Distrowatch popularity is a pointless metric. IIRC they measure clicks on their own site as popularity. That means that people that just want to check out that distro near the top that they never heard of actually ensure that it stays near the top.

From what I understand about distrowatch is that their “ranking” system is based on how many people (or bots) visit a distros page.

I used MX for a couple of years and it was a solid and perfectly usable distro, if you don’t want the latest packages.

I’ve been using it for a few years on my gaming desktop and I couldn’t be happier about it, it’s the distro that stopped my distro-hopping.

MX has become my go-to for low-power, outdated computers.

It runs on a toaster. It installs on 64-bit systems with 32-bit EFI. The base install supports touchscreens. It fits on a 16GB SSD with room to spare. 2GB RAM is plenty. It has an active development community.

If your computer is less 5 years old, there are better options. But if you’re trying to keep a Chromebook out of the junk yard, MX is a good choice.

Yes and yes, hits to the page drive it up that list. It’s a fine Debian reskin, nothing special.

MX Linux was botted due to the amount of hits.

My producer, Neigsendoig, did a video here where he covered MX 23.

I used MX Linux all of 2024 because I had previously installed antiX on an old netbook and I really liked the tools it came with that meant I didn’t have to touch the console too much, and MX Linux is a sister project based on antiX sharing the same custom utilities. And I have no clue why it rose to the top of distrowatch, but once it was there it stayed there because people click the top distros on the list in the sidebar, which in turn gives it clicks making it stay on top.
I do still believe it’s a good starter distro, it’s just that once you get a bit more comfortable with linux the old Debian packages become more and more annoying.

Kind of a dead site.

By your very logic, we could say you’re part of that very problem.