It's the final Tuxdown. Behold, the ultimate article of this year, reviewing the best Linux distribution of 2019, with focus on aesthetics, ease of use, stability, and long-term support. Enjoy, and happy new year! https://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/best-distro-2019.html Cheers, Mrk
I've been on KDE since 2003, it's my favorite DE and I run (Arch KDE) on my main desktop. I run MX 18 on my two laptops, my wife runs MX 19 on her laptop. MX does a nice job keeping applications up to date so you're not comatose from Debian repo's. so I'm going too agree with your pick. MX 18 is fully supported til 2023. The MX people are working hard and fast on bringing MX 19 up to par, they are getting real close so we will see what the future holds ? I wish the Arch-Arch based people would take a serious look at the MX tools, Snapshot, Make Live USB, Remaster CC would be killer.
Meh, I'm sticking to Debian. Might not look the prettiest, but they ship it with Apparmor enabled by default now which is great. Linux Mint IMO gets plus brownie points because of their automatic updates. That makes it great for parents etc; people that never upgrade their computers ever unless it's done automagically.
Just wondered why you included Zorin 12.4 Core and marked it down for performance when version 15 was released 7 months ago... "Speed has been a top focus in Zorin OS 15, so the desktop runs dramatically smoother on a wide range of hardware, old and new. With the introduction of Gnome Shell 3.30 and the Linux kernel 4.18, performance optimizations have been made at every level of the operating system." ... and since then we've also had 15.1 with additional improvements?
I'm not sure I understand how Debian users could ever be classified as "comatose" because of the repositories. Maybe you could explain what I'm missing? Also, if we're to consider speed, reliability, KDE desktop and a set of tools then the Gentoo based Calculate Linux trumps Arch and MX plus it gives the opportunity to customize every aspect of the system at install.
Like a lot of Linux users I'm always tempted to try the 'next best thing' but like the recent Condres OS most don't last too long. Every month though I update my Debian KDE backup using Clonezilla and since V9 it's the only backup I've never needed unless I'm setting up another system from scratch. The default security takes away one immediate headache and my world hasn't ended because the calculator version is not as recent as Manjaro's.
So it might be helpful to note this in your assessment since the very reason for the negative review was fixed 7 months ago.
For me it's a tossup between MX-19 and Debian 10 Mate. Debian is a bit better in stability, while MX has more features out of the box.
I appreciate the time and effort needed to publish Linux reviews but also believe a footnote containing updated information would be helpful especially to new users looking for a relevant product. The much respected TechRadar to quote another example published a ‘best of’ for 2020 and included Antergos although this project had ceased 4 months before publication. They’ve since hacked the original article but not removed all the references. https://www.techradar.com/best/best-linux-distros https://i.imgur.com/Py2raH7.png
I mentioned that like 3-4 times in the the plasma/gnome/xfce best-of articles. And I mentioned that in every single summary of this kind for the past 10 years. Mrk
"Also, if we're to consider speed, reliability, KDE desktop and a set of tools then the Gentoo based Calculate Linux trumps Arch and MX plus it gives the opportunity to customize every aspect of the system at install." Thanks for your opinion. MX is XFCE, you would need a community version for KDE and, since you mention speed, MX can totally run in ram. How much faster is Calculate Linux vs toram ? now as for "comatose" , frozen, my figure of speech.... So what "comatose, frozen, my figure of speech" version of KDE is your Debian using ? your calculator ? BTW I just downloaded Calculate Linux, I'll give it a try on my brand new Christmas present.
Always like your reviews. I've used MX-18, have MX-19 along with AntiX 19 loaded up in a VirtualBox VM right now to play with. Not for distro shopping though. I'm a solid Slackware Linux user. For me nothing else makes the cut.
‘Best of’ will always be a subjective term. The Trabant for instance could easily be described as a ‘best of’ car since you could buy one for a bag of beans. You just needed to be a mechanic by trade to keep it running and enjoy wearing woolly hats. The community developed MX-16 KDE Added version was IMO one of the best KDE4 distros available in its time but sadly is no longer to be. Regarding speed my baseline was operational speed as in performing daily tasks and as MX is Xfce you can’t make an objective comparison. I just felt the use of ‘comatose’ implied some sort of user inferiority but obviously that was not your intention. It depends on your general attitude as to which system suits best. Some folks like to be ‘bleeding edge’ 24/7 while others like to enjoy a quieter life. Distros such as KDE neon and Chakra aim to come somewhere between the two. Be interested to know what you think to Calculate. There’s some good stuff originating out of Russia, ROSA probably being the best known and Astra the least.
Solid list and happy to see MX topping it again. Mx18 is still my production OS, while I run Mx19 in a VM. I was thinking to upgrade to MX19 but after reading Mkr's review I decided to stick with MX18. Unless someone does not like XFCE, MX18 is nearly perfect.
Thanks, things sound better and I agree with "Some folks like to be ‘bleeding edge’ 24/7 while others like to enjoy a quieter life" If applications work and do the job needed then it really doesn't matter how old the application is. I installed Calculate last night, not much time using it but I will say it has a real nice installer. I will start a new thread about Calculate after more use. Cheers & happy New Year to all
Hi Mrkvonic, Thank you for all your reviews also for all the other fine articles/advice on your website. I have to admit I chose Kubuntu because it's what you use and if you have problems with it and share your solution maybe it will also help me. I'm horrible at diagnosing problems through event logs and don't understand code at all. But I can follow instructions. I have 2 machines, Windows 7 and Kubuntu but only one set of peripheral hardware and got tired of switching it between the machines so just decided to go with a dual boot. Happy New Year
The hardware support is a little behind the times, though. I have an external audio adapter that ramps up the volume for me on those quiet tracks, it connects by USB, and MX18 doesn't recognize it. But MX19 does. And it's not anything too new-fangled -- it comes with Windows XP support and earlier, and says it supports linux. https://www.amazon.com/BENGOO-Exter...072BMG9TB/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8
Best Linux distros 2019: The finest open source operating systems around Whether it's for desktop, server or security, there's bound to be a Linux distro for you December 24, 2019 https://www.itpro.co.uk/operating-s...e-finest-open-source-operating-systems-around
So did I in a Virtualbox VM. One of my first steps was updating the system: synchronizing the repos was very slow and the complete update process (with 10 packages to update) felt like an eternity. While the update process for Arch Linux just needs a fraction of that time. I will do some further testing but so far I'm not impressed. I will certainly stick with Arch. Setting it up is a bit complicated (although 3rd-party installers like Anarchy Linux or Archfi make it much easier) but maintaining it is a breeze. As a rolling release distro it's theoretically less stable than non-rolling distros - but in my experience it doesn't cause more problems than other distros.
On my properly installed system the repos sync in seconds and the update completes as expected. To be honest it’s something I don’t sit and time because I don’t see a purpose although I’d obviously notice if it was like a crawl. There are many potential issues that can affect updates in addition to location this being one of the biggest complaints regarding Majaro for example. Suffice to say the initial update of any system is likely to be slow depending on how the installation ISOs are maintained. If you want real slow try ROSA or Sabayon.
