MX Linux 19.2 KDE arrives with Plasma 5 and maintaining the "light spirit" of the distribution

We already have MX Linux 19.2 KDE among us, the new variant of this distribution that stands out for its lightness, for still maintaining support for 32-bit (at least in its variant with XFCE) and for not using the controversial systemd as the default init.

MX Linux 19.2 KDE, officially named MX-19.2 KDE, is a “64-bit only version of MX with Advanced Hardware Support (AHS) enabled that includes the KDE Plasma desktop. Applications that use the frameworks of the Qt library have a preference for inclusion in the ISO ”. It is also notable for being the first official member of the MX/antiX family to use KDE Plasma as a desktop environment after the MEPIS project was discontinued in 2013.

For the rest, there is nothing really surprising about this system beyond the inclusion of KDE Plasma, to which MX Linux's own tools, antiX's live USB media system, and technology to take snapshots have been added ( snapshots ) already present in the variant with XFCE.

Regarding the specific software introduced in MX-19.2 KDE, we find KDE Plasma 5.14.5 (spiced up with a custom Brisa theme with some of its own elements and Papirus icons), GIMP 2.10.12, Table 20.0.7, the MX AHS, Linux 5.6 (AHS) firmware package from Debian as kernel, Firefox 79, VLC 3.0.11, Clementine 1.3.1, Thunderbird 68.11 and LibreOffice 6.1.5. Although it includes more recent software, MX Linux 19.2 is based on Debian 10 Buster, the current stable branch of its parent distribution.

Despite the fact that in the past it had a reputation for being very heavy, KDE Plasma is today a demonstration of powerful and extremely optimized software. With the only drawback of being recommended to have hardware acceleration to get the most out of it, it can currently be considered as a lightweight desktop environment, to the extent that your choice over XFCE may depend more on the GPU than on the CPU and RAM. And what's more, an old ATI graphics with the Radeon driver (the current reference for AMD is AMDGPU) can be left over with Plasma 5, so it is not necessary to have the last generation hardware, but even an old computer can make it work No problem.

Details on MX Linux 19.2 KDE can be found in the official announcement and can be downloaded from the download area of ​​the official distribution website. We remember that, at least for the moment, there is only one image for 64-bit.