i was able to install antix on my old thinkpad (pIII, 500mhz, 196mb memory) and it's running well, except for two things:

1. when i shutdown, the laptop does not really power off.

2. also, after several minutes of inactivity (such as when using synaptic to download packages), the screen darkens and i could not go back to the working screen at all; i have to boot up again.

for problem 2, is this a screensaver issue? i really don't know how screensavers work in linux... i think there's a"save" and"lock" folder accessible from the start menu but i don't know how to use them.

For locking the screen and activating the screen saver, you can try, in fluxbox:

Exit>Lock screen. I'm sure it's the same in ice-wm.

You then will need to type in your password to get back in. You can also key bind the lock screen command, so that you don't have to go through the menu.

I hope this helps.

Regards,
Pedro

thanks pedro; i tried it, but it seems that the problem is not the screensaver. the screensaver"goes away" when i click the mouse or press a key.

the problem appears to be more of a hibernation state... screen is dark and mouse/keyboard does not make the screen resume, it's still a dark screen. is there a control panel for hibernation/suspend in linux?

about the shutdown not powering off, is there a module somewhere that i have to tweak?

for #1 try:
acpi=force at boot up
that works on my boxes - hopes it works for you

harii wrote:for #1 try:
acpi=force at boot up
that works on my boxes - hopes it works for you

thanks harii, will try this tonight.

harii wrote:for #1 try:
acpi=force at boot up
that works on my boxes - hopes it works for you

harii, my heartful thanks; your suggestion worked!

Thats great it worked __{{emoticon}}__
Hows your antix laptop coming along?
Sounds like your at it - full speed.

i couldn't be happier.

you know, it's very difficult managing the transition away from windows, but of all the linux distros i've used, antiX has been the best. it took a while getting used to the window manager (i tried xfce, because i liked xubuntu), but i later saw the power and speed of icewm; no wonder anti used it as default.

antiX itself is amazing... i really don't know how it was made out of simplymepis, but in my oldest laptop (my thinkpad iseries), the only linux distro that works with speed (faster than winXP) has been antiX... i mean, i tried all the mini distros (puppy linux, slax, vector linux, damn small linux, pclinuxos mini-me), but nothing compares to antiX.

there are programs that i do miss from the windows world, which seem to have no equivalent in linux, but it's not antiX's fault. i miss, for example, infarview and utorrent...

i'm also having problems with vlc the media player; i don't know how to install it in antiX.

i guess the hardest thing in linux world for me is installing software. the system apparently is based on repositories; there are problems when there's no internet connection. in windows, one can download the installer, put it in a flashdisk, and install anytime... and each depository is not compatible with other distro flavors... not yet sure.

SummonKnight:

I haven't been able to get vlc work properly in antix. However, I've learned to do without it and mplayer and gxine work well enough. Maybe with more use they'll feel as comfortable as vlc.

The repositories thing is a bit confusing at first but it's not all that bad. Basically, you want to stick to Debian repos, and you need to decide if you want to stay with stable repos (which are the safest) or want to deal with testing or sid repos which offer the latest and newest versions, but can sometimes be troublesome. I think the default in antix is a mix of stable and testing. If you want to remain in just stable repos, then you can comment out the testing ones. Alternatively, you can also go full testing or even do the sid conversion. In the latter case, you need to be more vigilant when doing updates (using smxi) and keep track of any warning (usually from Anti) about problems and when NOT to do upgrades.

I hope this helps.

Pedro

plvera wrote:SummonKnight:

I haven't been able to get vlc work properly in antix. However, I've learned to do without it and mplayer and gxine work well enough. Maybe with more use they'll feel as comfortable as vlc.

The repositories thing is a bit confusing at first but it's not all that bad. Basically, you want to stick to Debian repos, and you need to decide if you want to stay with stable repos (which are the safest) or want to deal with testing or sid repos which offer the latest and newest versions, but can sometimes be troublesome. I think the default in antix is a mix of stable and testing. If you want to remain in just stable repos, then you can comment out the testing ones. Alternatively, you can also go full testing or even do the sid conversion. In the latter case, you need to be more vigilant when doing updates (using smxi) and keep track of any warning (usually from Anti) about problems and when NOT to do upgrades.

