antiX-forum

Hi everyone,

I'm new to antiX, & to linux in general, so please bear with me. I'll appreciate any efforts you make to explain things in detail & in simple language. Just assume I don't know anything about linux.

I've searched both this forum & the one on mepislovers & haven't found any answers to most of my questions, but please direct me to any instructions for antiX beginners you know of.

I've just installed the 7.01 version of antiX onto an old (2000, I think) Toshiba Satellite 2800 (a laptop) w/ a 36 gig harddrive & 186 megs of ram. Not sure what kind of processor it has or how to find out (there's not sticker indicating that).

By the way, I just noticed there's now a 7.2 version of antiX so i'm downloading that now & plan to see if that will solve some of my problems.

So my first question is how to keep iceweasel from closing every time i hit shift or tab. I can access the internet via iceweasel, but every time i hit the shift or tab key the browser closes, so now i'm using another computer just to post this message.

The second, more important question is how can I open the synaptic? When i select the synaptic, the terminal comes up & ask for my password, but whether i type the root password or my user password, the terminal just closes.

The third question is how can i open abiword & several of the other applications already installed on antiX. Some of the applications open & some don't. Like I said, iceweasel opens, as do a few others, but when i select some of them - for example abiword - it will act like it's going to open (what do you call that screen that comes up when an application is about to open w/ the application's name on it? well that will open) for a few seconds, & then it just disappears. (I've checked under the various "workspaces" & it's not there.)

Let me end this for now w/ a final question (there are others, but they can wait): how can i access an external harddrive plugged into a USB drive? I tried this a few months ago & it seems like I found them hiding in some random folder like "media" but I wasn't able to find them this time.

Thanks for your help.

Update: I downloaded & burned the new version of antiX (7.2) in the same way i did 7.01, but my computer's not booting from it (it sounds like it's trying to read the disc for a few seconds, then gives up & boots from the installed version). I've checked & the iso did burn properly, & my computer did manage to boot & install from the 7.01 disc just a few hours ago. Does 7.2 require a more powerful computer? (I used this one).

Your hardware should be ok. No idea why 7.01 is misbehiving. Can you su to root? (actually try sux instead of su, then you can try launching synaptic form the (root) command line).

As for 7.2, I suggest try another mirror. Also possible your blank was marginal, so might try a reburn.

Something sounds wrong. I agree that 7.01 did not ship with that many errors. It could be that you have a perfectly good download, but a bad burn. Usually I burn isos at a max speed of 10x.

john

Thanks for the suggestions, thinkpada21.

I reburnt 7.2 using Brasero & at the lowest speed. The first time i tried booting from the new disk & it worked - at first. Abiword opened, i was able to use iceweasel without any problems. I couldn't find the synaptic, & as I was looking for it (i may have opened iceweasel again - can't remember), the computer froze, & it sounded like it was having trouble reading the disk. So i tried to re-boot, but since then i haven't been able to boot from the disk again.

I went back into 7.01 (which is installed on the computer), went into the terminal and entered su root, got the root, but when i entered "synaptic" i got the message "segmentation fault." What does that mean? "synaptic" is the right command isn't it?

At that point i was thinking the problem might be my dvd drive, so i tried booting from a Tinyme disk just to see if it would work, & it did. So i just installed that & plan to stick with it for now. But if that turns out not to work out for some reason, i may give antiX another shot. In any case it may benefit other users if anyone has any more suggestions about these problems.

Just saw your message OU812. Yes, you're probably right it's a bad burn. Or do you think it could have messed up during the installation process due to my dvd drive being old?

I wish I knew. I also wish anti was back as he knows a lot more about booting antix than I do. I'm sure he'd tell you exactly how to get the cd to boot on your box. In the meantime, try some of the other options - perhaps you just need to choose a lighter option for your box.

john

I wish I knew. I also wish anti was back as he knows a lot more about booting antix than I do. I'm sure he'd tell you exactly how to get the cd to boot on your box. In the meantime, try some of the other options - perhaps you just need to choose a lighter option for your box.

john

Any time I had a seg fault I found the burn was bad or the download was corrupt. Try to start fresh and I think you will be ok.