Swift Linux 0.1.2 (based on antiX Linux M11) is now available at http://www.swiftlinux.org. There are two plain vanilla editions (Diet Swift Linux and Regular Swift Linux) and three special editions (Taylor Swift Linux, Minnesota Swift Linux, and Chicago Swift Linux).

Swift Linux is lightweight, user-friendly, and fully compatible with the large Debian software repository. No other distro can compete with Swift Linux on all three of these criteria. If you wish that Puppy Linux had a large software repository, or if you wish that Linux Mint could be as lightweight as Puppy Linux, then this is the distro for you.

Swift Linux gives that old computer a new lease on life! Windows XP support ends on April 8, 2014. Instead of spending hundreds of dollars on a new computer or slowing down your old computer with a costly and bloated "upgrade", make the REAL UPGRADE to Swift Linux.

P.S. Swift Linux NEEDS more developers! The version control system is GitHub (https://github.com/swiftlinux), and the bug/goal tracker is Launchpad.net (https://launchpad.net/swiftlinux). I have refactored the source code so that each major function has its own repository (instead of cramming everything into one repository). I have implemented Python scripts for transforming Diet Swift Linux into Regular Swift Linux and the special editions. There are even Python scripts that automatically generate scripts for building Regular Swift Linux and the special editions.

Thanks to the Swift devs for this one! I'm definitely interested in 0.1.2 and will try to download it soon. Swift 0.1.1 was good.

I find that Mint's getting harder to run for those of us with older computers (I've got a 10-year old Pentium 3 with a 866 MHz CPU). I managed fine with Mint 8, but Mint 10 was starting to get difficult and trying to install Mint 11 in only 512 MB of RAM (especially trying to set the timezone!) was a nightmare. IMO it really needs 768 MB or even 1 GB of RAM.

I still use and like Puppy though.

Best,

CP .

Colonel Panic:



Please let me know how well Swiftlinux performs on this hardware, compared to Mint 11 (did you hear about Mint LMDE?) and to antiX M11

By the way I plan to deliver a Pecos antiX Linux Edition for Roky's birthday

Cheers

Thanks for replying.

It was Mint LXDE I was trying to install I'll let you know what happens with 0.1.2, but 0.1.1. seems to run OK on this computer.

The Pecos AntiX edition sounds good.

Best,

CP .

CP:
Nice of you for taking this in good part

Never tried Ubuntu derivatives since I left Ubuntu. I believed that switching to a debian base would have made Mint lighter

Cheers

Wow. I am overwhelmed. If help is needed with any of my limited skillset. let me know.

What is Pecos antiX Linux? Is it a special edition in the spirit of Hannah Montana Linux, Taylor Swift Linux, and Justin Bieber Puppy Linux?

Apologies for the misunderstanding. I thought you meant Mint LXDE edition rather than Mint Debian (Edition).

I've tried the Debian edition, but it didn't install very many extra applications - too many broken libraries. And then when I tried to do a system upgrade to sort it out, it wanted to download 650 MB of files.... I can download the new version of Swift for that.

CP .

Colonel Panic:

Sorry, I meant LXDE (featuring LXDE),

I'm just reading now a review at linuxbsdos.com



Swiftlinuxcreator:

AntiX linux Pecos,Texas Edition

will be a custom antiX edition with tons of Harley Davidson wallpapers, special sound effects, direct link to West of the Pecos Museum http://www.westofthepecosmuseum.com in iceape, and a brand new C++0xB compiler (for hackers), and much more...

Thanks for replying, nothing to apologise for. The problem I have in installing Mint LXDE on my computer is down to its only having 512 MB of RAM; the installer hangs as soon as I try to set the time zone.

Mint would do well IMO to have a choice between a text-based or a graphics-based installer, just as Vector (Linux) has.

I've got a reasonable amount of hard drive space (30 GB) so that's not a problem, though like most people these days I'd like more.

Best,

CP .

(BTW, on the Pecos antiX variant; I'm British but two of my cousins have got Harleys and I've seen and enjoyed Easy Rider, so that's why it looks good ).

I've downloaded and am now running Swift 0.1.2 It's great to see that something still runs on this old machine, and with a good range of apps too.

Still got a couple of questions though, mostly about package management.

Thanks for the hard work,

CP .

Package management can wait. I've tried to install Swift 0.1.2 to my hard drive but unfortunately the installer won't launch (it did on 0.1.1). Can anyone please tell me how to fix this?

Thanks in advance,

CP .

Colonel Panic - I have no idea what changes have been made to create swiftlinux from antiX-M11 so I guess you'll have to wait for Jason H. to pop in and help, or try the swiftlinux forum (if it exists).

Open a terminal, sux to root and type minstall. What happens?

Anticapitalista, I tried again and managed to install it the second time. I'm now posting from Swift 0.1.2 installed on my hard drive

Apologies if I've wasted anyone's time here, but it was a case of "second time lucky." I tried to install Swift 0.1.2 again and it installed properly from the live desktop, so I'm not sure what went wrong the first time. The box which is supposed to lead you through the process just didn't appear for some reason whereas it did this time.

Thanks for the instructions about what to do next time if there's a problem though (open a terminal, etc.)

Cheers,

Colonel Panic.

Colonel Panic, I'm glad you were able to get version 0.1.2 to install on your computer.

I'm not sure why the installation window didn't show up that one time you tried to install Swift Linux, as it never failed to show up during my installations.

That said, old equipment sometimes behaves in strange ways with modern operating systems. The 11-year-old computer (467 MHz Pentium II) I gave away earlier this year didn't work with antiX Linux on a CD-RW. antiX Linux did work with a CD-R and with Puppy Linux on a CD-R or CD-RW. I never did find out why the antiX/CD-RW combination was problematic.

The CRT monitor that I disposed of at Best Buy earlier this year also had a strange quirk specific to antiX Linux. If I tried to boot up antiX Linux with the monitor turned off or connected to a different computer (through a KVM switch), I found when I switched back to the computer booting antiX Linux that the monitor would be dark and all of its lights at the bottom would be flashing. But when I rebooted AND kept the monitor on and connected to the computer, antiX Linux booted up with no problems at all.

I suspect that the developers of upstream distros or possibly even the Linux kernel decide to omit drivers for old equipment that they don't expect people to still be using.