To 'Infinity' ... and beyond: MX Linux 25 has arrived
(2025/11/13)
- Reference: 1763026213
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2025/11/13/mx_linux_25_infinity_released/
- Source link:
[1]MX Linux 25 "Infinity" is now available , and the new version has some significant differences from the 2023 release, with things that used to be boot-time choices now more loaded pre-install decisions.
[2]Infinity is available in no fewer than seven different downloads. They are all for x86-64: there's no x86-32 edition any more. MX 25 is based on Debian 13, and since the [3]parent distro no longer offers a 32-bit x86 edition, nor does MX Linux.
So that's one choice simplified. However, other choices have got a little more complicated. One of the things that [4]impressed us about MX Linux 21 and then in [5]MX Linux 23 was that it didn't use the controversial systemd as its init system, but even so, systemd was present and could be triggered at startup. As we [6]reported back in August , and just [7]as in the beta version , that useful feature has gone. It relied on the Linux kernel's cgroups version 1. That was superseded by cgroups v2 in kernel 4.5, as [8]LWN reported in 2016 , and in the current LTS kernel 6.12 cgroups is turned off, which effectively disables the [9]systemd-shim tool that enabled MX's init-switching superpower.
[10]
As a result, you can still have MX Linux without systemd if you wish – but now, the flavors with the [11]traditional sysvinit are in separate downloads. In other words, you must choose the edition up front, and you can't readily switch once installed.
[12]
[13]
MX still offers the same choice of just three desktops: the default middleweight Xfce, the full-fat KDE Plasma, or super-lightweight Fluxbox. Like Debian 13 itself, the KDE flavor of MX Linux has Plasma 6.3.6, and this variant is only available with systemd. The other editions have Xfce 4.20 or Fluxbox 1.3.7, and both of these are available with either systemd or sysvinit. And just to add a little more complexity to an already quite complex situation, the flagship Xfce edition is also available in an Advanced Hardware Support variant, or AHS for short, which comes with the [14]alternative Liquorix kernel , which we [15]looked at in 2022 .
The result is seven different variants, which we fear is rather confusing:
Xfce
Standard kernel 6.12
1 - with systemd
2 - with sysvinit
AHS kernel 6.16
3 - with systemd
4 - with sysvinit
KDE
5 kernel 6.12 and systemd
Fluxbox
6 - with systemd
7 - with sysvinit
It's interesting that the project chose this route despite the additional complexity. As with anything, time will tell, and in future some of these options may disappear again if they prove less popular.
As well as the relatively major changes of a new Debian version and the new up-front choice of init system, there are also new features and improvements.
[16]
Some are in the installation program. This has some new features. One is that it can now enable [17]ZRAM memory compression as well as conventional file or partition based swap. This vulture only advocates using ZRAM on machines whose primary storage has a limited number of writes, such as machines running off USB key or microSD card, but around these parts we favor a low-tech approach. The Reg FOSS desk knows people personally who are running home computers with hundreds of gigs of RAM, or even more remarkably, pensioning off such boxes and upgrading – in which case, ZRAM makes some sort of sense.
The MX installer also has a new option to replace an existing Linux installation in place. If you do this, it can preserve the contents of the /home tree, so any users will keep their files and settings – although you'll have to recreate the user accounts afterwards. This is useful because, as used to be the case with some other popular distros in the greater Debian family such as Mint and Zorin, MX Linux doesn't directly support version-to-version upgrades.
The official route is [18]in-place migration . The suite of handy [19]MX Tools for system maintenance and adjustment has been updated to use Qt6. One of these, called [20]MX User Installed Packages , will make a list of all the extra Debian packages you may have installed. You can use the resulting list as a script to reinstall them afterwards. Note, though, that from one Debian release to the next, some software may get re-packaged with new, slightly different names, or some other change – so this isn't guaranteed to be 100 per cent successful. For those with sufficient tech knowledge to be able to manually recover a partly-upgraded system, there is a [21]documented in-place upgrade procedure.
[22]
MX 25 also inherits Trixie's support for a new [23]new repository config file format ,the catchily-named deb822. All three desktops have been polished and spruced up a little, with tweaks to Xfce's Whisker menu, Plasma's Dolphin file manager, and Fluxbox's panel layout, app menus and more.
