Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Karabiner VS MX Linux

Compare Karabiner VS MX Linux and see what are their differences

Note: These products don't have any matching categories. If you think this is a mistake, please edit the details of one of the products and suggest appropriate categories.

Karabiner logo Karabiner

Karabiner, previously called KeyRemap4MacBook, is a very powerful keyboard remapper for Mac OS X.

MX Linux logo MX Linux

MX Linux is an operating system - a cooperative venture between the antiX and former MEPIS...
  • Karabiner Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-10-06
  • MX Linux Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-07-26

Karabiner features and specs

  • Customizability
    Karabiner-Elements allows users to remap keys and create complex keyboard configurations that can greatly enhance productivity and convenience.
  • Open Source
    Being an open-source tool, Karabiner-Elements is free to use and comes with the potential for community contributions and transparency in development.
  • Flexibility
    The tool supports a wide range of devices and configurations, making it adaptable to various user needs and setups.
  • Ease of Use
    The user interface is designed to be intuitive, allowing both novice and experienced users to easily configure and remap their keyboards.
  • Regular Updates
    The tool is actively maintained with regular updates, ensuring compatibility with the latest macOS versions and adding new features.

Possible disadvantages of Karabiner

  • Compatibility Issues
    Some users may experience compatibility issues with certain applications or hardware, potentially causing unexpected behavior.
  • Learning Curve
    Although the interface is intuitive, mastering its full range of features, especially for complex configurations, can require a steep learning curve.
  • System Performance
    On occasion, Karabiner-Elements may consume significant system resources, which could impact overall system performance.
  • Limited Platform Support
    As of now, Karabiner-Elements only supports macOS, limiting its utility for users on other operating systems such as Windows or Linux.
  • Potential for Errors
    Incorrect configuration or updates may lead to errors in key mappings, which can disrupt the user experience until resolved.

MX Linux features and specs

  • User-Friendly
    MX Linux offers a highly intuitive and easy-to-use interface, making it a great choice for beginners who might be new to Linux.
  • Performance
    The distribution is lightweight and optimized to run smoothly even on older hardware, ensuring good performance.
  • Stability
    Built on the Debian Stable base, MX Linux is known for its robustness and reliability, providing fewer system crashes and bugs.
  • Customization
    MX Linux allows extensive customization, enabling users to tailor their system’s appearance and functionality to their liking.
  • MX Tools
    The distribution includes a unique set of tools, such as MX Snapshot and MX Package Installer, that enhance user experience by simplifying complex tasks.
  • Community Support
    MX Linux has an active and helpful community, offering extensive forums and documentation to assist users in troubleshooting and optimizing their systems.

Possible disadvantages of MX Linux

  • Slower Updates
    Being based on Debian Stable, MX Linux may not have the latest software and feature updates, lagging behind more cutting-edge distributions.
  • Limited Software Availability
    The software repositories, although extensive, may not have as wide a selection as some other distros, requiring users to sometimes rely on external sources.
  • Aesthetic
    While functional and customizable, the default look and feel might not be as polished as some other distributions designed with visual aesthetics in mind.
  • Learning Curve for Advanced Customization
    While it is user-friendly for basic tasks, more advanced customization and optimization may require a steeper learning curve for those unfamiliar with Linux internals.
  • Hardware Compatibility
    Though generally good, there can be occasional issues with hardware compatibility, especially with very new or very old devices.

Analysis of Karabiner

Overall verdict

  • Karabiner-Elements is considered a good tool for macOS users seeking to customize their keyboard. Its reliability, versatility, and active community support make it a valuable addition to any power user's toolkit.

Why this product is good

  • Karabiner-Elements is highly regarded for its ability to customize and remap keyboard keys on macOS. It offers a powerful and flexible suite of features that allow users to tailor their keyboard setup to their specific needs, enhancing productivity and ergonomics. With an intuitive interface and extensive documentation, both novice and advanced users can benefit from its functionality.

Recommended for

  • Developers who need custom keyboard shortcuts.
  • Mac users experiencing discomfort with standard keyboard layouts.
  • Professionals requiring specific keybindings for software applications.
  • Users transitioning from Windows or Linux who want to emulate key behaviors from those systems.

Karabiner videos

REVIEW: Should you play the Vetterli 71 Karabiner? [Hunt Gun Review #1]

More videos:

  • Review - Vim screencast #59: Karabiner Elements
  • Review - Evolution of the Karabiner 98k, From Prewar to Kriegsmodell

MX Linux videos

MX Linux 19.1 Xfce Review | Distro Delves S2:Ep9

More videos:

  • Review - REVIEW: MX LINUX 19 : "BLAZING FAST!"
  • Review - Why is MX Linux So Popular?