I hope this helps.

Pedro

thanks pedro.

i haven't really gotten the hang of installing yet in linux, but could you teach me how to install opera in antiX? so far, i have been able to install almost all of the linux equivalents (except vlc, and ms reader for lit files).

Summon, Synaptic package manager does it all automatically (provided you're connected to the Internet, so it can download the software's required and missing dependencies).
In case of 'vlc', just search for it, mark for installation and 'apply'.
In case of Opera, open Control Center, 'System' tab, 'Config Files' and, in sources.list, uncomment the line regarding Opera. Then in Synaptic ask to reload the repositories and it should be available for installation then on.*

In case you actually need to work with a program for Windows, you usually can do it pretty well with 'wine'. I'm not in antiX right now so I'm not sure it is available in Synaptic or how to install it but I may search that later. You can learn more about wine at its own site.

* 'sources.list' is located at /etc/apt/sources.list, so if you would edit it by command line you should and Synaptic, as far as I know, is a front-end (graphical interface) to the 'apt-get' tool, so you could reload repos and install Opera by ¹ or whatever is called the opera package.

'apt-get' is the Debian (and derivatives) tool for fetching and installing linux packages. Other linuxes may use other tools. For apt-get options, type 'apt-get help' in the Terminal.
For an overview of package management tools:
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You can install something through a flashdrive as long as you inform yourself of the required dependencies of the program to be installed, see which ones are missing in your system and download them too to the flashdrive (beware that you should examine if those packages don't have missing dependencies themselves). I'm not a seasoned linux user so if this is not right someone can change it.

For a linux software that either you don't find in Synaptic or that there's a newer version released than the one in the repos which you want to try, first install 'gdebi' (it's a tool for installing .deb packages) then see if there's a .deb package for the software you want to install. If there is one, you just download it and open it with Gdebi for it to be installed. Usually there are only .targz (or any other compressed format) files then you may decompress it and read the 'readme' files to see how to install.

Summon, you're talking about Irfanview, that image manipulating program?
Besides GIMP, that you may want to learn (I don't know if it uses much resources, though), there is ImageMagick (available in Synaptic)
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" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false , a powerful image tool through the command line. When you get used to it it may be quite easy. Here's a tutorial for it:
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secipolla wrote:Summon, Synaptic package manager does it all automatically (provided you're connected to the Internet, so it can download the software's required and missing dependencies).
In case of 'vlc', just search for it, mark for installation and 'apply'.
In case of Opera, open Control Center, 'System' tab, 'Config Files' and, in sources.list, uncomment the line regarding Opera. Then in Synaptic ask to reload the repositories and it should be available for installation then on.*
............

many thanks secipolla.

i was able to install opera by first editing out the # mark for opera in the sources list (in the control center), i guess this makes it"active". next, i tried the package program to search for opera, but it did not show up the opera software in the list, so what i did was use the terminal, typed into the root using"su", and then as you advised,

apt-get install opera

and antix correctly put it in the"network" folder of the applications in the start menu.

umm, the dependencies is one aspect of linux that might take many years of study...

secipolla wrote:Summon, you're talking about Irfanview, that image manipulating program?
Besides GIMP, that you may want to learn (I don't know if it uses much resources, though), there is ImageMagick (available in Synaptic)
========= SCRAPER REMOVED AN EMBEDDED LINK HERE ===========
url was:"http://www.imagemagick.org/script/index.php"
linktext was:"http://www.imagemagick.org/script/index.php"
====================================
" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false , a powerful image tool through the command line. When you get used to it it may be quite easy. Here's a tutorial for it:
========= SCRAPER REMOVED AN EMBEDDED LINK HERE ===========
url was:"http://www.imagemagick.org/Usage/"
linktext was:"http://www.imagemagick.org/Usage/"
====================================
" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false

thanks secipolla, i never heard of this program before when i searched for linux alternatives; i've successfully installed it and will try it.

If you need help finding window Alternatives there is"Linux App Finder"

========= SCRAPER REMOVED AN EMBEDDED LINK HERE ===========
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linktext was:"http://linuxappfinder.com/alternatives"
====================================


After finding one use synaptic to download it --its more up to date.