Omy. I’ve written before about how it seems that GNU/Linux and many free open-source projects seem to attract people with a politically left-wing bent. It’s certainly true on Diaspora /Friendica/Hubzilla/Mastodon etc., where my Stream (feed) was full of anti-capitalism, Trump-hate, Antifa, and even Nazi propaganda. I blocked and/or ignored many more people on Diaspora than I shared with because of all the politics in that network. But Linux is supposed to be largely neutral politically, right?
I remember the Great Linux Mint Political Train Wreck and how they quickly tried to bury it after a bunch of people who support Israel (as I do) and saw that part of their donations to Linux Mint may have ended up in the hands of anti-Zionist groups because the Lead Developer donates to them. Mint is a fantastic distro, and to it’s credit, did not mix it’s lead developer’s political views into the distro’s content. But Mint suffered a setback when it’s official blog posted an anti-Zionist political piece. It made it look as though Linux Mint officially endorsed the so-called “Palestinian” cause.
Now we have AntiX, the sister distro of MX-Linux, truly mixing politics into it’s official software distributed to users. MX-Linux is avoiding that, but because they share the same developers, both distros may suffer from unintended consequences of AntiX’s political mixture. The lead developer of AntiX calls himself “Anticapitalista,” which suggests he opposes capitalism. But that’s not enough, not this time. Now by default, included in the .iso of the distro, are several anti-Zionist bookmarks! If you happen to be an avid anti-Zionist, you probably have no problem with that. But if you install antiX and discover these bookmarks when you open the browser for the first time, you’re going to wonder if this is some kind of malware or something!
Have a look at this reviewer’s take on the matter:
This is enough for me never to recommend antiX for older computers anymore. And it sours me a little bit on MX-Linux as well, though not enough to stop recommending it, since they have remained above the fray, refusing to mix their political views into the actual software of the distribution. AntiX’s choice is worse than Linux Mint’s! When any open-source project gets so political that the line between the product and the politics is crossed, they lose my support. Whether it’s left-wing or right-wing stuff, politics and FOSS projects should never mix.
Robin's Rants and Raves 
Agree completely with you! Hopefully MX-Linux is listening and will remain a-political.
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Man this is horrible. I had hoped that Linux would just stay neutral and make good OS. But I suppose that was too much to hope.
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Truly, dude. I thought antiX was not very newbie-friendly anyway, and the interface was awkward until I added Xfce to it. It’s awesome that it’s systemd-free, but that creates a whole ‘nother set of problems. But now THIS!? Enough. Glad I’m back on pure ‘n’ simple Xubuntu.
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Robin,
I totally agree. I am on the same side of the political spectrum as you, and I too would wish that the open-source community would remain neutral to politics. I have noticed that any project or business for that matter that takes any political side usually seffers significantly regardless of which side they take.
Free (as in freedom) open source projects actracts freedom loving people, but because it is free, it also attracts anti-capitalist people. Thus such projects should strive to remain politically neutral. Freedom as in liberty should be the focus.
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Having checked into the MX-Linux response to this ugly incident, and having quite long experience with MX-Linux and exchanges on their forum, I can say with confidence that MX-Linux is non-political. It runs very well on old machines like the ones I use and is Systemd-free.
AntiX and MX-Linux are separate projects. It would be a shame for someone to steer away from MX-Linux because of AntiX.
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Completely agreed. MX has remained above this kind of politicalized BS, both in the software and in their forums. It’s not “systemd-free,” as antiX is, however, but it does successfully use alternate init software and “has” systemd just to satisfy abuncha apps that insist on it as a dependency. Users have the choice to run it with or without systemd as the init software, which is very very cool. Best of both worlds! I’m still recommending MX for newbies, while running Xubuntu here at home.
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Well I am sticking with MX-Linux for now as it is the only thing that my old laptop runs well on but if it does get political I will have to go looking for something else.
