MX Linux 25.2 Beta 1 is now available for testing, and while point release betas are not usually all that exciting, this one actually has a pretty good reason to exist. The MX team says the main goal here is installer testing, thanks to a bunch of changes that could affect how the distro gets deployed on real hardware.
The biggest addition is a new text mode installer. Users can now install MX Linux outside of a graphical desktop entirely, either directly from a text console or from a terminal window using a TUI mode. For Linux folks that still like having full control without depending on a GUI, this is a pretty nice addition.
To start the text installer from a console, users can run minstall-launcher. If launching from a graphical terminal emulator, the command becomes sudo minstall –tui.
According to the developers, the new installer mode still includes all the same features as the graphical installer, even if the interface itself works a bit differently. That alone could make MX Linux more appealing for older systems, recovery situations, virtual machines, or hardware where graphics drivers decide to throw a tantrum during installation.
The beta also fixes a number of installer-related bugs, including some nasty edge cases where the user home folder was not being created correctly during installs. Anyone who has ever booted into a fresh Linux install only to discover something is horribly wrong with permissions probably understands why the MX team wanted extra testing before pushing this out broadly.
There are also a ton of smaller installer improvements buried in the changelog. Keyboard navigation in TUI mode has been improved, GRUB locale issues are cleaned up before installation, partition handling is better, and the installer now avoids offering ESP GRUB installs when the boot folder is not properly defined. The developers even fixed issues tied to alternate init systems using so-called pipe-files, which is the kind of weird Linux edge case most mainstream operating systems never even think about.
Outside the installer, MX Linux 25.2 Beta 1 includes some other noteworthy changes too. Live setup has been moved away from rc.local into proper init service files, and older pre-Sandy Bridge Intel graphics systems will no longer be forced to use the old intel Xorg driver and UXA acceleration. That is probably for the best because those older graphics paths have become increasingly flaky with newer Mesa stacks.
The distro also improves chroot-rescue-scan support for btrfs and encrypted partitions, which should make rescue and recovery operations a bit less painful for Linux users running more advanced storage setups.
There are a couple known issues in the beta. The live environment might not correctly set paper size defaults, and MX Welcome may incorrectly report the build as version 25.1 instead of 25.2. Both are expected to be fixed before final release.
No, this is not one of those flashy Linux announcements filled with AI nonsense or pointless cosmetic tweaks. Instead, MX Linux seems focused on something much more important: making installs more reliable and flexible. Frankly, that is probably a better use of developer time anyway.
