Background: I am using an old Toshiba Satellite 4015 CDS that is constrained to 800x600 screen resolution. The 800x600 was acceptable back when that was what everyone used, but now applications seem to expect 1024x768.

I have"adjusted" my installed applications suite and have come up with a suite of packages that seems to play well with 800x600. I am not suggesting that everyone should do this, since I have wandered away from the Mepis applications somewhat.

EMail: I used aptitude to install sylpheed-claws-gtk2. Using '-gtk2 eliminated the font problems I reported earlier. Adding the bogofilter plugin give me spam filtering and adding the gtkhtml2 viewer plugin lets me view HTML mail (a requirement for me).

Browser: I downloaded and installed Opera. Much faster than IceWeasel and lets me see web sites that use frames and java (i.e.,
========= SCRAPER REMOVED AN EMBEDDED LINK HERE ===========
url was:"http://www.cnn.com"
linktext was:"www.cnn.com"
====================================
) as they should be displayed. This doesn't happen with browsers such as Dillo. ... Yes, I realize that Opera has a built-in email client but I wanted to use sylpheed instead.

Let me say it again -- I am not recommending that anyone else do this. If you duplicate my efforts, you are moving away from the Mepis pool of applications. I am working with a"spare" computer system, so if it suddenly breaks due to my foolishness then I simply reinstall antiX and have lost no valuable data.

Good recommendations. For some reason Opera works very fast on my antiX installs.

Anti mentioned that there may be"problems" with installing Sylpheed gtk2. Could you follow up with any glitches you notice? I'd like to use it if it doesn't break things.

malanrich wrote:Could you follow up with any glitches you notice? I'd like to use it if it doesn't break things.

Will do. Trying an install of the even-newer claws-mail right now. If that doesn't work will be sticking with -gtk2 version.

Nice ideas dieselbenz.

If you have a fast internet connection, moving away from the default Mepis shouldn't cause any (or too many) problems. The problem is for people who are on dial-up and want to install apps from a cd.

dieselbenz, you could do the full-monty and use the debian sid/unstable repos if you wish. I have this as my main box (but I don't have critical stuff on it) and antiX boots and apps open even faster, or at least they appear to.

The advantage of sid over testing is if some app gets broken. Usually in sid it gets fixed very quickly ie a day whereas in testing it takes maybe weeks. The disadvantage of sid is that apps may break more often.

anticapitalista wrote:Nice ideas dieselbenz.

Thanks.

(I have a established a life-long pattern of coloring outside of the lines.)

D.

anticapitalista wrote:
dieselbenz, you could do the full-monty and use the debian sid/unstable repos if you wish.

Is there an easy way to do this?

I would do it via a terminal rather than synaptic.

1. Edit /etc/apt/sources.list to include:
# Debian Sid
deb
========= SCRAPER REMOVED AN EMBEDDED LINK HERE ===========
url was:"http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian/"
linktext was:"http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian/"
====================================
unstable main contrib non-free

# mplayer
deb
========= SCRAPER REMOVED AN EMBEDDED LINK HERE ===========
url was:"http://www.debian-multimedia.org"
linktext was:"http://www.debian-multimedia.org"
====================================
unstable main

2. apt-get update
3. apt-get upgrade or if you prefer
apt-get dist-upgrade

4. Check the messages about what is going to be held back, removed. If it seems ok, go ahead.

5. If everything is ok, but some apps didn't get upgraded (eg iceweasel) you could use aptitude.

aptitude dist-upgrade (but be careful or postback for help)

Remember, sid upgrades might render some app as non-functional.

anticapitalista wrote:I would do it via a terminal rather than synaptic.

Yep, that was pretty easy. In fact, I just had to"uncomment" the unstable repositories.

Did an apt-update/upgrade and nothing broke. Doing an aptitude update/dist-upgrade now (carefully).

Good luck, and if you need help on what is happening, just post back.

Oh and don't force locales.

dieselbenz wrote:
Yep, that was pretty easy. In fact, I just had to"uncomment" the unstable repositories.

Ahh, did I leave them in for the final? Oh well.

anticapitalista wrote: Ahh, did I leave them in for the final? Oh well.

Nothing broke, even after the aptitude update/dist-upgrade.

And I got an unintended consequence: was able to do an"aptitude install" on claws-mail, rather than having to do a build from source code. Cool.

Glad to hear it.

The big test though is when you reboot and everything still works.
Seen any improvements?


This has been one of my aims for antiX, ie to be able to 'safely' switch to debian sid without problems. Cool.
Another is to work as is set up ie Debian testing plus Mepis repos.
Thirdly, for the more 'conservative' (or the fact they don't have internet connection, or a slow one) the ability to install from a Mepis/antiX extra cd. This will be a big test.


BTW Now you are in Sid, use aptitude with care, in fact stick to apt-get.

anticapitalista wrote: The big test though is when you reboot and everything still works.

Already been there -- first thing I 'checked' was a reboot and it came up fine.

So far, claws-mail, opera, pidgin, streamtuner, icedove and iceweasel all work fine. Everything seems to work faster, too, but perhaps it is my imagination.

My teeth are whiter, my breath is fresher, and I can feel hair growing on my male-pattern bald spot.

Life is good.

dieselbenz, how did you install Opera?

I tried installing the Mepis 6.5 .deb and the Debian Sid .deb from the Opera site. It ran the first time with the Mepis package, but since then when I run it, all that happens is that I get 2 Opera icons in the menu bar, but no open Opera window. I tried removing and reinstalling, but same result.

Craigus wrote:dieselbenz, how did you install Opera?

I initially download the .deb file but couldn't make that work, so I compiled from source code (.configure / make / make install). I think. Anyway, if you grab the source code and use file-roller it pretty much walks you thru the process. Be sure to expand the files at the very top of the directory structure.