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Yes but MX-Linux is also developed by Anticapitalista of AntiX, Anticapitalista is the lead developer of MX-Linux, so I don’t know how anyone can use MX-Linux and think it is okay because it isn’t AntiX, MX-Linux is developed and lead by the same guy behind AntiX, why aren’t people able to put 2 and 2 together and figure that out. Anticapitalista may be anti-fascist which is a good theing, but he is also anti-Conservative and anti-Zionist and that in my opinion makes him evil scum.
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>It’s not “systemd-free,” as antiX is, however, but it does successfully use alternate init software and “has” systemd just to satisfy abuncha apps that insist on it as a dependency. Users have the choice to run it with or without systemd as the init software, which is very very cool.
Yes, you are exactly correct. The default is to run MX-Linux with systemd disabled.
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When Clem supports anti-Israeli groups (as is his good right and even his duty as a decent person), he surely knows how to seperate his private politics from the business side of his Linux distro. Because if you look closely who makes the fabled Mint boxes … yeah, it’s CompuLab, a company based in Israel, probably residing in some industrial area on land stolen from Palestinian families.
So, is that unpolitical enough?
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Clem did well to realize his mistake and fix it. It’s all good.
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Sadly, I had the same experience with AntiX when finding those bookmarks. AntiX matched my netbook requirements so perfectly, I was about to excuse and look over the bookmarks, then I realized that their release names e.g “Marielle Franco” were a nod to their martyrs. I just can’t bring myself to use a distro that doesn’t respect the views of people who might not agree with them.
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I found AntiX to be quite cheeky; it reminded me of blag/gnu linux from back in the day…the bookmarks are cheeky as well! I wasn’t familiar with most of them so I just tweaked as needed; I’m of a more anarchist/situationist bent… 😉
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I’m a guy from the Ozarks who’s been a Linux user since 2005 and, as a Christian, hope to create my own distro that comes with built-in web filtering. I was thinking about putting a lightweight distro on a USB drive I carry with me. I was considering Antix until I saw a YouTube video about the bookmarks they include in Firefox or whatever their default browser is. Being of the same political persuasion as you, I instantly said NO to Antix upon learning that. And my blood BOILED upon seeing that article about Texstar, of PCLinuxOS fame, bashing Rush — I always loved Rush’s wit and wisdom, and miss him greatly. And yes, I remember the Mint fiasco from 2009, but at least Clem learned his lesson from that one. But then, PCLinuxOS and Antix had to step into it even deeper. Those two distros will NEVER be considered for ANYTHING by me anymore. What they did is INEXCUSABLE.
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Thanks for responding, Fred. It’s completely disgusting when everything has to be politicized, even medicine now for cry’n out loud. But when a Linux distro does it – especially in a sneaky, underhanded way, I publish it here and drop it like a hot rock. When the new SalixOS comes out (based on Slackware 15) I’ll be giving that a go again.
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Okay, to update: The bookmarks are/were the only political stuff in the distro. Simply delete them and bingo, you have a systemd-free Debian mixture that is not only nimble and quick, but no longer “political.” Adding bookmarks is commonplace in a lot of Linux distros. SalixOS 15 has reached Beta as I write this, and it has the usual theming and dependency issues. Sourcery is gone from the distro now, which is a huge loss IMO. But while I wait for SalixOS to become as awesome as it once was, what the heck. I’m using antiX! Added my beloved Xfce desktop and swapped out Brave browser in place of Firefox and some other mods. Why not just use MX, then, you ask, right? Because MX “has but doesn’t use” systemd. It’s there as a dependency and as an option if people want to use it. Fine for them. But I freaking hate systemd (and PulseAudio, by the way) and don’t want that crap polluting my HDD at all. AntiX doesn’t have systemd or any systemd components. And the repositories are more trustworthy than Devuan’s. So I “un-politicized” my antiX and enjoy it very much. Debian without the systemd. Besides, what could be cooler than using an anti-capitalist’s operating system to promote capitalism? Which is what I do a lot, actually, in other media.
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I’m enjoying this anti-facist, anti-capitalist anti-zionist OS aka AntiX and so proud of using it and so proud of them for openly showing support to Palestine.🥰
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I also enjoy antiX on an old 32-bit desktop. I especially enjoy using an OS developed by a “Palestine” supporter to oppose the trash he stands for.
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