antiX-forum

h2 has extended his smxi script to include options for antiX.
This means that you can upgrade your antiX-M7.2 to debian sid/sidux/both/neither, but get help with nvidia/ati drivers as well as upgrading if you wish to newer sidux kernels.
At the moment it is still in experimental stage, but I have found it to work really well.
You can also start with an antiX-base install and easily install kde-lite or full, xfce and othe desktop environments via the script.
I installed antiX-M7.2-base on a PIII 733 with 256 MB RAM, used the smxi script to install kde-lite and it is fast. (it needed tweaking to get the kde menu to show up properly)

Could users of antiX, particularly antiX-base test this out (non-critical boxes of course) and post results.

Edit: Get smxi script from here:
http://smxi.org/

I just added the sidux repo to my source list, install the scripts and then upgrade. Where can I read up on this script to see what it does? Is it just posted on the Sidux forums?

No need to add sidux repos eriefisher.

Get the script and info from here:

http://techpatterns.com/forums/about736.html

Thanks Anti, I ended up downloading with his one line install script. I tried to use it and install a new kernel from sidux but nothing. I thought sidux had a few newer kernels and the script would just add it to the list. The script went through without any errors and all looked ok then it asked If I wanted to use the new kernel to reboot now, so I did. It just booted up into a mepis kernel as usual. Is this correct? Am I looking for something that's not there?

I might try to push this laptop into sid/sidux if can figure it all out.

First thanks to anticapitalista for being brave enough to give this experiment a try and to consider smxi for antiX.

Installing smxi first time
To make smxi install easier, I created a new method that is simple:

First, test that you have unzip installed, by simply running any unzip command, like: unzip xyz

If it's installed, great, you're ready to proceed, if not:

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apt-get update;apt-get install unzip

Next, as root in console, execute this command string (downloads zip file, unzips, and starts smxi):

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cd /usr/local/bin; wget techpatterns.com/smxi.zip;unzip smxi.zip;smxi

That's it, the zip files contains smxi, sgfxi (the graphics installer module), and svmi. Note: svmi is NOT tested on antix, so any user feedback is welcome.

Alternate method, only installs smxi:

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cd /usr/local/bin; wget -Nc techpatterns.com/smxi; chmod +x smxi; smxi

This just downloads and makes executable the primary smxi core engine, and it will pull in anything else you run, like sgfxi or svmi, which can after that be started independently.

Quick explanation of core features

• smxi Debian system maintenance script home page
• sgfxi Debian Nvidia, ATI/fglrx and xorg graphics installer home page
• smxi/sgfxi/svmi support forums

smxi, svmi, and sgfxi all update themselves automatically, so you only need to install them once.

The scripts MUST be located in /usr/local/bin, otherwise weird and impossible to debug errors can and do arise, but they test that anyway. But please don't put them anywhere else then ask for support in the future if something goes wrong.

Except for -v and -h options, smxi and sgfxi must be run out of X, period. Doing an upgrade with your desktop / xorg running is long term system suicide, so sgfxi and smxi simply will not let you do it.

The -v option in smxi is a very useful one, it tells you a bunch of information about your system, like when the last upgrade with smxi was, last apt use, kernel version, etc.

smxi now offers a 3 level hold/warning system, for systems base Debian Stable, Debian Testing, and Debian Sid. An unconverted Antix would be system base Testing, and will not see warnings/holds that a Sid based system will see.

sgfxi usually has the latest nvidia / fglrx drivers the day of release, and often sgfxi has the latest nvidia betas as well, but only installable by manual option. Otherwise it detects your card automatically and downloads the correct nvidia driver and applies any patches.

Note: currently, sidux kernels that are new do NOT work with fglrx, sorry. I'm not sure about the Debian driver install method. Fglrx users should be very careful about updating their kernels, support is very weak. Since antix does not currently support vanilla debian sid kernels, which do work with fglrx drivers, you're basically out of luck, unless they install on the mepis kernel, if they do, let me know.

Also, debian testing systems nvidia debian method driver install is NOT working due to missing sources in testing.

AntiX + smxi issues and problems
Bugs I've found: when running antix + sid sources + sidux sources, a new sidux kernel install only works without vga=xxx (like 791) in /boot/grub/menu.lst, otherwise I get weird green blocks instead of console text output.

By the way, I liked antix's light but clean fluxbox so much that I added a fluxbox package group to smxi package install options, but don't use it, anticapitalista already has a really good package selection.

Other bugs are debian kernels failed to install at all, so antix users will not be given a debian kernel install option because it destroys the system in tests. At least not until that feature is debugged.

Re new kernels
Mepis/Antix appears to be using a non standard /boot/grub/menu.lst layout, and my tests show that the new kernels are NOT default as they should be, so you have to edit the default kernel directly in /boot/grub/menu.lst, or move down to the correct kernel when grub boot loader shows you the options on boot.

smxi support issues
Please post any smxi, or sgfxi/svmi issues, in the smxi support forums, it's more likely I'll see those posts. All real bug reports will be handled as quickly as I can get to them if there's enough data to figure out the issue.

If you post smxi/sgfxi related issues here, I am very likely to not see them at all because I only check these forums once in a while.

