However, MX rely on their own custom versions of systemd, udev and GRUB so simply adding the repositories will cause those packages to be favoured over the native buster versions, which isn't ideal.
To solve this problem the MX repositories can be assigned an APT pin value of 100 so that they are treated in the same way as the backports repositories — packages are not automatically updated to unless they are explicitly installed from there (eg, by using the --target option).
To do this create a file at /etc/apt/preferences.d/mxlinux with this content:
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Package: *
Pin: release a=mx
Pin-Priority: 100
Now add the MX-19 repositories to /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mxlinux.list, here is the content of that file:
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deb http://mxrepo.com/mx/repo buster main non-free
To gain access to MX's new Advanced Hardware Support (AHS) repository also add this line:
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deb http://mxrepo.com/mx/repo buster ahs
Then update the package database:
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# apt update
This will return an error to the effect that the MX repositories are unverified and so will not be trusted, the message will name their GPG key (hereafter referred to as $mx_gpg_key).
To add the key first download it from the keyservers:
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gpg --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys $mx_gpg_key
Then add it to APT's key list:
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# gpg -a --export $mx_gpg_key | apt-key add -
Now update again:
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# apt update
The MX repositories should now be trusted
Alternatively, download the mx19-archive-keyring .deb package and install that.
Once the above steps are completed it should be possible to install packages from MX Linux, for example:
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# apt install mx-datetime
If a package is needed from MX that also exists in the Debian buster repositories then use the --target option, like this (replace $package with the actual name of the desired package):
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# apt install --target mx $package
To list all MX Linux packages use
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aptitude search '?archive(mx)'
To list all installed MX Linux packages use
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aptitude search '?narrow(?installed, ?archive(mx))'
Warning
I haven't tested this extensively and it is possible that some MX packages may conflict with the native Debian ecosystem so please be sure to conduct a full system backup before trying this.
If any problems are encountered then please bump this thread to alert others, I can always have it removed if it proves to be a terrible idea.
