Back in early August, we informed you that Debian-based MX Linux was gearing up for some big changes in its upcoming 25th release—and now you can try them out yourself.
Today, the team behind the distro has announced the first beta release of MX-25 “Infinity,” now available for public testing. Built on Debian 13.1 “Trixie” and MX repositories, the beta offers both systemd and sysVinit editions across Xfce, KDE Plasma, and Fluxbox desktops. And here is one of the biggest changes. Here is what I am talking about.
For years, MX positioned itself as a systemd-free option. Instead of adopting systemd as the default init system, the distro has traditionally shipped sysVinit as its baseline. However, with MX-25, the developers are now offering parallel builds: images with systemd enabled, and sysVinit editions for users who prefer to avoid it. So, if you’re used to systemd, you can now take advantage of it in MX-25.
On the desktop side, Xfce ships with version 4.20, KDE Plasma with 6.3.6, and Fluxbox with 1.3.7. Most builds use the Debian stable 6.12 kernel, while the Advanced Hardware Support (AHS) variants provide Liquorix 6.15 kernels.
Secure Boot support is included in the installer for systems running Debian’s signed kernels, although the Liquorix-based AHS editions do not support it.
Several major changes land with this beta. First, the Qt-based MX Tools have been migrated to Qt6, and apt-notifier has been replaced by a new tool called mx-updater (with optional nala backend support).
Next, the installer now includes zram swap setup, Btrfs installation options, and a “replace existing installation” function. Additionally, the installer supports 64-bit UEFI Secure Boot setups.
On the desktop side, KDE defaults to Wayland sessions, with X11 still available from the login screen. Fluxbox has gained new panel and menu configurations, along with updated Rofi settings.
Known issues include missing installer icons in Fluxbox, crashes in quick-system-info under certain conditions, and incomplete root action integration in the Dolphin file manager for KDE.
For more information, see the announcement, which also includes links to the installation ISO images.
