mx-19-1-kde-by-jki Files

'Just-Kiss-It' Here!

Many apologies for the outrageous size of over 3 GB at lz4 compression. I got it down to 2.0 GB at higher compression; but for me, on a USB, lz4 compression usually seems to work best. I may offer both compressions though. We shall see if anyone wants it.

As for what I did, this respin started with the Feb. 15, 2020 .ISO of MX19.1-x64 patito feo, downloaded off the https://mxlinux.org website. I used static persistence on a 64 GB SanDisk Cruiser Glide USB, with 7 GB Root Persistence, 12 GB Home Persistence, and a 10 GB Swap File (Huge, I know! But you should see some of the machines I have to work with regularly!) After that I updated, upgraded and just installed the KDE Desktop, booted into it then delicately purged the XFCE Desktop cruft. I also installed a few goodies as outlined below, and remastered several times.

It was not as easy as it sounds. MX Linux is pretty tightly wound into the XFCE Desktop. I've had troubles before, but have succeeded most splendidly with MX17 and MX18, and NOW I feel like this offering is not too bad either. My friends and family have been enjoying MX Linux, running the KDE Plasma Desktop for several years now.

I retained light-dm, even though I changed the management of the login screen to sddm. It's not a problem having both, but you can obviously only use one at a time, and KDE works better with SDDM.

I could not remove the MX-Tweak cruft without removing MX-Apps too; so NOPE! I've also had trouble in the past, getting KDE Plasma to work perfectly with MX Linux, because MX uses the gnome-keyring. One cannot imagine how difficult it is to get different policy-kits to place nicely together in a carefully crafted distro sometimes! That's why, generally, if you want to be switching Desktop Environments, starting off by installing either Vanilla Debian or Vanilla Arch makes much more sense -- and that is precisely what I normally do!

But I LOVE MX Linux! (And I Love KDE Plasma.)

I challenge anyone to find a better 'distro' for running on a Live USB with Persistence!

Besides, it's the fault of MX Linux that I got into KDE Plasma at all again! Yep! (Thanks, Adrian!) I had come over to MX 17, from years of Ubuntu and Linux Mint, and I loved it! I've always liked the XFCE Desktop, as it is snappy and I like the workflow for certain activities. I had also been running distros on live USBs with persistence for many years, and I obviously saw the value in MX Linux! I was quickly addicted. One day, on the forum, I saw that Adrian, on the MX Team, had made an MX/KDE respin for his wife, I downloaded it to check it out; and it needed some work. I like to learn new things and tinker. I had not tried KDE in years, (did not like Akonadi, PIM, the bloat, the slowness...) But Wow! I was surprised at how nice KDE Plasma had gotten! Fast too! Still kinda fat, but doable. I knew my friends and family could be talked into trying the Operating System on a Live USB, and it might provide enough eye candy and utilities to lead them away from Windoze for good! And so it did. Eventually, by installing and helping them maintain all their systems, I ended up learning a lot; and I also began to really like the KDE Plasma Desktop! I now run Vanilla Debian with the KDE Plasma DE as a daily driver myself, but still maintain several MX Linux USBs.

inb4 BTW I Use Arch!

Thinks 'distros' make a difference!

NOT Using 'Windoze' is what makes all the difference!

btw I use Arch too!

Anyway, It is now time to install a new Operating System for everybody's machines, and I can personally attest that this particular MX / KDE respin works well on some mighty old hardware! I'm still gonna suggest at least 4 GB of RAM for maximum enjoyment though!

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As for what I installed on this respin:

• chafa

• lolcat

• KDiff3

• fslint

• Vivaldi

• simple-screen-recorder

• KeePassXC off the Stable Repo.

• DeadBeef Music Player (because, reasons!)

• youtube-dl

• youtube-dl-gui

You will obviously want to make this respin your own, so I'll leave it at that for now.

Download some goodies for yourself! There are many programs I usually always install, like Kdenlive, Inkscape, Krita, the Full Version of GIMP, etc... but I chose not to include many things in this respin. I mean, I can't even personally survive without installing Atom; whereas, only a few of my friends use it. I definitely prefer Atom over Geany. You can even use Markdown-Preview or any other of the Packages with it -- blah blah, enough outtah me!

