Microsoft and Apple products are designed to track you out of the box. Historically, this has been fairly benign. It was used for advertisement or customized UX. However, in an AI world, it is trivial for this data to be sold and parsed by ML, finding traits and associations about you that you didn't even know you had. We all know by now that AI can make mistakes. A mistake here can cost you insurance premiums or even your digital reputation.
The tools you absolutely need your current OS for are quickly being replaced, more comprehensively every month, by new techniques and services. Before long, most users will find the Microsoft and Apple ecosystems to just be baggage with a subscription fee. Now is a great time to switch to a free option for your OS and choose the best tools from there.
The guide below is for MX Linux. If you have an M1-M4 chip (Apple Silicon), it won't work. Check out Asahi Linux instead.
If you're new to Linux, do this on an old computer as a full install, or as a dual boot if you have one computer. That way you can see if you like it before making major changes.
Back up anything you care about. The steps that touch your disk are the only ones that can lose data, but a full backup is cheap insurance. You'll also need a USB flash drive of 8 GB or larger — it will be completely erased.
This walks you from zero to a running MX Linux desktop. Follow the numbered steps in order. Wherever your situation matters — Windows vs. Mac, or dual-boot vs. full-disk — you'll see a callout. If a callout doesn't apply to you, skip it and continue.
Go to the official site at mxlinux.org/download-links and grab the "MX-25.2_Xfce_ahs_x64" release (you will be redirected to SourceForge for the download. Save it to your Downloads folder or wherever you prefer.
Download balenaEtcher. Then:
After this, your computer may show the drive as unreadable or prompt you to "format" it; that's normal, just ignore it.
You need free space for MX to live in. On Windows, open Disk Management, right-click your main partition, choose Shrink Volume, and free up at least 30 GB (more if you'll use it seriously). Right click the free space and make a regular drive (MX will reformat it later). On an Intel Mac, use Disk Utility to add a second partition (or APFS volume) for Linux.
If you know your BIOS key, you can use that to boot into BIOS. A universal way to do it on Windows 11 is System > Recovery > Advanced Startup > click Restart Now. When it's restarted to the blue screen click Troubleshoot > Advanced Options > UEFI Firmware settings
In the BIOS menu, turn off Secure Boot if you have it. In the "Boot Order/Priority" list, move USB to the top. Note that this will boot any bootable USB (but not regular flash drives) instead of your OS, so you will want to eject the boot USB at the very end of this tutorial, or change BIOS settings back to boot from your main drive.
Save changes and exit BIOS. Your computer will boot the MX USB.
Shut down, then power on while holding the Option (⌥) key. Choose the USB drive (it may show as "EFI Boot") from the startup picker. If a newer Intel Mac refuses, you may need to allow external boot in the Startup Security Utility (boot into Recovery with ⌘+R).
At the MX boot menu, pick the "systemd" option if it is available. Otherwise, select the default option and let the live desktop load.
Before installing, take a minute in the live desktop to confirm the essentials work: Wi-Fi or Ethernet connects, the trackpad/keyboard respond, and audio plays. This is a no-risk way to make sure your hardware is supported. Plug in the charger if it's a laptop.
Double-click the Install MX Linux icon on the live desktop. Step through the language and keyboard screens. The next screen — disk layout — is the only one where data can be lost, so it gets its own step.
Choose auto-install using entire disk and select the target drive. Let the installer lay out the partitions. Tick the option to put /home on a separate partition — it lets you reinstall later without wiping your files. On a laptop, also enable full-disk encryption and set a strong passphrase; it's the one protection that survives the machine being stolen. This erases everything else on the drive.
Choose custom / customize disk layout instead of auto. Find the partition you made earlier, assign it as / (root). If you freed the space but didn't make a partition, it may not show up in the list. Click the gparted button in the bottom right and turn the free space into an ext4 partition. Importantly — do not reformat the existing EFI System Partition; point the installer (Use For > ESP) at it so it can add MX alongside your other OS. If you have trouble identifying the EFI partition, the red button on the right will show two new columns, one of them is "ESP" and the EFI partition will have a checkbox in that column. Leave the Windows or macOS partitions untouched.
If you chose to use gparted instead of the Windows disk util, there is a button in the bottom right of the customize screen to open gparted. After you shrink the existing OS partitition, right click and make the empty space ext4. It will then be available to use for / (root)
This YouTube video may be helpful for this step.
Accept the default option.
Install GRUB to "ESP". MX will detect your other OS and add it to the boot menu, so you'll get to choose at every startup.
Set a computer name (something simple like mx-laptop, no spaces), your username, and password — this logs you in and authorizes admin actions. Leave "Root (administrator) account" unchecked in most cases. It's just another password to remember. Review the summary screen, then click Apply and let it copy files.
When it finishes, shut down the live environment (instead of restarting. Restarting will boot back into USB), remove the boot USB and then power on.
You'll land on the GRUB menu — pick MX Linux or your other OS (it will auto-select after 10 seconds or so). Rare: if your original OS doesn't appear, boot MX, open a terminal, run sudo update-grub, and it should detect and add the stock Boot Manager.