MX's configuration of the Xfce desktop is one of the best in the business. It defaults to a vertical panel, for the most efficient use of widescreen monitors, with the [24]Docklike Taskbar plugin . This brings a Windows Vista style iconic taskbar instead of Xfce's default buttons: apps can be pinned to the taskbar for easier launching, and icons show indicators if more than one window is open. It uses the multifunction [25]Whisker menu in place of Xfce's very simple default launch menu, with added search, session management, and more. Moving the left-to-right horizontal panel into a vertical orientation normally puts the launch button at the top, but MX puts it at the end of the panel instead – meaning that users more accustomed to Windows' default horizontal taskbar will find the launch button where they expect it, in the bottom left corner. It's a much better config than the Xfce default of a largely empty top panel and a bottom panel configured to resemble a dock, and it's also a smarter layout than Xubuntu's single panel.
We tried the systemd and sysvinit versions of the Xfce edition side by side in VMs. As you might expect, they look and work identically, and we couldn't see any difference in speed or responsiveness. In fact the only difference we could see was that the sysvinit variant uses about 50 MB less RAM at idle.
We also tried the sysvinit edition on the bare metal of our trusty old [26]Thinkpad W520 . It worked fine, but MX Linux couldn't wake up the NVIDIA Quadro 1000M second GPU, so the second display attached to the machine's DisplayPort stayed dark. The NVIDIA driver installer in MX Tools correctly detected the GPU and recommended either version 340 or 390 of Nvidia's proprietary driver. We went with the newer one, but although it seemed to install successfully, it didn't work and the display remained off. We didn't expect it to work – the NVIDIA driver isn't supported on such a new kernel, which is why we [27]downgraded that machine back to Ubuntu 22.04 . Saying that, some distros with modern kernels manage to wake the display: the [28]beta of Pop!_OS 24.04 did, as did Ubuntu 25.10.
[29]MX Linux 25 reaches beta testing – complete with systemd
[30]Gadget geeks aghast at guru's geriatric GPU
[31]De-duplicating the desktops: Let's come together, right now
[32]'Windows sucks,' former Microsoft engineer says, explains how to fix it
This small issue aside, we found that MX Linux 25 worked very well. It has an uncommonly sophisticated Xfce configuration – few other distros manage this so well. The less well known [33]Asmi Linux does, and like Asmi, MX 25 comes with the [34]improved Nala package manager preinstalled. So, for instance, once installed, we could do a full update with a single command – nala upgrade -y – and in another window run htop , also pre-installed, to monitor how hard it was working as it did it.
As ever, MX's fit and finish is good. It holds up well compared to its progenitor Debian 13, or the [35]similarly systemd-free Devuan 6 , for instance: it's easier to install, and easier to adjust afterwards. If you want something a little easier than Debian itself, without Ubuntu's deeper changes such as snap, and optionally without systemd, then this is a good option. ®
Get our [36]Tech Resources
[1] https://mxlinux.org/blog/mx-25-infinity-isos-now-available/
[2] https://mxlinux.org/blog/mx-25-infinity-isos-now-available/
[3] https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/12/debian_13_trixie_released/
[4] https://www.theregister.com/2022/08/31/mx_linux_212/
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2023/08/03/mx_linux_23/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/06/debian_13_mx_25/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2025/09/23/mx_linux_25_reaches_beta/
[8] https://lwn.net/Articles/679786/
[9] https://github.com/knelsonmeister/systemd
[10] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2aRW6RxC6JDRJmtF5MO9lawAAAAM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[11] https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Sysvinit
[12] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aRW6RxC6JDRJmtF5MO9lawAAAAM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[13] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aRW6RxC6JDRJmtF5MO9lawAAAAM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[14] https://liquorix.net/
[15] https://www.theregister.com/2022/02/25/friday_foss_fest_liquorix_kernel/
[16] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aRW6RxC6JDRJmtF5MO9lawAAAAM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[17] https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Zram
[18] https://mxlinux.org/migration/
[19] https://github.com/MX-Linux/mx-tools
[20] https://mxlinux.org/wiki/help-files/help-mx-user-installed-packages/
