antiX-forum

I now have four working systems, and possibly one or two others I could get working if I ever need to test ancient stuff.

The four systems are:

1. Dell Dimension 4100 desktop with a 40 GB and 80 GB Western Digital hard drives. Until about a year ago this was my only every day system. Now it is more of a test box. I have antiX there and a lot of other test distros.

2. Compaq/HP D530 desktop with an 80 GB hard drive (don't know the brand off hand, but it is probably Western Digital). I was considering using this box as a replacement for the 4100 above, but I have a need three times a week to use FrontPage XP, which I use for a second job as a mailing list editor. XP would not support all of my hardware - including the networking hardware, so this became a Linux and BSD test box. Despite its age, it is reasonably fast and well configured with 1 GB of memory and a 2.8 GHz processor, so it makes a great Linux test box. I test MEPIS, antiX, sidux, Mandriva, and multiple flavors of Ubuntu on this box - which has managed to become one of my main Ubuntu test boxes.

Between these two desktops alone, I have over a dozen test instances of software, mostly, but not exclusively, Debian based distros. I also have Arch Linux and PC-BSD well represented.

My other two boxes are ones I have acquired this year. The first, a Dell Latitude D600, refurbished, has 1 GB of memory and it runs sidux and Windows XP. This was my every day system, a laptop. I love sidux because it really is Debian Sid on steroids and mood stabilizers! This system used to get a ton of use; rarely used now because of the disk problem.

My latest box, a laptop I actually bought new (first new computer I have been able to afford since 2001) is a Lenovo 3000 Model Y410 with 2 GB of memory and a 160 GB hard drive. I have Vista, sidux, antiX, Kubuntu, and Mandriva on this system. I am using it as a fast test box and as a way to quickly start up, read my Email, clean up the junk and get off. antiX is awesome on this box!

sidux is my every day system because it does absolutely everything that I want it to do. With the latest antiX bits from the upcoming 7.5 project, antiX could really fit the bill as well. Because of the way I have things set up and because I like sidux so much, I stick with it as my number one system, but antiX has moved up into a VERY strong second position, and I use it almost as often as I use sidux, since, at least when smxi and sid-ified it can do all of the same things. antiX is my clear winner when I want to use a carry around Live CD with either of my two laptops or my work laptop (on which I cannot install personal software).

Since I first wrote this note, I picked up a used Gateway PA6A 17" laptop, but I really use it like a desktop - have it sitting on the same desk as the 4100 and D530, and by far I use it the most.

The D600 has a failing disk and I use antiX live to boot the system, then either run antiX M8.0 live with aufs and toram enabled, or I chainloader +1 boot it into XP to run Front Page XP for my part time mailing list job. Where it used to be my main desktop, it is now just an XP access point for the most part. The Gateway now gets most of the work.

As of March 2009, the Gateway box has openSUSE 11.1, Debian Lenny, PCLinuxOS, Crunchbang (#!) Linux, antiX, sidux, Kubuntu, and SimplyMEPIS.

The Lenovo has a sid-ified version of antiX and it continues to work well.

Being a non techy kind of guy I have numerous installs on different boxes so I can learn new things at my own pace.

Desktop IBM M41(runs wirelessly from my motorcycle shop to house) with ancient Compaq CRT ($3.00 from Goodwill), running Mint 6 on it at present time with Puppy Dingo. Testing out a DVD for buddy from the link below is why these 2 distros are on this box at present. Plus it teaches me how to be not afraid of using root when in Puppy. Also helps in teaching me about using a Minimal Desktop environment.
http://tazbuntu.blogspot.com/2009/02/15%20...%20x-dvd.html
Don't know why the link isn't posting correctly but it will eventually take you to the Authors site. The post is about a 15 in one Multiboot DVD I am testing out for him. Just continue by going to blog homepage.

IBM M57, Dedicated Ubuntu 8.04 LTS box. I use this distro like some people eat comfort food. I just feel comfortable with Gnome/XFCE. I also installed a LXDE Desktop to learn me a few things also. I don't run this one wireless at the moment. Its My main Desktop in the house. It just works perfect.

Ibm T23, Windows 2000 Pro (for running Bike tuning software) 10 gig, and 70 gig Xubuntu 8.10. Only have 256 mb of ram in this one but am looking to find a compatible 1 gig stick of ram for it. Just made enough money to afford one. It runs wireless Belkin F5D 7010 PCMCIA.

Panasonic CF-48 Toughbook - Dual boot Ubuntu 8.04 LTS (notice something yet?) and NimbleX 2008 . Runs Wireless with internal PCI Intel Card.

