SSD/UEFI-boot). Works like a charm. Boot-menu is excellent, works fine.
    Installed xosview for checking memory-load vs. 19.4 as mentioned earlier.
    Here is used memory (incl. cache etc) ca. 2.4GB vs 2.3GB in MX-19.4 (exactly same conditions, both booted fresh from live-stick and synaptic still in background.
    Inxi says 863MB used vs. 661 in 19.4.

    One glitch I found: no resume after suspend (hibernate too). Suspend seems to work (LED blinking like usual), but wakeup goes wrong (black screen, no Alt-console for text-login).
    On very old kernels (don’t remember exactly), this worked OK on this machine. But at least all 5.x kernels do not. And MX-19.4, too.

    Reply

  38. replace my 2 laptop from BSD based to MX21 Beta1 and its super responsive. Thank you so much.

    1 – for kids online schooling
    1 – for my home workstation

    Reply

  40. He intentado su instalación en una Pc y al 14% del proceso aparece un error en la copia del sistema al disco/partición de destino.
    Verifiqué el estado del Hard Disk con Gpartea (pand y está todo bien
    ¿Cuál podría ser el inconveniente?cias
    NOTA: al intentar arrancar en modo Live con Mx-19.4 x64 en modo Failsafe no es posible ver nada, se presenta una pantalla negra
    Muchas gracias

    Reply

  41. why not a change to a bluebird or tango theme?
    luckybackup has a problem on upgrading (it deletes itself)?
    upgrading from mx 18/19 to 21 or migrating from/to devuan?

    Reply

  42. Recent MX convert dying here waiting for the stable release. Will there be a beta 2 release or more? I’m like a child on Xmas eve! I can’t wait! 🙂 If I go ahead with a beta 1 install will the updates eventually get me to MX 21 stable once it is released?

    Reply

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