Hello jhsu,

Glad you like the changes to antiX and that we have made it easier to use our apps/features on Swift Linux. jwm was chosen because someone requested it, and it is light on resources and tiny in size.

I changed to include Libreoffice in antiX-full as, again, most users seem to use it rather than Abiword/gnumeric and with the xz compression it still easily fits on a cd. I removed Asian fonts, initially before the xz compression was used. I might put them (or some of them) back on the cd for final. In fact, if the final size of the iso with Asian fonts included is still below 700MB, then I'm 99% certain to include them.

For users that want a more basic set up, antiX-base should be chosen and then it is up to the user whether to install LibreOffice or Abiword/gnumeric for example. That is more of an option for more experienced users.
Still, antiX-full has a lot of apps crammed into it and still fits on a cd.

Have you tried our puppy-like persistence? We have worked really hard on this so antiX will probably the first Debian-based live/install distro with persistence and remastering of persistence that is also 100% Debian compatible.

Any comments on SpaceFM?

I like it, though I prefer rox TBH. I think SpaceFM will be (and in a lot of ways already is) what pcmanfm/thunar almost acheived, but didn't quite make it.

anticapitalista wrote:Any comments on SpaceFM?

I like it, though I prefer rox TBH. I think SpaceFM will be (and in a lot of ways already is) what pcmanfm/thunar almost achieved, but didn't quite make it.

So far, SpaceFM has worked fine for me in my testing. Rox and PCManFM seem to work fine for my purposes. Thunar does, with one exception. Unless they have fixed a long standing bug, if you mount an external USB hard drive, then run some stuff from it, the file handles seem to stick open, making it impossible to completely close the device unless you manually kill the Thunar image. I've not seen that with other file managers; too bad, I otherwise tend to use Xfce a lot, but I call up another file manager when I want to do that kind of thing. Did not run into issues with SpaceFM, but I have not yet run it through all possible scenarios. I have used it to execute images; I like to run my own Firefox and Seamonkey Nightly Builds, and executing them with SpaceFM worked fine.

When I installed antiX 12.0 Test 2, I installed over my previous installation without reformatting or repartitioning. For the most part, it worked well, but I have had to constantly baby sit the wireless settings, and I have not quite found exactly what needs to be set or reset. So, both to fix that and also to do further testing, I am going to reinstall the full version and overwrite the entire partition so that I have a clean installation.

If I have counted right, I have at least 3 installed instances of antiX on my two portables; one full install and two core installs. At one time or another, at least one of them was a base install as well, but that may have been one or two releases back in time.

I am not blaming the current installation program for any wireless-related issues at this point, because it definitely appears that stuff that was lying around from previous installations may well have marred what was otherwise a very nice, clean, fast installation. If, when I reinstall, I do run into any issues, I'll be sure to present them so that we can get the final images as clean as we possibly can. Meanwhile, I've been getting a few more people interested in the various images: at least three of my friends are using them and at least two of them have experimented with antiX core, and all of them, at one time or another, have used antiX M11.0; I put out the good word, hoping they will poke around with 12.0 and give us some good feedback.

anticapitalista wrote:Any comments on SpaceFM?

I like it, though I prefer rox TBH. I think SpaceFM will be (and in a lot of ways already is) what pcmanfm/thunar almost acheived, but didn't quite make it.

Over the years I have often returned to ROX but always dropped it very quickly. There is no doubting it is a very competent package but the transition to adopting it full time has never been worth the extra effort of learning its way of doing things. Consistently it has proven itself to be uncomfortable to use.

In its favour is the fact that it has a demonstrable track record of reliability. This should not be dismissed lightly. A file and desktop manager occupies a central role and has the capability to disproportionately influence a user's perception of a distro. ROX may not be my favourite but it is a known and proven quantity.

SpaceFM has great potential. It is much closer to my ideal program. I overwhelmingly prefer it over ROX. As yet it has not acquired a track record and is still undergoing development. I have only tested it superficially but would not presently vote to adopt it until it has proven itself further.

A compromise may be achievable but the cost may not be attractive. At the Slim logon it might be possible to offer the usual ROX-IceWM, ROX-JWM etc and also the SpaceFM equivalents. In this way first hand experience and feedback will be gained leading to a more informed judgment.

It is encouraging that community opinions are canvassed however, as has already suggested it is ultimately your decision to make.

Have managed to totally freeze up my P4 thru’ wildeyed attempts with Spacefm (mounting USB devices), so am reading-the-manual.

Rich features offered/promised. No idea if it’s ready (I’m no guru), but exploring it, oh yes.


========= SCRAPER REMOVED AN EMBEDDED LINK HERE ===========
url was:"http://spacefm.sourceforge.net/spacefm-manual-en.html"
linktext was:"http://spacefm.sourceforge.net/spacefm-manual-en.html"
====================================


Personal favourites are Rox-filer and MC.

rox as it is set up in antiX should mount usb devices well enough, or use mountbox.

xfe would be ideal as a dual-pane alternative if it used pmount rather than mount to mount/unmount devices.

Fashionable is to use udisks, but from what I gather it doesn't work well on non-'desktop' environments (yet) - but that might just be my experience.

But, spaceFM does have a lot of potential IMO.

I am here running wireless with the new installation. Like before, I had some issues getting it going at first, but it's running now.