[21] https://mxlinux.org/wiki/in-place-upgrade-from-mx-23-to-mx-25/
[22] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aRW6RxC6JDRJmtF5MO9lawAAAAM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[23] https://repolib.readthedocs.io/en/latest/deb822-format.html
[24] https://mxlinux.org/wiki/system/docklike-taskbar/
[25] https://mxlinux.org/wiki/applications/whisker-menu-tips-and-tricks/
[26] https://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Category:W520
[27] https://www.theregister.com/2025/01/29/nvidia_gpu_ubuntu_downgrade/
[28] https://www.theregister.com/2025/09/30/pop_os_2404_beta_released/
[29] https://www.theregister.com/2025/09/23/mx_linux_25_reaches_beta/
[30] https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/01/geeks_aghast_at_guru_gpu/
[31] https://www.theregister.com/2025/11/10/deduplicating_the_desktops/
[32] https://www.theregister.com/2025/11/07/does_windows_really_suck_that/
[33] https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/15/asmi_13_debian_edition/
[34] https://www.theregister.com/2022/10/13/canonical_ubuntu_ad/
[35] https://www.theregister.com/2025/11/05/devuan_6_excalibur_is_out/
[36] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
[2]Infinity is available in no fewer than seven different downloads. They are all for x86-64: there's no x86-32 edition any more. MX 25 is based on Debian 13, and since the [3]parent distro no longer offers a 32-bit x86 edition, nor does MX Linux.
So that's one choice simplified. However, other choices have got a little more complicated. One of the things that [4]impressed us about MX Linux 21 and then in [5]MX Linux 23 was that it didn't use the controversial systemd as its init system, but even so, systemd was present and could be triggered at startup. As we [6]reported back in August , and just [7]as in the beta version , that useful feature has gone. It relied on the Linux kernel's cgroups version 1. That was superseded by cgroups v2 in kernel 4.5, as [8]LWN reported in 2016 , and in the current LTS kernel 6.12 cgroups is turned off, which effectively disables the [9]systemd-shim tool that enabled MX's init-switching superpower.
[10]
As a result, you can still have MX Linux without systemd if you wish – but now, the flavors with the [11]traditional sysvinit are in separate downloads. In other words, you must choose the edition up front, and you can't readily switch once installed.
[12]
[13]
MX still offers the same choice of just three desktops: the default middleweight Xfce, the full-fat KDE Plasma, or super-lightweight Fluxbox. Like Debian 13 itself, the KDE flavor of MX Linux has Plasma 6.3.6, and this variant is only available with systemd. The other editions have Xfce 4.20 or Fluxbox 1.3.7, and both of these are available with either systemd or sysvinit. And just to add a little more complexity to an already quite complex situation, the flagship Xfce edition is also available in an Advanced Hardware Support variant, or AHS for short, which comes with the [14]alternative Liquorix kernel , which we [15]looked at in 2022 .
The result is seven different variants, which we fear is rather confusing:
Xfce
Standard kernel 6.12
1 - with systemd
2 - with sysvinit
AHS kernel 6.16
3 - with systemd
4 - with sysvinit
KDE
5 kernel 6.12 and systemd
Fluxbox
6 - with systemd
7 - with sysvinit
It's interesting that the project chose this route despite the additional complexity. As with anything, time will tell, and in future some of these options may disappear again if they prove less popular.
As well as the relatively major changes of a new Debian version and the new up-front choice of init system, there are also new features and improvements.
[16]
Some are in the installation program. This has some new features. One is that it can now enable [17]ZRAM memory compression as well as conventional file or partition based swap. This vulture only advocates using ZRAM on machines whose primary storage has a limited number of writes, such as machines running off USB key or microSD card, but around these parts we favor a low-tech approach. The Reg FOSS desk knows people personally who are running home computers with hundreds of gigs of RAM, or even more remarkably, pensioning off such boxes and upgrading – in which case, ZRAM makes some sort of sense.
The MX installer also has a new option to replace an existing Linux installation in place. If you do this, it can preserve the contents of the /home tree, so any users will keep their files and settings – although you'll have to recreate the user accounts afterwards. This is useful because, as used to be the case with some other popular distros in the greater Debian family such as Mint and Zorin, MX Linux doesn't directly support version-to-version upgrades.
