Richard, I have attached a screen shot. In Windows I copied the files from the USB to the C: drive. For some reason I had to creat an antiX folder and put the proper files in it. I then booted from the USB with bp=3, frugal, and from=all.

As you can see it went much further. Actually found the linuxfs file on sr0. I did look through 'dmseg | like' but didn't see any apparent error messages.

I halted the boot as it was trying to install to the C: drive and I am not ready to do that. When I install, I want to retain Windows, at least for a while.

Any thoughts?

JMarlatt wrote:Richard, I have attached a screen shot. In Windows I copied the files from the USB to the C: drive. For some reason I had to creat an antiX folder and put the proper files in it. I then booted from the USB with bp=3, frugal, and from=all.

As you can see it went much further. Actually found the linuxfs file on sr0. I did look through 'dmseg | like' but didn't see any apparent error messages.

I halted the boot as it was trying to install to the C: drive and I am not ready to do that. When I install, I want to retain Windows, at least for a while.

1) You should not have tried to do a 2nd automatic frugal install. You already did a manual frugal install by copying the antiX directory. If you left off the"frugal" cheat then it should have booted from the hard drive.

2) Even if you did the 2nd frugal install, it only involves copying a few files to an existing partition so it wouldn't have hurt anything. It does not remove any existing install and does not prevent the existing install (Windows, in this case) from booting.

3) The"kernel mismatch" error means the linuxfs file found on the cdrom does not match the kernel you booted from which is very strange. One explanation for this would be if you booted from the LiveUSB with the LiveCD in the drive and the LiveUSB was made from a different original iso file than the LiveCD. But due to this error, even if you leave off the"frugal" cheat and let it boot without doing another frugal install, it won't boot correctly.

4) I am surprised it finally found the linuxfs file on the cdrom this time around and not on the hard drive. Maybe it took a lot longer than 30 seconds to find it. There are a combination of strange things happening. Most likely there are hardware issues which are confounding things. You may find clues in the output of"dmesg | less".

You seem to have a funny mixture of beta1 and beta2.1

The 4.4.2 kernel was used on beta1, while beta2.1 has a different kernel - 4.4.8

You are both right I had a 16-b1 USB, 16b-1 on the hard disk and inadvertently left a 16-b2.1 CD in the CD/DVD drive. Apparently the system took the linuxfs file from the CD and not the hard drive.

Last night I took out the CD and booted with matched 16-b1 kernels on the USB and the hard drive. That booted up to the antiX desktop and I was able to start a browser. However, the system became very busy with hard disk I/Os and I could not start any more applications, nor could I stop any or attempt shutdown or reboot from the desktop. I eventually had to manually power off the machine. The machine was then unable to boot up either Windows or AnitX.

I will create a new bootable CD using kernel 15 and see if I can install on the hard drive. The 16-b2.1 CD seems to have a corrupt file on it....see one of my earlier posts. If that doesn't work, I will probably install the Plop Boot Manager on the hard drive and then attempt an install from CD.

Any advice would be appreciated.

You have to remember you are using a machine that is 15 years old. That's an antique in computer terms. Most current operating systems will not install on it, including many Linux ones.

How much RAM do you have? My T23 is maxed out with 512MB per slot, and whilst running live if I tried to run anything in addition to a web browser, it would stall just as yours did.

Chris

RAM is 512MB. I agree it's an antique.

JMarlatt wrote:RAM is 512MB. I agree it's an antique.

With 512MB, once installed web browsing will be possible but slow. Anything with video will be stuttery. You will not want to open multiple tabs.

Running live, it will be pretty much unusable, as you have found.

Chris

JMarlatt wrote:RAM is 512MB. I agree it's an antique.

With antique kit it is still possible to get a usable and useful system. There are usually two main limiting factors, the capability of the system and the way in which it is used. If you keep these in mind it is surprising what can be achieved.

The following is a non exhaustive list of ways to optimise performance. They are general things to consider and the balance between them will probably differ machine to machine.

