MX Linux 21.3 “Wildflower” has been released over the weekend bringing bug fixes, kernel, and application updates. Notably, MX Linux is now based on the latest Debian 11.6 base and comes with Xfce 4.18 which was released in December. As a point release, MX-21 users needn’t bother reinstalling MX Linux to get this update, instead, you can just apply all the available updates.
For those just hearing about MX Linux, it’s rated first on Distrowatch’s page hit rankings, meaning it’s one of the most looked-into distros by Linux users. It offers Xfce, KDE, and Fluxbox editions and aims to offer a good feature set while not bogging the computer’s resources down. Its Debian base also makes it a very stable choice.
The main highlights in this update include the following:
- Debian 11.6 “Bullseye” base.
- New and updated applications.
- The Xfce releases now feature Xfce 4.18.
- Fluxbox gets a new mx-rofi-manager tool to save and manage rofi configuration.
- The KDE release is now a full “AHS” (advanced hardware support) enabled release, defaulting to the 6.0 AHS kernel. The Debian stable kernel (5.10) is still available in mx-packageinstaller.
- Deb-installer: a new tool and the Xfce & Fluxbox ISOs for installing deb files directly. Replaces gdebi.
- All releases now ship with the menulibre menu editor. mx-menu-editor is now deprecated.
- All releases have updated firmware packages.
- Updated antiX live/remaster system.
- Most MX apps received translation updates (with more to come!)
According to the notes, the main Xfce and Fluxbox ISOs are using the new Linux 5.10 kernel while the AHS versions and KDE are using the Linux 6.0 kernel. If you’re interested in trying out MX Linux, you can get it from the project’s downloads page. If you’re looking for the core experience of MX Linux, then the MX-21.3_x64 Xfce edition is the one you’re probably looking for, though there are 32-bit versions if your system is old.
