Hello all,

I am a longtime Mepis user (same screenname on mepislovers.org) and just happened upon a free laptop that is a bit long in the tooth, so I'm now a new antiX user as well. __{{emoticon}}__

I'll be installing antix 7.5 tonight, so I'll post back with my experiences and any problems/questions.


sleepy

Welcome to the lighter side of Mepis.
Hope the install goes well.

Thanks!

I actually had a chance to start it here at work on my lunch hour, and it didn't go so hot... __{{emoticon}}__

The Live CD portion was great, although the wireless card didn't seem to work...but that can wait. During the Install, the Mepis installer gets to about 50% of copying files to the hard drive and freezes the laptop.

I realize there isn't any helpful info in this post, but this isn't really the right section anyway. I've got a few ideas to try once I get home, and if I'm still stuck at that point I'll make a new thread in the appropriate section.


One quick question though; if I create my own partitions on the drive using gParted, do I have to specifically create a swap partition? I only made two (root and home) the last time the install froze...could the lack of a dedicated swap partition have caused the lockup?


sleepy

How much RAM does the laptop have? Actually what are its specs?
Personally, I would create a swap partition of minimum 128MB, but no more than 512MB (depends on CPU, RAM, hard-disk space.

anticapitalista wrote:Actually what are its specs?

The following (other than RAM) is taken from the BIOS when possible, or the user's manual:

Compaq Evo610c
CPU: Intel Pentium 4 @ 2.0Ghz
RAM: 768Mb SDRAM (not sure of the specifics)
Hard Drive: 30Gb (Not sure of the brand, but I ran the hard drive integrity check that's in the BIOS, and it came back clean)
Video card: ATI Mobility Radeon with 64-bit video graphics, 16-MB (DDR) SDRAM, 4X AGP
NIC: Intel PRO/100
PCMCIA Wireless card: Cisco Aironet (AIR-CB21AG-A-K9) - using the Atheros chipset

Anything else you need?


sleepy

Antix should run very well on that rig. I would create a swap though. I'm curious about the freeze?? As for wireless, the mad-wifi drivers should get it going.

eriefisher wrote:Antix should run very well on that rig.

I thought so too. Frankly, with those specs I'm shocked it was considered 'off the books' here at work. It was destined for scrap until I spoke up and claimed it! __{{emoticon}}__

eriefisher wrote:I would create a swap though.

Will do. Any recommendations on size?

eriefisher wrote:I'm curious about the freeze??

Me too! __{{emoticon}}__ You think not having a swap partition during the install process might be to blame?

eriefisher wrote:As for wireless, the mad-wifi drivers should get it going.

Thanks, I'll look into that.

It's wierd though...the card is mentioned in detail during the bootup process, and both the green status light and orange activity light are on, and an 'ifconfig' shows packets in and out over the card...but opening iceweasel doesn't get out onto the net. I'll try it again at home where the network is less restrictive. If it still isn't working at home, and after trying the mad-wifi drivers, I'll be sure to start a thread.


sleepy

sleepyEDB wrote:

eriefisher wrote:Antix should run very well on that rig.

I thought so too. Frankly, with those specs I'm shocked it was considered 'off the books' here at work. It was destined for scrap until I spoke up and claimed it! __{{emoticon}}__

eriefisher wrote:I would create a swap though.

Will do. Any recommendations on size?

128mb should be lots

eriefisher wrote:I'm curious about the freeze??

Me too! __{{emoticon}}__ You think not having a swap partition during the install process might be to blame?

I think there is a good chance.

eriefisher wrote:As for wireless, the mad-wifi drivers should get it going.

Thanks, I'll look into that.
It's wierd though...the card is mentioned in detail during the bootup process, and both the green status light and orange activity light are on, and an 'ifconfig' shows packets in and out over the card...but opening iceweasel doesn't get out onto the net. I'll try it again at home where the network is less restrictive. If it still isn't working at home, and after trying the mad-wifi drivers, I'll be sure to start a thread.


sleepy

If it is recognized then try and use wicd or ceni to set it up.

erie-

You mean I have to actually *do* something for antiX to connect to my wireless network? Ugh. And I thought 2008 was the year of Linux on the desktop... __{{emoticon}}__

Okay, so I've officially earned my n00b stripes. My card was working all along. I just assumed that the wicd and other wireless tools were for those whose cards weren't recognized on bootup. I am connected and online wirelessly...and am posting this from within antiX! __{{emoticon}}__


The only oddity now is dealing with the way the drive was partitioned. I went back and specified a swap partition in gparted (actually used 256Mb just to be safe), but to no avail. When I selected 'customize on existing partitions' and clicked next in the Mepis installer, it wouldn't let me choose either partition for the root drive...only 'sda'. So, I went back and told it to use the whole drive and to leave 12Gb free so I could just create my own /home partition later.

You can imagine my surprise when, after the install was finished (no freeze this time!) I logged in and saw this in gparted:



The partition layout resembles that which I had tried to use in the install process, plus the 12Gb I specified to be left free at the end.


The problem is that I want to either combine my current /home with the empty 12Gb, or delete the current /home and make a new one out of the empty space. But, I can't unmount my /home partition because it says it's busy. I've tried falling back to the command line, logging in as root, but still no luck. Any idea how to unmount /home? __{{emoticon}}__



All in all, I'm very (very!) pleased with antiX thus far...I can't wait to tweak this thing out! __{{emoticon}}__


sleepy

I would format that partition to ext3 and mount it in /home/me/data or what ever you want to call it. This way all you personal stuff is separate from the OS. You can reinstall or change the OS and not effect your personal data

I was just about to do that when it dawned on me that I could access and resize the unmounted partitions by running gparted from the antiX Live CD. Worked like a charm! __{{emoticon}}__


sleepy