Core Software

A core set of 25 programs will cover 80% of the needs/requirements of the typical computer user, in either an office, or a home setting.

Core software:
* Text editor;
* Calculator;
* File Manager;

* Word Processor;
* Spreadsheet program;
* Presentation program;

* Database engine;
* Database client;

* Graphics display program;
* Audio display program;
* Video display program;

* Graphics editor;
* Audio editor;
* Video editor;

* IRC client;
* IM client;
* VOIP client;
* VP client;
* FTP client;
* P2P client;


* Web browser;
* Email client;

* Contact manager;
* Calendar program;

* eBook reader: ePub, PDF, LIT, Mobi, etc.

96% of the software requirements of the typical user, be it in the office or in the home, can be met with a repository of roughly 500 programs.

MX Linux

In the middle of December, frustrated by the umpteenth system crash that day, I wiped Xubuntu from my laptop. At the beginning of 2016, I used Linux Mint, dropping it, when I got tired of multiple system crashes per day.

Given the error messages I've seen from both Xubuntu, and Mint, my conclusion was that SystemD was responsible for the crashes.

Thus, my requirements are:

* Does not use SystemD;
* XFCE Desktop;


Going to DistroWatch, I noticed that MX-Linux 16 had been released a few days earlier, and that it met my primary requirements.  I installed it, then started using my laptop.  With increasing trepidation, I used my computer as I normally did.  Individual programs (^1) crashed, but when they did so, they didn't take the OS down with them.  I kept waiting for the OS to crash.  It finally crashed, when I opened an extremely resource hungry program so many times, that neither Swap Memory nor RAM was available.


Other than not crashing, the biggest difference between MX-Linux and Xubuntu is that a right mouse click on the desktop has several options that require root. LibreOffice 5.3 stores palettes in /opt/LibreOffice/share/palettes, making the ability to open Thunar as root, from the desktop, extremely useful.

Something else I've noticed, is that Thunderbird isn't playing games, claiming that folders are not available, and requiring me to click on the error message, to deliver the email to the inbox, and then clicking on ">Tools >Run Message Filters." With half a dozen emails per day, that is barely tolerable.  With three to five emails per minute, that is completely unacceptable.




For more information about MX-Linux, go to https://mxlinux.org/.



In all, I'm much happier with MX-Linux, than I was either either Linux Mint, or Xubuntu, a month after installing them.


^1: I tend to use beta versions, rather than stable versions of software.  As such, program crashes are not unexpected.