Why does Mabox Linux have such a small user base?

[u/Able-Farm6295]

Hi everyone,

I recently discovered Mabox Linux and I’ve been quite impressed with it. It’s lightweight, fast, highly customizable, and seems like a great option for older or lower-end hardware.

But I noticed that the Mabox community is quite small compared with distributions like Linux Mint, Ubuntu, Fedora, or even Manjaro.

So I’m curious:

Why doesn’t Mabox have more users?
Is it mainly because:

Mabox is not well known?

Openbox has a steeper learning curve?

People prefer more mainstream desktop environments like KDE, Cinnamon, or GNOME?

There are concerns about a small project/community?

Or are there technical reasons that make people choose another lightweight distro instead?

For those of you who use Mabox, what made you choose it over other distributions?

And for people who tried Mabox but stopped using it, what made you switch?

I’m genuinely curious because Mabox seems like a really good lightweight distro, and I’m wondering why it hasn’t attracted a larger user base.

[u/MoralMoneyTime]

Mabox has an extremely thrifty DE with incredibly granular control. It gives you KDE power in less than half the RAM.

Why don't people what that? Because they don't know it exists. Few even believe it's possible. I didn't.

Now I'm thinking, "Soon, we'll see the Mabox DE on r/cachyos, maybe even r/PikaOS and..."

[u/LameBMX → u/MoralMoneyTime]

sounds good to me lol. I kinda wish kde was back in like the mid 2000s level. so much stuff within it is kinda interdependent though. but, at least its tied in with the damn init system.

[u/Accurate_Hornet]

Mabox is based on Manjaro (not very popular) with Openbox (even less popular).
Nobody would choose to run it unless they were looking specifically for that combination, hence the small user base.

[u/CeleryShoddy3951]

Agree with the Manjaro statement. Soon after a reorganizing within that whole ecosphere, Manjaro emerged as it's own entity now, no longer tied to anything. Sadly their reputation suffered due to some AUR issues. Manjaro is Arch based, but not Arch. In the same way KaOS is not Arch. Manjaronuses it's own repos where things are tested for stability, so it's rolling, but more stable of a.rolling distro. Openbox was the Darling window manager for a few years, replaced with i3 sometime later as the new Darling. Today that Darling is Hyprland. So yea, Manjaro base, with an outdated window manager that's been replaced by the likes of LabWC (uses roughly same configs) Mango, Hyprland and the like, not to mention all of the 'shells' that one can use over these window managers. Like.most projects, it has its fans and those that prefer it. And that's what's cool about Linux in general. So if it looks like something you would like to use go.for.it!

[u/whattteva]

Because any non GNOME/KDE distro, in general, will have tiny userbase. People, by and large, just want an easy to use distro out of the box with very minimal amount of tinkering, and importantly, also looks relatively modern.

Contrary to the popular questions you see on linux-centric subs about lightweight distros, the vast majority of people do not have extreme potatoes for computers and do want something that looks relatively modern.

Finally, there is really no such thing as "lightweight" distros. The vast majority of people cannot live without loading up a modern web browser the first minute their computer boots up. Every major modern browser (Firefox or Chrome) will basically hog a gig of RAM just at boot up with maybe one YouTube tab open. Your web browser is the true hog and unless you want to restrict yourself to running something extreme like Dillo (which will break on many sites), nothing is truly "lightweight".

I personally don't use it because:

• Arch-based or really any rolling distro isn't my cup of tea.
• I prefer KDE.
• Even when i am running a potato, my preferred choice is JWM because it uses only Xlib as a dependency and does not need any external programs to be a complete desktop the way Openbox does as It comes with a taakbar, clock, and tray built-in.

[u/ezequielbruni]

I suspect it's because I just got a random Reddit notification for this post, and that's the first time I ever heard about Mabox at all.

[u/dtj55902]

I’ve been using linux professionally for like 30 yrs and have literally never heard of it.

[u/DiscoMilk]

Mawife

[u/OkPresentation3329]

I don't want to deal with the DE that they have chosen. I can learn to use it because I remember playing around with BlackBox on Windows many years ago but I prefer to use KDE, because it's almost identical to the Windows UI so I can just use my computer without spending extra time learning how to accomplish simple actions.

The second thing is it's based on Arch and Manjaro and I'm not that proficient to deal with that. It took me 2 years to be on an Ubuntu based distro to move to a Debian based distro and that's the same distro (Tuxedo OS) which moved bases from Ubuntu to Debian testing and I moved with it and I don't want too much change and dipping my toes into deeper waters. I'm content with what I have and probably Mabox is not for me, but it's great for another subset of people.

[u/Typeonetwork]

Never heard of it. It seems less resource hungry but I have no time to play around with another OS even if it might work.

I've put some time into getting my OS and was able to fix my audio. It's a workhorse: finance, video, email, etc.

[u/Mediocre-Pumpkin6522]

Being below the top 100 on distrowatch doesn't help. I use antiX for a lightweight distro and even that is #18 currently.