Hi all. I just heard about antiX the other day, I currently run Ubuntu Karmic on one machine and Puppy on another. I make it a bit of a hobby to refurbish older machines just for fun so I thought I'd pop over and check out AntiX. The screen shots look promising.

Edited to add - I just went over to the download mirrors but I'm not sure I dled the right thing. I got antiX-M8-base.iso and checked it out. Very snappy but my resolution was off, alas. I'm assuming there are different versions of AntiX - is there a place where I can download an iso for a live cd that's not just the base? Google isn't being very helpful today.

antiX main page, has mirror's there, antiX 8.5 686 is latest



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cheers,
oldhoghead

Welcome mystmaiden:

the base version you downloaded is a highly configurable, stripped version. As recommended by oldhoghead, I would suggest trying out antix-M8.5-686.iso

enjoy!

Pedro

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download antiX-M8.5-686.iso. it is the full version of antiX .

edit: torrent if you prefer:


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I think the stripped down base defaults to fluxbox, while the regular 8.5 defaults to icewm.

I had used puppy on old hardware in the past, and to have a persistent bootable live usb ability.

Now with antix, i get persitent liveusb. I am able to run antix on a machine as old as a PII, which I still use reguarly. However, unlike puppy, the debian based repo's make finding and adding software a breeze. No chasing dependacies down and difficulties keeping software updated like in puppy.

The resolution problem is almost always related to the the settings in the xorg.conf file. Make sure you back this up before editing, and know how to restore it from terminal in case X won't start.

You can also try using xrandr from terminal.

xrandr --help

Be careful with refresh rates on your monitor as running it to hight can damage a monitor.

Thanks everyone for the replies. I've got a live cd of a full version working now. Still have the screen resolution difficulty. I know with Puppy the changes you make when live are saved, if you choose, to a pupsave file. Is there an option for saving changes when running live? Also, for either full install or live is there a gui for changing resolution available? Hope its alright to ask these questions here... wasn't sure where to show my absolute newbie-ness!

There is a gui to change resolution. It's under control center, Hardware, I believe. Control center is one of the icons in icewm and it's on the menu in fluxbox. Different options for resolution will come up, assuming that the correct driver is loaded.

As to saving changes in a live session, as in puppy, I'm not sure. Perhaps some one else has an answer for that.

To elaborate on what Pivera says. AntiX Full Iso comes with Control Center. Antix Base does not.

As to saving changes in a live session

Only way I know how to save a live session is with AntiX2usb install with a /data partition. Maybe the other users know something I don't though (usually).


Howdy and Welcome by the way. __{{emoticon}}__

For the live cd you can choose your preferred resolution by hitting F3 in GRUB's menu screen.

You can have a persistent live if you install it to a flashdrive stick. Supposing you have antiX's regular version, not the base, you boot the live-cd, plug in your flashdrive and start antix2usb from Control center > Disks > antix2usb.
If it complains that your stick is mounted, unmount it by running as root 'umount /media/disk'. Also check if the box for persistence is checked in antix2usb.

You should be able to enable persistence even when you boot from a LiveCD (instead of a LiveUSB). Of course, some sort of persistent storage device is required for persistence to work.

For example, you can create an ext2 partition on a usb stick and give that partition the label"X", then when you boot the LiveCD, go to the"Extra Options" menu and choose the"antiX-Persist" option.

Maybe in the future we can give users a"Persistence Options" menu on the LiveCD that provides a wider range of options.

You can also enable persistence by"simply" editing the kernel line in the Grub menu. For example, adding: will use the partition with the label"antix-root" for storing your persistent file system.

As to your resolution issue, there are gui and non-gui tools to change the resolution. However, this tools in many cases are limited in the resolutions they present. The limiting factor is the xorg.conf file. The x set up is handled automatically by the X Window System. During the auto-detection of your hardware, if it fails to add supported resolutions, these resolutions will not show in many of the tools to reset the resolution.

The trick, (and it is somewhat of a pull an elephant out of a hat trick,) is to get correct values into the xorg.conf file.

On older video cards, the drivers might be crafted to only use guaranteed to work resolutions, and not ones that might actually work. Also, older cards might have higher resolution when you lower the color depth.

What video cards are you having trouble with?