Due to morbid curiosity (or whatever), I've hopped nearly every Debian-not-Ubuntu -derived
live distro which has been released during the past 2 years. Among them, AntiX Linux is one of the distros I admire most.
In this post, I'm speculating
What impedes prospective users from finding and falling in love with this distro?

If someone hears"you can grab an iso from sourceforge" and that person is a Windows user...
...sf site search for"antix" (no quotes) doesn't return"antiX-Linux" unless/until you clear the applied-by-default search filter"Operating System: Windows"

On the sf project page for antiX, the link labeled"antiX-Linux Web Site" points to
antix-linux.sourceforge.net (a generic page). No text on the sourceforge pages pointing to
antix.mepis.org
and the empty sf"wiki","tickets" etc tabs suggest one is looking at a dead project.

Over at distrowatch.com, a distrohopping prospective new antix user who is already using Linux
probably starts"from the most popular, top of the list" and works his/her way down the list.
With that approach, the person is likely to find, and stick with, some distro higher up the list.
(due to both time constraints in researching, and popularity-induced bias when choosing)
---
If someone uses the distrowatch"search":
Without guessing which search params they might use...
suppose they search using 2 params:"based on Debian" and"NOT based on Ubuntu"
thankfully, antiX is only 5 from the top (er, fifth) of the search results presented
(currently preceded by CrunchBang, SparkyLinux, Kali Linux, SolusOS)
but
At distrowatch and elsewhere, antiX is touted as (is summarily described as, is recommended for)
"suitable for old PCs... and as a rescue CD".
That's not very flattering and while searching, probably few searchers are interested in those use cases.

There's no shiny, freestanding domain website to support the antiX distro.
It's docs are confusingly scattered across mepis and mepisto wiki pages, and the forum...
and searching sometimes leads to contrary (contradictory) info ~~ was true for versionY, but now is NOT true for versionZ.


========= SCRAPER REMOVED AN EMBEDDED LINK HERE ===========
url was:"http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=antix"
linktext was:"http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=antix"
====================================

indicates that antiX v13.1 contains
firefox 22.0b1
I wish that were true, but (will prospective new user wade through links to find, and read)

========= SCRAPER REMOVED AN EMBEDDED LINK HERE ===========
url was:"http://www.mepisimo.com/antix/Released/antiX-13.1/package-list-full.txt"
linktext was:"http://www.mepisimo.com/antix/Released/ ... t-full.txt"
====================================

^--- For many prospective"live" users, I believe this is a dealbreaker.
The idealistic (yet sophomoric) argument as to"why IceWeasel" is moot, as is the"it's the sameSAMEsame identical..." argument.
On my hardware, across antiX 12--13.1 versions, libre graphics driver + IceWinkel often yields smeared (unreadable) text; sometimes fixored by refreshing a web page, but most often not.

sourceforge.net/projects/antix-linux/files/stats/timeline
1,495 downloads via sourceforge this week
90,966 downloads via sf year-to-date
49% of the downloads were people running Windows (at time of download)
47% of the downloads were people running various Linux distros (at time of download)
---
I believe it's reasonable to infer that half of the"linux user" downloads represent
existing antiX v12 users updating to (or at least investigating) the newer version.
If so, a more accurate demographic of YTD"prospective new" users is
24% Linux users // 73% Windows users.
Although the antiX"full" version presents a reasonably user-friendly environment...
the low volume of forum posts (and relative absence of"I'm transitioning from windows and" type questions)
suggests that antiX"is not a good match for" most people who have been downloading and test driving it.
(They were motivated to try it due to reading"suitable for older computers... and as a rescue CD" ?)
(because it's free-to-try? because it's"libre" free? because it bears a 4.6star sf rating?)

antix.mepis.org/index.php?title=Main_Page#Torrents
In my testing today, ALL of the 12"torrents" links yield a linuxtracker page stating"bad id"
(whether due user error on my part, or absence of current seeds, it represents a dead-end)

of the"Mirrors/Download" links presented on the wiki page
sourceforge.net/projects/antix-linux/files/Final/antiX-13.1/
^--- shows a link to a 384byte readme file (which is reported as damaged/broken when I attempt to retrieve it)
along with assorted iso and md5 files.
A new user entering via this vector will likely meet immediate frustration.