Amrel RT 686 EX. My favorite laptop. I can pack it in Saddle bags. Run though +100F temps. Doesn't faze it a bit. 900 mhz, 256 mb ram, 40 gig HD. 4 hours of wireless battery life running AntiX 7.5 and am toying with the idea of trying out AntiX 8 on a separate Partition. I got everything I need working in 7.5 so I wish to leave it be. Tried out running Zenwalk on it for awhile but I guess I am not ready to master Slackwares way of doing things yet. Maybe later when I get better at Linux.

Compaq 1540 DM, P144 hz, 64 mb ram, 2 gig hardrive. Blew away Windows 95. What else but Damn Small Linux 4 running Xircom Wired PCMCIA Dongle for Internet.
Mainly just a toy for learning Damn Small, but I got it connected when I wish. Dillo is fast on it. Firefox runs like a diesel truck. Slow to get started, then chugs along.

Thats all my toys, and the laptops right now, plus the IBM M41, are mostly teaching tools for me at present except for the T23 which I use for tuning Bikes. As soon as I get some 1 gig sticks of ram for the panasonic and IBM laptops I am gonna shift around what I use for tuning Bikes. I have another Amrel RT 686 Laptop with a 6 gig HD(runs Xubuntu 8.10 at present time) I will Probably ghost over the Windows 2000 Pro over to after I get all my goals and messes and projects sorted out. Like I said, I am just teaching myself the ins and outs of using Linux and when I have to use Windows for any reason it feels a little creepy anymore. Kinda like getting on a Jap Bike.

At present Deb 2.2 on 486-dx66 (console mode on 2 of them)
Mint XFCE on HP dv1000 laptop-tried it out and found it had some better features than Ubuntu.
Ubuntu 8.10 on this one because everything just worked.
AntiX 8 base just installed on same computer on another partition and decided I like the speed and tweakability.
And about 20 live CDs I run to check out other distros.

For work, Antix is ONLY Linux system because it follows the Golden Means: lean yet "basically" complete and beautiful, while immediately usable once installed and still customizable if needed:
1) Just don't want to built the system up from the scratch like e.g. Arch or use huge and cumbersome "all-in-one" distros like *buntu or even Mepis;
2) good choice of icewm as default: KDE and Gnome and nowadays XFCE are too big; other WMs like those *boxes are a bit too "primitive".
For life, windows XP: 1) games; 2) many many $MS-only web applications and services ; 3) outdated hardware compatibility
For server, freebsd...

I have 6 pcs and after AntiX was established on one system I began to test some other distros. More and more I was really impressed from the clear structure of slackware and/or slackware-based forks. From my point of view it's also not difficult to install a complete new app from the source with slackware. if You want, You can use package-managmenttools like slapt-get, which are working in the same way as apt-get but I prefer the native slacky tools like pkgtool and/or the source with my manual control of the dependencies

so today my major-use pcs are working with

slackware64 -current rc1
slackware 12.2 -current (just migrating to slackware 13 rc1)
wolvix (a fork from slackware 12.2)
fluxflux-sl (a german fork from slackware 12.2 especially for notebooks & netbooks)

WinXP on the Acer Aspire One from my wife




...and of course one system still with AntiX

I have LinuxMint-7 (Gnome) on my PC

and Anti-X M8 (IceWM) on my laptop.

Do I need any others? I think not.

Used to be a distro hopping junkie starting with Linux Mandrake 6.0 wayback in 98, have used all sorts of linux deb based, rpm based, slack based. My two favorite goto distros for speed and non bloat are the slackware based Vector Linux 6.0 and of course antiX 8.2.

What I would like to do utimately is set up the realtime kernel under antiX so I can have a digital audio workstation (DAW). I know there are audio centric distros available and for a long time I was using the Planet CCRMA apps in Fedora to accomplish this.

So any advice here would be most helpful.

Thankx,
Robert

I have a AMD-athlon 1500 computer, with three partitions. On the first partition I have Antix 'Intifada!', which I siduxed recently using smxi. It's the main distribution, that is also used by my wife and children. The second partition contains a stripped down version of Slackware 12.2 with Fluxbox. I use a fluxbox-theme that is called 'another_day' and that is created -I believe- by Impuwat (great job, beautiful design!). Slackware forces me, more than Antix which is more beginner-friendly, to adjust scripts and to dive into the system. I am far from technical but I like to get familiar with Linux as far as I can get, and with Slackware there is so much to learn. I think Arch would still be to difficult for me. The last partition is for swap.