The official route is [18]in-place migration . The suite of handy [19]MX Tools for system maintenance and adjustment has been updated to use Qt6. One of these, called [20]MX User Installed Packages , will make a list of all the extra Debian packages you may have installed. You can use the resulting list as a script to reinstall them afterwards. Note, though, that from one Debian release to the next, some software may get re-packaged with new, slightly different names, or some other change – so this isn't guaranteed to be 100 per cent successful. For those with sufficient tech knowledge to be able to manually recover a partly-upgraded system, there is a [21]documented in-place upgrade procedure.
[22]
MX 25 also inherits Trixie's support for a new [23]new repository config file format ,the catchily-named deb822. All three desktops have been polished and spruced up a little, with tweaks to Xfce's Whisker menu, Plasma's Dolphin file manager, and Fluxbox's panel layout, app menus and more.
MX's configuration of the Xfce desktop is one of the best in the business. It defaults to a vertical panel, for the most efficient use of widescreen monitors, with the [24]Docklike Taskbar plugin . This brings a Windows Vista style iconic taskbar instead of Xfce's default buttons: apps can be pinned to the taskbar for easier launching, and icons show indicators if more than one window is open. It uses the multifunction [25]Whisker menu in place of Xfce's very simple default launch menu, with added search, session management, and more. Moving the left-to-right horizontal panel into a vertical orientation normally puts the launch button at the top, but MX puts it at the end of the panel instead – meaning that users more accustomed to Windows' default horizontal taskbar will find the launch button where they expect it, in the bottom left corner. It's a much better config than the Xfce default of a largely empty top panel and a bottom panel configured to resemble a dock, and it's also a smarter layout than Xubuntu's single panel.
We tried the systemd and sysvinit versions of the Xfce edition side by side in VMs. As you might expect, they look and work identically, and we couldn't see any difference in speed or responsiveness. In fact the only difference we could see was that the sysvinit variant uses about 50 MB less RAM at idle.
We also tried the sysvinit edition on the bare metal of our trusty old [26]Thinkpad W520 . It worked fine, but MX Linux couldn't wake up the NVIDIA Quadro 1000M second GPU, so the second display attached to the machine's DisplayPort stayed dark. The NVIDIA driver installer in MX Tools correctly detected the GPU and recommended either version 340 or 390 of Nvidia's proprietary driver. We went with the newer one, but although it seemed to install successfully, it didn't work and the display remained off. We didn't expect it to work – the NVIDIA driver isn't supported on such a new kernel, which is why we [27]downgraded that machine back to Ubuntu 22.04 . Saying that, some distros with modern kernels manage to wake the display: the [28]beta of Pop!_OS 24.04 did, as did Ubuntu 25.10.
[29]MX Linux 25 reaches beta testing – complete with systemd
[30]Gadget geeks aghast at guru's geriatric GPU
[31]De-duplicating the desktops: Let's come together, right now
[32]'Windows sucks,' former Microsoft engineer says, explains how to fix it
This small issue aside, we found that MX Linux 25 worked very well. It has an uncommonly sophisticated Xfce configuration – few other distros manage this so well. The less well known [33]Asmi Linux does, and like Asmi, MX 25 comes with the [34]improved Nala package manager preinstalled. So, for instance, once installed, we could do a full update with a single command – nala upgrade -y – and in another window run htop , also pre-installed, to monitor how hard it was working as it did it.