I moved from ConnochaetOS because haary recommended antiX [1].


[1]
========= SCRAPER REMOVED AN EMBEDDED LINK HERE ===========
url was:"http://www.connochaetos.org/forum/topic.php?id=1775"
linktext was:"http://www.connochaetos.org/forum/topic.php?id=1775"
====================================

Basically, it started out from Mepis, which was based on Ubuntu, & that is why so much links back to Mepis.
It is now based directly on Debian.
I would agree with you regarding the confusion for a 'newbie trying Linux' point of view though.
As with everything else distro wise, decisions are for the originator to make, & that means it is up to 'Anticapitalista' to decide where it is hosted, etc.

I just loved the name. Anti. It fits my personality.

I have a relatively old pc, and systematically searched for lightweight distros preferably based on Debian but not based on Ubuntu. (my previous system) Ubuntu goes in a direction wich I dislike, and guessed, that Ubuntu based distros will be pressed to go the same way.
AntiX has won against Bodhi, Crunchbang, DSL, WattOS, Swift, Galpon MiniNo, Descent OS, Connochaet OS, Pinguy OS, Slitaz, Puppy, TinyCore, Arch, Salix, Zenwalk, Snow, Debian + XFCE and Lubuntu. (tested on virtualbox)
Really liked the look and feel of System rescue CD (based on Gentoo), but it was not recommended for everyday usage.

I have used distrowatch extended search (linux, old computers, active project) and google. Since AntiX is based on debian, i don't care about default applications. I know how to install them. __{{emoticon}}__
BTW,

I think that as Windows XP reaches the end of it's support life, many more people will be looking for a way to keep their older hardware going.

The most popular distros are great, but most will simply not run very well on machines that presently run WindowsXP. That's how I found AntiX.

My old Dell runs pretty okay on Linux Mint Xfce and Xubuntu, but here's the thing with them now: The newest editions no longer fit on a CD, and my old machine can't burn DVDs. And as the last of the top distros that still fit on a CD ("LTS" editions of"lightweight" Mint and the 'buntus, for example) reach their end-of-life, there will be many more users like me looking for a stable, reliable, well-supported Linux distro that we can actually burn to a CD instead of ordering a DVD and waiting for it to arrive in snail mail.

There are other"light" distros, but very few that are Debian-based and still fit on a CD. Not even the venerable and ultralight Crunchbang Linux fits on a CD anymore! Coming from Xubuntu, Crunchbang was the first place I looked because I wanted a Debian or Ubuntu base, and Lubuntu totally misbehaves on my computer. But alas, it's a DVD. My computer won't burn DVDs. OSDisc.com sells Crunchbang DVDs, but their information is so out of date I don't really trust it anymore. Next up: AntiX.

Bingo! Easy 45-minute installation and warp-speed capability. With Debian's rock solid reputation for dependability and stability, not to mention it's huge repositories. My search is over. And rolling release too? Beyond my wildest dreams, especially on such modest hardware.

AntiX is on it's way up the chart in a big way. It's only a matter of a short time.

Howdy and Welcome guys. I am jazzed you are here.

Edit: ooops __{{emoticon}}__ or gals.

My daugther and I have 3 desktops computers and 3 laptops. These equipments are in my father’s home, my daughter´s apartment and my home. Only one desktop is new (2012). Following by age are two of the laptops (2010 and 2009), the third laptop (2002) and the remaining two desktops (2002 and 2001).

I hate being pushed by technology or by market to renew computers, and I found challenging to prove that old equipment can be used with proper and updated OS software. So, in my case I search using “old equipment” as key word, and looking for the various light DM and WM. Google in general and Distrowatch in particular, helped me to find antiX.

And once I discover the official Web page for the Distros, I review the information provided and if liked, download the ISO for a trial that might not be immediate. In that way I gather several Distro ISO´s that eventually I run in my laptop from 2002 as a test. I have to add, as it was already said before in this thread, that I have some kind of identification with the spirit of antiX.