Antix is by far the best distribution for older computers that I've ever come across, and I'm seriously considering trying it out on my newer laptop.

A few weeks ago, I bought a PIII 800Mhz Compaq Armada E500 laptop with 256MB ram and a 10GB hard drive that came pre-installed with Puppy. Puppy is a great distro for older computers, if you never, ever, ever plan on installing anything else; it is an understatement to say that their software repositories are lacking. The fact that Antix is compatible with nearly all Debian stable packages allowed me to customize my system to exactly how I want it with no compromises.

I was apprehensive about using a *.deb system because I have never used one before. I started out with Mandrake in 1999, then moved on to Gentoo for several years, and only switched to OpenSuse after I got my first laptop a year ago. I tested a lot of distros on my laptop before I settled on suse. I installed Ubuntu *very* briefly and that was not a positive experience; nothing, and I mean nothing, worked right.

I know that Ubuntu and MEPIS aren't technically related anymore, because Ubuntu is no longer is based on Debian, but I still installed Antix on my new-to-me old laptop with some trepidation.

But as I initially said, Antix has to be the best distro for older machines that I have ever come across for a number of reasons. Firstly, Antix is actively maintained. Other than Puppy and DSL, other low-spec distros start strong but dissipate quickly. Second, the available applications for Antix far outstrips nearly every low-spec distro. Slitaz was an initial contender for my old lappy, but the first few packages I tried to install failed. I've already mentioned Puppy's software offerings, and many of the DSL packages are not guaranteed to work on hard drive installs.

Fourth: it seems that the definition of 'low-spec' has shifted for many Linux users. For more affluent users, low-spec has come to mean anything that isn't dual-core and has less than 512mb of ram. Maybe I'm old, but to me those specs are still relatively mainstream. Too many 'lite' distros blow their wad on the window manager, leaving too little room for more powerful applications. XFCE is no longer a low-spec window manager in my opinion, and even a LXDE system takes up nearly 50MB of ram. My PIII 800Mhz laptop is old, but it's not a complete dinosaur. Given the specs of my laptop, if a distro's base ram usage doesn't leave enough left over to run OpenOffice or Firefox at a reasonable speed, then it doesn't even come close to meeting the definition of low-spec.

For now, I'm so impressed with my Antix laptop that I've been using my old laptop as my primary system; my 2Ghz dual-core laptop is starting to feel lonely.

This is a great distribution; you have officially acquired a new dedicated user.

Thanks! That was a wonderful post. Enjoy the ride.

john

Nice to hear some well deserved praise for anticapitalista's brilliant contribution to the linux family!

welcome, and enjoy antiX.

cheers,
oldhoghead

nalf38 wrote:Antix is by far the best distribution for older computers that I've ever come across, and I'm seriously considering trying it out on my newer laptop.

I know that Ubuntu and MEPIS aren't technically related anymore, because Ubuntu is no longer is based on Debian, but I still installed Antix on my new-to-me old laptop with some trepidation.

But as I initially said, Antix has to be the best distro for older machines that I have ever come across for a number of reasons. Firstly, Antix is actively maintained.

For now, I'm so impressed with my Antix laptop that I've been using my old laptop as my primary system; my 2Ghz dual-core laptop is starting to feel lonely.

This is a great distribution; you have officially acquired a new dedicated user.

Great story! You know, if you like antiX on a slow computer, you will absolutely LOVE IT on a fast computer! I have many use cases for antiX myself. I used it at first on an old Pentium III based Dell Dimension 4100. I found that I could either run it live or install it. The software was not too large to run live, but it ran better installed. But when I got a laptop, I found that I could use antiX either live or installed and it would run well. On my work laptop, an IBM Thinkpad T60, I could not install it, but antiX was the best to run Live because I could load it fast and I could take it to the laundromat or a sandwich shop, or a bookstore, and use it while on the go.

But when I installed it on two faster laptops - which I purchased after having such good results with the Thinkpad models (first a T42, then a T60), the Lenovo 3000 series was a good home model, with additional video capabilities. I loved antiX on this model, my first Duo Core model at home. Then I got another Duo Core used, a Gateway 17" PA6A portable, and it ran exceptionally well there, too, so I had, at one time, five different systems - and ran antiX on all of them. The slow ones show it off because it runs better, but the fast ones are great, because it handily beats everything else - detects all hardware, then runs very fast!

Hope you try antiX on one of those faster boxes - I think you will like it there too!

Welcome to the forum, enjoy your stay with us!