Things to think about at a system level

• Run antiX installed in the conventional way to hard disk. It makes better use of physical RAM than running live from CD or USB. On old kit with slow USB ports disk read/write is often faster than USB read/write
• Check the BIOS to see if it is possible to adjust the amount of RAM shared with the video card/chip. Setting this to the lowest value you prefer can often free up more RAM for your system to use for other tasks
• Use one or more swap areas. Combining a disk based swap with a zram one can produce a worthwhile increase in performance. Additionally, adjusting the way in swap space is used can make a difference to the system responsiveness. These posts might be a starting point: post43715.html#p43715 post43717.html#p43717
• Switch off all services you will not use e.g. CUPS if printing is not required. Think also about disabling WICD services and configure networking via Ceni. Bluetooth might not be needed etc... These will release memory for other tasks. They are just ways of making best use of limited system resources
• Try an older antiX kernel, they can be better suited to older kit

Things to think about at a user level

• Use a lightweight desktop. Any of those shipped with antiX are excellent in their use of resources
• Use lightweight apps. Most of the apps shipped with antiX are fine, but some may place a heavy load on the system and quickly degrade performance. If you think about it, partnering a lightweight OS with heavyweight apps on old kit, is an obvious mismatch that will lead to disappointment. An inappropriate choice of web browser can be major culprit in exceeding the capability of your kit
• Make best use of the available system resources by closing apps you have finished using
• Consider slightly modifying the way you perform you daily tasks. This can have a big impact on the performance of your system. Try to avoid using the kit in the way you would use more modern powerful kit. For example loading up a heavyweight web browser to watch a Youtube video is not the only way to view it. Small changes in operator habits can pay big dividends
• Monitor the way in which your system uses its resources. Conky can be useful, but note it takes a small amount of RAM and is usually covered by other windows so is not easily seen. Try the CPU and network monitors in the taskbar of IceWM as alternatives that are always on view.

Be realistic in your expectations. antiX partnered with lightweight apps, combined with sensible use, can produce worthwhile results. It will never produce performance to equal a new modern powerful system, but you might be surprised at what can achieved. Incidentally a lot of enjoyment can be gained along the way.

Just to give a tiny bit of perspective, here the following laptop is in daily use for non demanding uses. Because of its age, it is also regularly rebuilt as a test bench to provide a reference point of what antiX can do. It was manufactured in approx 1997,

• 384MB RAM
• single Celeron CPU 1295Mhz
• 2 swap areas (swapfile + zram) totalling 727MB
• kernel 3.7.10-antiX.8-486-smp

By todays standards this antique kit has a very low spec. It is still capable of displaying a Youtube video with the window opened to fit the screen width. It plays completely smoothly without any form of juddering or jerkiness and sound and vision are in sync. All with approx 50% CPU load. Not too shabby for an antique. It was done with this video from dolphin_oracle and shown in Streamlight which ships with antiX.

Richard,

I made a CD for antiX-15-full and a CD for antiX-15-base. antiX-15-full would not boot up. However, antiX-15-base booted up completely. I then installed it on th T-23. It needs some tuning as the web browser is really slow, mostly due to disk I/O. Dillo, however, is very fast. This is written from Dillo.

will try to figure out why antiX-15-full would not boot up.

when I figure out tuning, I will post the information.

Many thanks for all your help and also thanks to all the others who posted replies, particularly anticapitalista.

@SamK: Great suggestions for getting good mileage out of older systems. I had a pretty old desktop system, a Dell Dimension 4100 that served me really well from 2001-2009. Believe it or not, some local thieves stole some computer equipment from my home when I was in the process of moving from one home to another in late 2009 - they got in by using a common knife to open the side garage door, then the same from the garage door into the house. I had dead bolts on the front door and the door between the garage and the house, but the one between the garage and house was locked, but not deadbolted, and they got lucky and caught one of the few times that was the case.

The systems I have now range from 2007 to current vintage, so I don't have as many needs to reduce system usage, but on the old Dell I used to use over half of the techniques that you suggest. What I can tell you and others is that antiX has worked really well across a broad range of systems and releases. By default you give up a small amount of conveniences compared to the big, fancy, resource grabbing systems and their powerful, good looking applications, but you seldom give up the ability to do a thing, even with the standard tools and applications - and if you are missing something, you can simply install it, and that's the real value of the antiX infrastructure - it's light by default, but very flexible and extensible, just the way that I like it!

@SamK: that is well done, and might make a good Wiki entry so it could just be pointed to in the future. If you want to have it there, do a final edit or whatever and send it to me. Or, even better, PM"peregrine" on the MX Forum to get access (available by request to all Devs of antiX and MX) and then you can put it in yourself.