Debian 12-based MX Linux 23 'Libretto' achieves release candidate status
Friday is here, and if you were looking for something fun to do this weekend, I have some exciting news. You see, MX-23 RC1 is finally here and ready for us to test! It's like a breath of fresh air, blending the stability of Debian 12 "Bookworm" and MX repositories.
True to its roots, MX-23 sticks with sysVinit by default. But for those of us who like to have options, it still keeps systemd in the mix for installed systems. This RC1 release is more than just a polished version of the beta -- it brings a whole bunch of bug fixes, new wallpapers, themes, translations, and updated apps to the table.
The MX-23 RC1 developers are particularly interested to hear your thoughts on the installer. They've worked hard to fix a number of pesky bugs related to btrfs installations, and have introduced swapfile support in addition to swap partitions. They've jazzed up the GUI a bit, added some features to make legacy grub-pc updates smoother, and even cleaned up those "dump" entries that might have been clogging your nvram.
Don't you just hate it when you're trying to boot, but something goes wrong and you have no idea why? Well, they've added a "check media" function right at the top of the live boot menu to ensure things look good before booting up.
And here's the cool part -- MX-23 RC1 comes with a variety of desktop versions like Xfce 4.18, Fluxbox 1.3.7, and KDE/Plasma 5.27. They've also focused on accessibility, adding the Orca screen reader and a screen magnifier tool.
They've updated many MX apps, filled them up with bug fixes, and given them enhancements. They've put special attention on the MX Snapshot, aiming to make your snapshot boot options more customizable. Plus, they've switched MX-Updater back to using apt because nala was giving them some unforeseen troubles.
Oh, and did I mention that all releases are now using pipewire and wireplumber instead of pulseaudio? UFW firewall is also enabled by default, and there are tons of new configurations for the fluxbox release.
The KDE/Plasma received some tweaks to handle new configuration options available in plasma 5.27. And yes, root actions are still part of dolphin, including root dolphin instances via the root service menu actions.
Now, they're especially looking for feedback on testing the installer, including traditional ext4 and btrfs installations, encrypted installs, and any bugs in the MX-tools, particularly the mx-packageinstaller->popular apps entries. One heads-up: Timeshift won't recognize a btrfs partition for snapshots if it's on an encrypted partition.
Ready to try MX Linux 23 RC1 for yourself? Both 32-bit and 64-bit ISOs can be had here.
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