As ever, MX's fit and finish is good. It holds up well compared to its progenitor Debian 13, or the [35]similarly systemd-free Devuan 6 , for instance: it's easier to install, and easier to adjust afterwards. If you want something a little easier than Debian itself, without Ubuntu's deeper changes such as snap, and optionally without systemd, then this is a good option. ®
Get our [36]Tech Resources
[1] https://mxlinux.org/blog/mx-25-infinity-isos-now-available/
[2] https://mxlinux.org/blog/mx-25-infinity-isos-now-available/
[3] https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/12/debian_13_trixie_released/
[4] https://www.theregister.com/2022/08/31/mx_linux_212/
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2023/08/03/mx_linux_23/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/06/debian_13_mx_25/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2025/09/23/mx_linux_25_reaches_beta/
[8] https://lwn.net/Articles/679786/
[9] https://github.com/knelsonmeister/systemd
[10] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2aRW6RxC6JDRJmtF5MO9lawAAAAM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[11] https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Sysvinit
[12] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aRW6RxC6JDRJmtF5MO9lawAAAAM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[13] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aRW6RxC6JDRJmtF5MO9lawAAAAM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[14] https://liquorix.net/
[15] https://www.theregister.com/2022/02/25/friday_foss_fest_liquorix_kernel/
[16] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aRW6RxC6JDRJmtF5MO9lawAAAAM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[17] https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Zram
[18] https://mxlinux.org/migration/
[19] https://github.com/MX-Linux/mx-tools
[20] https://mxlinux.org/wiki/help-files/help-mx-user-installed-packages/
[21] https://mxlinux.org/wiki/in-place-upgrade-from-mx-23-to-mx-25/
[22] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aRW6RxC6JDRJmtF5MO9lawAAAAM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[23] https://repolib.readthedocs.io/en/latest/deb822-format.html
[24] https://mxlinux.org/wiki/system/docklike-taskbar/
[25] https://mxlinux.org/wiki/applications/whisker-menu-tips-and-tricks/
[26] https://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Category:W520
[27] https://www.theregister.com/2025/01/29/nvidia_gpu_ubuntu_downgrade/
[28] https://www.theregister.com/2025/09/30/pop_os_2404_beta_released/
[29] https://www.theregister.com/2025/09/23/mx_linux_25_reaches_beta/
[30] https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/01/geeks_aghast_at_guru_gpu/
[31] https://www.theregister.com/2025/11/10/deduplicating_the_desktops/
[32] https://www.theregister.com/2025/11/07/does_windows_really_suck_that/
[33] https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/15/asmi_13_debian_edition/
[34] https://www.theregister.com/2022/10/13/canonical_ubuntu_ad/
[35] https://www.theregister.com/2025/11/05/devuan_6_excalibur_is_out/
[36] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
I'll be downloading that this afternoon
Pascal Monett
And then I'll offer the torrents to the community as usual.
wolfetone
" That was superseded by cgroups v2 in kernel 4.5, as LWN reported in 2016, and in the current LTS kernel 6.12 cgroups is turned off, which effectively disables the systemd-shim tool that enabled MX's init-switching superpower. "
I'm one of these long time Linux users who've never mucked about with the kernel, but why couldn't the MX devs they just switch it on in the kernel? Because that switch thing sounded really handy and helpful.
Liam Proven
> I'm one of these long time Linux users who've never mucked about with the kernel
I used to build my own in the '90s but very rarely any more. I do have some ideas I'd like to experiment with, though...
(Automated building of initramfs-free kernels... reviving superfast kexec reboots... diskless VMs...)
> but why couldn't the MX devs they just switch it on in the kernel?
That's a very good question. I spent a little time digging to try to see if this was a feature that's been _removed_ or merely deprecated and disabled. I could not find a clear answer.
> Because that switch thing sounded really handy and helpful.
I agree.
But there may be interwoven cause and effect here... KDE $debian_current is a first class citizen in MX. KDE should not in theory find systemd that essential. KDE runs on non-Linux systems where there's no systemd.
Systemd no longer supports cgroups v1. It mandates cgroups v2. So, to enable systemd-shim, you need a kernel with cgroups v2.
It could be that systemd-shim could be kept alive by turning cgroups 1 back on but that _might limit it to older versions of systemd. And MX will not want to run an _older_ version than Debian ships.
In other words: this is not only or purely a kernel issue; the shim must sit between a given kernel version (from upstream) and a given systemd version (from upstream) and that leaves it nowhere to go, so to speak.
I still think that the MX and antiX people ought to work with the Devuan team... but Devuan will have no time for this shim and won't help there.
Probably going to stick for now . . .
They seem to be offering a migration path to 25 which would make it much more attractive than I thought, done too many fresh installations this year! Otherwise 23 is still in support for a while.
They appear content to disappear under the pile of Ubuntu/Mint by following the crowd, but with the systemd-free option they have potentially bought some time to change their minds.