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Karabiner and MX Linux)
Automation
100 100%
0% 0
Linux
0 0%
100% 100
Note Taking
100 100%
0% 0
Operating Systems
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

Share your experience with using Karabiner and MX Linux. For example, how are they different and which one is better?
Log in or Post with

Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Karabiner and MX Linux

Karabiner Reviews

We have no reviews of Karabiner yet.
Be the first one to post

MX Linux Reviews

Top 9 Fastest Linux Distros in 2024
MX Linux is a mid-weight distro that uses the Xfce desktop environment. It is known for its stability, ease of use, and performance.
Source: linuxsimply.com
10 Most Popular Linux Distros of the Year 2023
MX Linux is always able to make its place in our list when it comes to selecting the best mid-weight Linux distros. Out of the box it uses a lightweight XFCE desktop environment and being built on Debian, stability is always not an issue. The user-friendly approach to this distro and multiple sources to install popular Linux packages make it an excellent choice for old and...
The best Linux distributions (operating systems)
MX Linux is based on Debian and is suitable for use on older and less powerful computers because of its slim Xfce desktop. Compared to other professional Linux distributions, MX Linux is much more user-friendly. However, because of its many options it is also an interesting distribution for experienced users.
Source: www.ionos.com

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Karabiner should be more popular than MX Linux. It has been mentiond 273 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Karabiner mentions (273)

  • Ergonomic Mac Keyboard Setup
    I use Karabiner as the driver for keyboard customizations. Karabiner intercepts hardware keystrokes and sends keystrokes to the computer allowing me to configure Karabiner to have a flexible setup and map key(s) presses to other keys(s) or commands. - Source: dev.to / 26 days ago
  • Recommended Software for Mac that You cannot Miss
    This software is free and can be downloaded from the official website; it’s also open-source, so you can find it on GitHub Releases. - Source: dev.to / 8 months ago
  • Ask HN: What macOS apps/programs do you use daily and recommend?
    Besides the usual Firefox/Chrome, Spotify, etc I use the following: - Karabiner-Elements for key remapping, specifically, for making caps lock into ctrl/esc. I don't know of anything else that does this job. Everyone who remaps keys seems to use this. - Kitty as my terminal of choice. I spend most of my time logged in remotely to a server via ssh where I attach to a tmux session. Kitty was easy enough to... - Source: Hacker News / 12 months ago
  • Ask HN: What macOS apps/programs do you use daily and recommend?
    If I had to recommend 1 app/script that I use daily: https://github.com/banga/git-split-diffs) to disable things like "Apple + Q" -> nothing worse than going to close a single tab and then your whole app quits. Also able to re-map caps-lock into escape, ect `iterm2` for terminal (colored tabs are great; albeit I disable the hell out of many of the options like "clickable urls" ect) for cli, I try to gnu... - Source: Hacker News / 12 months ago
  • Ask HN: What if we wrote HTML with [brackets][/brackets]?
    I have been using Karabiner elements (https://karabiner-elements.pqrs.org), they allow keyboard customization, I have switched the colon and semicolon key, by default without pressing shift, the key will output colon (:) , I find this useful as I type lot of colon daily. Maybe you can use this software to set "<" and ">" to be the default text output without using Shift. - Source: Hacker News / over 1 year ago
View more

MX Linux mentions (91)

  • Linux market share approaching 4.5% for first time, could hit 5% by 1Q25
    Does one really care? Have you looked at https://www.clearlinux.org/ https://github.com/clearlinux https://github.com/CachyOS https://github.com/MX-Linux ? Would they lack anything? I picked these three specifically because I tested them recently on new hardware I got. What they have in common is their focus on encapsulating 4. For mere mortals, while not doing 5, or at... - Source: Hacker News / 9 months ago
  • Ask HN: What if I don't want constant OS upgrades?
    I like Manjaro XFCE, it's rolling updates so it's as packages come out you can update to the newest (it pulls latest from github, but has other repos) if you want oldschool oldschool, check out antiX linux, MX Linux is based on AntiX but looks semi-better, they're based on Debian. Remember though, debian is like 5 package versions behind, because that's what they do with their auditing for stability. MX Linux has... - Source: Hacker News / 9 months ago
  • what happened to my linux mint laptop and how do I fix it?
    If you want something new you probably want to aim light. I'd opt for AntiX full version as it's very light, stable and comes with a variety of lightweight desktops, themes and other stuff to choose from at login. The sister project MXLinux could also be worth a look for a more traditional system, but I'd try the Fluxbox option to keep things light. Source: about 2 years ago
  • Installing MX Linux
    I'm getting an error of - Could not find file antiX/linuxfs - searched devices /dev/sdc1 /dev/sdb1 etc. Gives me an ooption to contact Bitjam at mxlinux.org and then says P=power off, r=reboot. I've tried to look around but I'm not finding any details on what's going on. There was a mention of bad hardware, but if my other ISO's are booting no problem I dont think that is the issue. Source: about 2 years ago
  • Arch, void or something else entirely?
    I thought I would never say this, but I think you should try the KDE edition of https://mxlinux.org/. Source: about 2 years ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Karabiner and MX Linux, you can also consider the following products

BTT Remote - A remote control for you Mac, using your iPhone or iPad

Linux Mint - Linux Mint is one of the most popular desktop Linux distributions and used by millions of people.

Rectangle - Window management app based on Spectacle, written in Swift.

Manjaro - Manjaro Linux is a linux distribution which is based on arch linux. It uses the PACMAN package manager.

SteerMouse - Advanced driver for USB and Bluetooth mouses.

Fedora - Fedora creates an innovative, free, and open source platform for hardware, clouds, and containers that enables software developers and community members to build tailored solutions for their users.