I want this to be VERY clear however, smxi use on AntiX is not a sidux support issue. smxi is an automomous project that has very close ties to sidux, and that's how I hope to keep it. So don't ask sidux people for support with smxi please, it's not fair to them, and it will just make them grouchy, heh heh...

smxi, sgfxi, and svmi are tested on Debian Stable, Debian Testing, sidux, and AntiX. I assume Debian Sid works fine too, although you should be aware that if you are going to run sid, it is highly recommended to use sidux sources (without running the conversion) because sidux injects hot fixes into Debian Sid directly when required, and smxi does not have those fixes in it, since they are often patched deb packages. Testing based distros should work totally fine for everyone. Stable I've found most major bugs, just have one or two more issues to handle.

Closing
I'd like to thank anticapitalista for giving me the excuse I was waiting for to finally put in the extended distro support model I'd been thinking about for the last 6 months. AntiX testing and debugging exposed a bunch of weak spots in smxi and sgfxi that I'm slowly working through, and all of which make smxi/sgfxi much more robust, dynamic, flexible scripts.

Remember, things will not be perfect, this is as Anticapitalista notes, experimental, so watch for problems.

Have fun with it.

<no current sid issues I'm aware of..>

Hi

I got 3 old laptops (target machines for antiX?) ive been messing with using debian netinstall and antix-base.

What can i offer to help test? All i've been doing is building Xfce on top of antiX base and removing some packages. Will be doing that at least a few more times in the coming week.... let me know what i can do.

is it basically a fresh install of antix-base. run the script - play with adding and removing packages - see how it goes and report anything here??

oh on a side note: anti... i cant seem to remove all trace of some packages in antix-base. off the top of my head i purged fluxbox, feh, and slim. some folders related to slim are left behind, and fluxbox is still there (although without the wallpaper)

Hi iamclueless,
"..is it basically a fresh install of antix-base. run the script - play with adding and removing packages - see how it goes and report anything here??"

Basically, yes. You can offer to test lots with antiX-base and smxi from 7.2.

Firstly you get to choose how you want antiX to be ie as is (Testing/stable), sid, sidux.
Using the script you can install a new sidux kernel. (for all options above, I think)
You can install a choice of desktop environments such as kde-full, kde-lite, xfce-full, xfce-lite, fvwm-crystal.
You can install ati/nvidia drivers direct.
Plus lots more!
(Note though not all options work as the script is still sidux specific and options are for sidux not debian or antiX)

To remove apps, I'd use a terminal

#apt-get remove --purge nameofapp

Don't remove fluxbox before you have installed a desktop environment or another windows manager though!

Couldn't he just drop to runlevel 3 and install one? I'm not a guru but that seems a possibility.
I had to do something similar on a recent sidux install that I messed up early on. I somehow lost xorg. At least that's what the system told me.

right. ill have a play later today

Yes lucky9 he could.
To drop to a shell to use smxi, I hit Ctrl Alt Bkspace, login as root, type smxi and smxi does the rest ie kills slim login manager and puts the system in init3.

I removed the init 3 thing today, it's not necessary, it will just kill whatever display manager it finds, kdm, gdm, slim, whatever, and x if x is still running after that.

All you have to do is ctrl + alt + f1, then login in as root and start smxi.

h2 wrote:I removed the init 3 thing today, it's not necessary, it will just kill whatever display manager it finds, kdm, gdm, slim, whatever, and x if x is still running after that.

All you have to do is ctrl + alt + f1, then login in as root and start smxi.

I have been starting it from roxterm and of course it ask if I want to kill x and I answer y. It then drops to a login promt and I log in as root and again run smxi. Once more I am told that I need to be out of x and ask if I want to kill x and I answer y. Then proceed as normal.

No more pretty colors??

Thanks h2! I love the way smxi works in sidux. Superb software for it.

I'm looking forward to using it on antiX. Did I see somewhere that it (except kernels) would work on Mepis?
I did see that Debian ought to be alright. Dang! Here I've already got the NVIDIA driver installed there.

antix-base on PIII

wow cant wait till this is officially on antix

did the dist-upgrade that went smooth.. it turned on all services though
did not add any kernels (wasnt allowed?)
changed mirrors (but no canadian one was available... there is one for sure)
tried the various package installers
kde installed
xfce and fvwm did not install - libpopler1 not available in the antix-base sources.list
This WM/DE feature is great... could antix base ever be without an X environment and this script lets you pick? or the mepis installer depends on having it?
java, skype, googleearth installed fine
but no flash (not in lenny repos AFIK.. and script doesnt go look in etch backports or sid)

any plans of multimedia codecs package?

big fan of the utilities and cleanup scripts.
remove modules is great... but it doesnt detect which one you actually have (ie. i could remove splashy and bluetooth 200 times)
Mozilla tweaks... not sure i noticed a difference... what did it actually do?

added the kernel remover... pulled in lots of packages... now cant remove kernel remover and associated files. Is there a way to reverse what the script installs???

sgfxi went fine (got an old unsupport card apparently)

as far as i can tell so far... i have what appears to be a stable antix-kde