antiX-forum

After trying to convert some of my friends from the dark side, they have thrown down the gauntlet. They have given me an old PC with a Pentium II 350 MHz processor & 7.5 GB drive and challenged me to put the (approx) 1,000 books from the church library onto the computer. And it should be good, not just be an ugly half-assed hack job. I am familiar with and use Mepis, but thought I should use something a little lighter weight. I have installed AntiX on the computer and it sure looks different than Mepis. So I have some questions: Since it will be just a stand alone computer and have just one job to do, is there a way to just install a base system then just add the parts I need? I installed Antix 8.0, but didn't see that as an option. I did have to use the vesa option, acpi=force and set the resolution to 800 x 600. I know there are lots of things loaded, that will not be needed. But maybe, it won't matter as most of programs won't be used. How do I limit a user to just one program, but allow another user to be a normal user? That is: one user can only search the book file, but another user can update the book file. And I guess I'll have to learn how to use the window manager.

There is a base version, antix8-base that may be what you are looking for since it's much lighter than the full version. It should allow you to add whatever programs you want. Here's the link:

ftp://mirror.cs.vt.edu/pub/MEPIS/antix

I hope this helps.

Pedro

Plvera - Thanks, I knew I had seen a base system somewhere. It had been awhile, and I guess I just assumed that was part of the install. I have now downloaded it and will re-install. Thanks

Topher wrote:How do I limit a user to just one program, but allow another user to be a normal user? That is: one user can only search the book file, but another user can update the book file.

If there is only going to be on user(everybody) then you could make the "book file" belong to root. This way it can be read by everybody but only edited as root.

As for something to catalog book, may I recommend GCstar. It can keep track of many thing things such as books, movies, comics etc and even wine.

Thanks eriefisher. I didn't look at GCstar as it only said it was for managing a movie collection. But I will download it and try it out. So far I am very impressed with Tellico, but it does depend upon KDE. I have about 125 books loaded to really play with the program, and so far it looks good. But I need to load those books about 10 more times to see how the response will be within the program. One of my wife's friends used to own a small book store and wanted to see the program. When I showed her the program, she was impressed and said it looked very similar to the program she used to use in her store, except she was connected to an outside database to be able to sell books online. Anyway, I was thinking that maybe I could configure the window manger to only allow the casual user to only be able to access the book program (sort of like a kiosk application). Then have the full menu available for the librarian login to be able to the adds, loans, backups, etc. I don't know enough about window managers to know what can be done. I don't know if I can have the window manager set up differently for different users. Any help or tips will be greatly appreciated.

I see another book cataloguing application in synaptic called "alexandria." It's a gnome application, which sometimes run easier in antiX (requiring fewer libraries than KDE).

Thanks malanrich, but I've already shown them Tellico - running with Mepis7. After seeing Tellico, Alexandria would be a disappointment to them. I actually looked at it first. Tellico actually runs OK on Mepis, but I only have 120 books loaded. They have 1,100 - 1,200 books. I don't think I'll see a significant drop in performance, but I'll see. Where everything really drags is any thing else that is done, which is why I am planning on AntiX. What is interesting is with 120 books the database is 443.7 KB with the picture of the front cover and if we get rid of the pictures, then the data base shrinks to 18.6 KB.

Good job if you've got Tellico going. Let us know how well it's handled by antiX if you make the switch...