I like Mepis Srartacus because it works great on my crap old computer. I kept breaking my later Antix systems all too easily and it seemed that Spartacus just ran faster on my box. Currently I have two hard drives, both pretty small at 8 and 10 gigs, running one on Xubuntu 6.06 and on one Mepis Spartacus.

I am determined to squeeze life out of old machines and Antix seems to work very well for this. I have made a few changes along the way in my Spartacus setup and after a few crashes here is how I get a good running system at this time:



1. New install of Spartacus.

2. This step is optional. I remove Audacity in Synaptic only because I prefer the older version. Then I uncomment the Mepis repositories in Synaptic and do an update (the reload button) and reinstall Audacity 1.2.4.

3. If you want to ignore step 2 then still uncomment the Mepis repositories and do the Synaptic reload anyway.

4. Upgrade in Synaptic. Reinstall Leafpad (I find it sometimes needs it).

5. Now I add a new sources list as follows. First I copy the following sources list to a Leafpad file in my home folder and save it:

===========================

# See sources.list(5) for more information

# This file should be edited through synaptic
# Do NOT use Ubuntu restricted pools with MEPIS!!!

# MEPIS improvements, overrides and updates--the MEPIS magic
# deb
========= SCRAPER REMOVED AN EMBEDDED LINK HERE ===========
url was:"http://apt.mepis.org/mepis32-6.5/"
linktext was:"http://apt.mepis.org/mepis32-6.5/"
====================================
" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false mepis main
# deb
========= SCRAPER REMOVED AN EMBEDDED LINK HERE ===========
url was:"http://apt.mepis.org/simply32-6.0/"
linktext was:"http://apt.mepis.org/simply32-6.0/"
====================================
" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false mepis main


deb
========= SCRAPER REMOVED AN EMBEDDED LINK HERE ===========
url was:"http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/"
linktext was:"http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/"
====================================
" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false dapper main restricted universe multiverse
deb-src
========= SCRAPER REMOVED AN EMBEDDED LINK HERE ===========
url was:"http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/"
linktext was:"http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/"
====================================
" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false dapper main restricted universe multiverse

deb
========= SCRAPER REMOVED AN EMBEDDED LINK HERE ===========
url was:"http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/"
linktext was:"http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/"
====================================
" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false dapper-updates main restricted
deb-src
========= SCRAPER REMOVED AN EMBEDDED LINK HERE ===========
url was:"http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/"
linktext was:"http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/"
====================================
" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false dapper-updates main restricted

deb
========= SCRAPER REMOVED AN EMBEDDED LINK HERE ===========
url was:"http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/"
linktext was:"http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/"
====================================
" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false dapper-backports main restricted universe multiverse
deb-src
========= SCRAPER REMOVED AN EMBEDDED LINK HERE ===========
url was:"http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/"
linktext was:"http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/"
====================================
" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false dapper-backports main restricted universe multiverse

deb
========= SCRAPER REMOVED AN EMBEDDED LINK HERE ===========
url was:"http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/"
linktext was:"http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/"
====================================
" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false dapper-security main restricted universe multiverse
deb-src
========= SCRAPER REMOVED AN EMBEDDED LINK HERE ===========
url was:"http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/"
linktext was:"http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/"
====================================
" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false dapper-security main restricted universe multiverse

deb
========= SCRAPER REMOVED AN EMBEDDED LINK HERE ===========
url was:"http://ubuntu.cafuego.net/"
linktext was:"http://ubuntu.cafuego.net/"
====================================
" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false dapper-cafuego all
deb-src
========= SCRAPER REMOVED AN EMBEDDED LINK HERE ===========
url was:"http://ubuntu.cafuego.net/"
linktext was:"http://ubuntu.cafuego.net/"
====================================
" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false dapper-cafuego all

deb
========= SCRAPER REMOVED AN EMBEDDED LINK HERE ===========
url was:"http://mirror.ubuntulinux.nl/"
linktext was:"http://mirror.ubuntulinux.nl/"
====================================
" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false dapper-seveas all
deb-src
========= SCRAPER REMOVED AN EMBEDDED LINK HERE ===========
url was:"http://mirror.ubuntulinux.nl/"
linktext was:"http://mirror.ubuntulinux.nl/"
====================================
" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false dapper-seveas all

deb
========= SCRAPER REMOVED AN EMBEDDED LINK HERE ===========
url was:"http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu/"
linktext was:"http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu/"
====================================
" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false dapper-commercial main

deb
========= SCRAPER REMOVED AN EMBEDDED LINK HERE ===========
url was:"http://packages.medibuntu.org/"
linktext was:"http://packages.medibuntu.org/"
====================================
" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false dapper free non-free
deb-src
========= SCRAPER REMOVED AN EMBEDDED LINK HERE ===========
url was:"http://packages.medibuntu.org/"
linktext was:"http://packages.medibuntu.org/"
====================================
" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false dapper free non-free

============================


Then in terminal type:

su
(hit enter)

enter your root password
(enter)

leafpad /etc/apt/sources.list
(enter)

When the sources.list Leafpad file comes up select all and delete it, and replace with the new sources.list file from above.

Save and exit Leafpad.

Still in termonal do"apt-get update" and then close terminal when it's done.


6. Install Flash plugin. I do this by going to the Purevolume website and try to play a file. It will install the Flash plugin automatically. You might have a different way of doing this but it's what works for me.

7. Install whatever you want in Synaptic but DO NOT do a blanket upgrade. That tended to kill my system and then I'd have to start all over again.

Some of the things I install are as follows:


These are optional as your choice, I use them.
Gthumb
Kino
Avidemux
SoundKonverter
Feh

These are fairly necessary.
VLC
lame
lame-extras
liblameO
liblame-dev
libdvdcss2
w32codecs
gstreamer0.8-lame
gstreamer0.8-pitfdll
gstreamer0.8-plugins
gstreamer0.8-plugins-multiverse

Then just to be safe I also install all gstreamers from the"base","good", and"ugly" sets.

Install your chosen language pack for aspell.



Manually edit your Fluxbox menu (all your applications other than games should be found in usr/bin).

You will need to set up your"set run action" for various things as usual.

The following just makes a prett Conky (right click Fluxbox, File Editing, Conky). Just replace the last bit og the file with this one:

==================================

TEXT
${color lightblue}$sysname $kernel
${color hotpink}Uptime: $uptime
${color yellow}${time %a %d %b %k:%M}

${color orange}Monitors:
${color white}cpu: ${color green}${cpu}%
${color white}ram : ${color gray}$mem${color black}/${color gray}$memmax ${color black}- ${color green}$memperc%
${color white}swap: ${color gray}$swap${color black}/${color gray}$swapmax ${color black}- ${color green}$swapperc%
${color white}processes: ${color green}$processes ${color gray}running: ${color green}$running_processes

${color orange}Space:
${color white}Root:${color gray} ${fs_free /} ${color green}= ${fs_free_perc /}%


================================================

This is rather more long winded than I had planned but this is what keeps my old low end box going and I just though somebody else might be interested if they are trying to keep old boxes going.

Hi timo,

Thanks for the very useful config info for Spartacus. I'm in the same situation: I have newer versions of antiX running on other boxes, but my older laptop seems to just love Spartacus. I'd suggest forming a"we love Spartacus" club but the members would probably consist of just the two of us. ??