I am using the Broadcom 4311 firmware. What's curious is that it is installed. I'm going to have to peel further down beneath the veneer and see if there is something conflicting that is causing it not to come up right away.

The suggested fix:

modprobe -r ssb
modprobe -r b43
modprobe -i b43

works. I don't usually have to dig much deeper than simply installing the firmware-b43-installer (which replaces the old scheme, installing the b43-fwcutter package. As I mentioned, I believe that both of these were already installed. I am wondering if there is some blacklist magic or something else that needs to be set when this firmware is in use because of conflicts with something else? Anyone know?

What I am concerned about is what will happen next time I boot? Until I get this right, I may have to play this dance every time I start the system, which is clearly something I am not interested in doing, so I want to determine with certainty what it will take to get the firmware to load and be recognized by the hardware at boot time.

I believe that this may be a better permanent fix:

modprobe -r b43
echo options b43 pio=1 qos=0 >> /etc/modprobe.d/local.conf
modprobe b43

Can anyone with more expertise in this area confirm this?

(I picked up that excellent tidbit from
========= SCRAPER REMOVED AN EMBEDDED LINK HERE ===========
url was:"http://wiki.debian.org/bcm43xx#b43_and_b43legacy"
linktext was:"http://wiki.debian.org/bcm43xx#b43_and_b43legacy"
====================================
)

masinick wrote:When I installed antiX 12.0 Test 2, I installed over my previous installation without reformatting or repartitioning. For the most part, it worked well, but I have had to constantly baby sit the wireless settings, and I have not quite found exactly what needs to be set or reset. So, both to fix that and also to do further testing, I am going to reinstall the full version and overwrite the entire partition so that I have a clean installation.

If I have counted right, I have at least 3 installed instances of antiX on my two portables; one full install and two core installs. At one time or another, at least one of them was a base install as well, but that may have been one or two releases back in time.

I am not blaming the current installation program for any wireless-related issues at this point, because it definitely appears that stuff that was lying around from previous installations may well have marred what was otherwise a very nice, clean, fast installation. If, when I reinstall, I do run into any issues, I'll be sure to present them so that we can get the final images as clean as we possibly can. Meanwhile, I've been getting a few more people interested in the various images: at least three of my friends are using them and at least two of them have experimented with antiX core, and all of them, at one time or another, have used antiX M11.0; I put out the good word, hoping they will poke around with 12.0 and give us some good feedback.

Brian - I posted this:

broadcom-sta-common-needed-t3612.html

as it *might* be what is causing the issues. antiX-base and core does not have that firmware.

I believe that *is* what is causing the issue, and why I had to keep manually reprobing for my firmware. The driver I needed was there; it just wasn't working right. Some Ubuntu systems cause this same issue with the same driver. I'd completely rid the system of any broadcom-sta-common or other Broadcom drivers with sta in the name. The firmware-b43-installer package takes care of everything right, (including getting and extracting the b43-fwcutter, the original package), except for really old drivers, and there is a legacy driver called firmware-b43legacy-installer available for those cases.

anticapitalista wrote:Any comments on SpaceFM?

I like it, though I prefer rox TBH. I think SpaceFM will be (and in a lot of ways already is) what pcmanfm/thunar almost acheived, but didn't quite make it.

Rox is really fast, but SpaceFM has functionality well beyond Rox, in my opinion. If we can ascertain that SpaceFM is stable enough, it may be able to become the default file manager by the next release. Meanwhile, in full, if there's room to fit on a CD, they can all stay around.

Thanks Brian for testing the sta broadcom issue. I need to check whether its removal would mean no OOTB wifi for some other users.

SpaceFM will never be the"default" file manager, but it will definitely be included for antiX-full. Default file manager for all versions of antiX will always be rox. (who says there was democracy here __{{emoticon}}__ ) LOL

Rox is small and really fast. I have no problem with it staying around. As far as the sta driver goes, anti, I really think that the firmware-b43-installer and the firmware-b43legacy-installer will take care of the only cases that I am aware of, especially since that seems to be the cleanest dirt I can dredge up on it from the excellent Debian Firmware Wiki site.

I was looking in /usr/local/bin and saw a program called
========= SCRAPER REMOVED AN EMBEDDED LINK HERE ===========
url was:"http://ranger.nongnu.org/index.html"
linktext was:"ranger"
====================================
. It looks like a cool little console based file manager with VI key bindings written mostly in Python. Unfortunately, I couldn't get it to run: This was on test2 full, I believe. It would be a great tool for antiX-core if core included Python (but I don't see Python on the core file list).

BitJam wrote:I was looking in /usr/local/bin and saw a program called
========= SCRAPER REMOVED AN EMBEDDED LINK HERE ===========
url was:"http://ranger.nongnu.org/index.html"
linktext was:"ranger"
====================================
. It looks like a cool little console based file manager with VI key bindings written mostly in Python. Unfortunately, I couldn't get it to run:

Code: Select all

$ ranger
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File"./ranger", line 50, in <module>
    import ranger
ImportError: No module named ranger

This was on test2 full, I believe. It would be a great tool for antiX-core if core included Python (but I don't see Python on the core file list).

BitJam, I found ranger located in the Debian Sid repo, and on my Debian Sid system, I installed it, and the image went into /usr/bin/ranger, and it also ran just fine. Check to see if it is in Testing, and if it is, it should be available with antiX.