(It should be enough for you that I did not set up a Rust Development Environment or cargo install broot!)

I also did not install codecs, and you will probably want to do that. Most folks find life easier when they do... MX Codecs Installer is your friend in that regard. Tryin' to keep it as open source as possible here.

I did change some settings and put some addons in Firefox, but in my defense... They're good ones! I even hooked you with some useful uBlock Origin rulesets. It's pretty much set up in Medium Mode with a lot of extra rules for sites I sometimes use, or for sites like Fakebook and Twatter, which I block completely, except for local noop rules, in case anyone actually wants to go to those sites! At least they won't be following you around the web. As for the dark backgrounds on everything, I obviously like dark backgrounds!

I also made both Vivaldi Browser and Firefox default to Live-usb-storage/Downloads as the download location, because it's a live USB with persistence! They will ask you where you want to save the file anyway, but both default to the Live-usb-storage/Downloads location so you can access downloaded files from another device more easily. You can always change the Default Download Location in Firefox Preferences, ya know!

I changed some KDE Desktop Settings, obviously; and tweaked a few settings for Kate, KWrite, Featherpad (Yes, I kept Featherpad because I like it!)...

REMEMBER: You can always do a General Remaster and get rid of most all my personal tweaks to this system.

I have not used mx-live-usb-maker to create another USB with this respin yet, and may not get a chance before remastering this note into the final .iso; so I can't guarantee it'll work for ya, but I've checked out most everything else I can think of. If it gives a permissions error, (which I doubt, but if, ) just use it by typing sudo mx-live-usb-maker into a terminal. I had problems with that in my MX-18 / KDE respin, which is why I bring it up now. Not saying there's a problem with it!

There were some updates, upgrades and remasterings that went into this, as I got sick the first night and had to put off completing this task for a week or more. No, not Coronavirus -- not yet...

This Respin is Upgraded through Friday, 2020-03-13 and has flourished through several major MX upgrades.

I edited the neofetch file a tiny bit too. Just like I piped cmatrix through lolcat, I also piped neofetch through lolcat and made an alias in a file in your Home Directory called .bash_aliases. Come on now! Have some fun with Linux! Please tell me that the meaning of rainbow colors has not been fully requisitioned by identity politics yet! I mean, 'appropriating' the rainbow doesn't mean anyone can own it, any more than they own the pot of gold at the end of it!, amirite?

(That pic, was made with chafa, lolcat and GIMP, btw...)

If you want to mess with neofetch more...

https://github.com/dylanaraps/neofetch/wiki/Customizing-Info

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I'll try to write more about this respin, and maybe even make some videos later.

You can possibly find further information at 'Just-Kiss-It's blog

I'll try to get around to writing an article about this soon. Look for it...

As for getting this iso up on SourceForge... Having a few problems, so may link to it via MEGASync or something. I dunno. I don't have much experience at sharing. You won't find me on Social Media either.

If you don't hate me enough by now, please let me help!

You can comment about this .iso to your heart's delight over at:

<https:8kun.top/freedomzine/res/1418.html>.

(Or comment about anything else for that matter!)

Speaking of the .isos, If I can I will upload 2 respins with all my Personal Settings and my README (one at lz4 compression ~ recommended, one at xz compression); and 2 respins with General Settings (one at lz4 and one at xz compression). The Personal Respin at lz4 compression (which I recommend) is over 3 GB, while both the Personal and General Respins at xz compression are under 2 GB. The General Respins are actually nicer than I thought!

It works fine in VirtualBox. Just say 64-bit 'Other Linux'; enable 3-D Acceleration with the VMSVGA setting; and of course, Set your Display Monitor Size to whatever yours is.

This OS installs nicely too.

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For Personal .ISOs:

Root Password: URrootNAO

Demo Password: URdemoNAO

For General .ISOs:

Original default username and root password is demo and root.

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If you'd like to throw some support my way (just a poor skinny old giraffe here!), my bitcoin address is:

19XC49inYxPapqzUjzXbZHbTezVXpPfGXB