As a pendant to the packages-you-like post.

Of course, the list will be small, or you are not here anymore. I'll start with my own disfavourites.

• Ted. I thought I would love Ted. I like to make notes, documenting the steps I take in configuring the system. Simple text-files tend to become sloppy when I write them, but a full-fledged .odt-document seems overkill. In Windows I often use Wordpad to make simple RTF's. But in AntiX I wonder what precisely is meant by RTF file format. Very soon, a Ted-made RTF gets opened by Libre Office, then, saving it as .RTF, it can't be opened by Ted anymore, as it presumably is no longer a correct RTF file. So, different programs disagree about the RTF format definition, which makes it pretty useless I think.
• Xpdf. I'm sure Xpdf is a fine pdf-viewer, which does the job. But esthetics is important to me. I know it's a bit silly, but I can't help it: each time I see an Xpdf window opening I mutter, damn, how ugly. So I switched to qpdfview, which, as a qt-application, looks just fine. I understand why Xpdf is there. It IS lightweight. To put it in perspective: Xpdf = a few 100 kB, qpdfvies = about 7 MB (including PS and DejaVu plugins), while Evince (default with Ubuntu) is about 50 Mb. I think qpdfview will satisfy my needs. It's not exactly a heavyweight itself, seems fast enough, is not very difficult to configure to your needs, and looks rather pretty.

dirkd wrote:As a pendant to the packages-you-like post.

Of course, the list will be small, or you are not here anymore. I'll start with my own disfavourites.

• Ted. I thought I would love Ted. I like to make notes, documenting the steps I take in configuring the system. Simple text-files tend to become sloppy when I write them, but a full-fledged .odt-document seems overkill. In Windows I often use Wordpad to make simple RTF's. But in AntiX I wonder what precisely is meant by RTF file format. Very soon, a Ted-made RTF gets opened by Libre Office, then, saving it as .RTF, it can't be opened by Ted anymore, as it presumably is no longer a correct RTF file. So, different programs disagree about the RTF format definition, which makes it pretty useless I think.
• Xpdf. I'm sure Xpdf is a fine pdf-viewer, which does the job. But esthetics is important to me. I know it's a bit silly, but I can't help it: each time I see an Xpdf window opening I mutter, damn, how ugly. So I switched to qpdfview, which, as a qt-application, looks just fine. I understand why Xpdf is there. It IS lightweight. To put it in perspective: Xpdf = a few 100 kB, qpdfvies = about 7 MB (including PS and DejaVu plugins), while Evince (default with Ubuntu) is about 50 Mb. I think qpdfview will satisfy my needs. It's not exactly a heavyweight itself, seems fast enough, is not very difficult to configure to your needs, and looks rather pretty.

@dirkd: I do not know if this is worth including (I think we've used it in the past), but at some level, Abiword is able to"handle" .rtf."How well" Abiword, or any other tool handles .rtf is a matter of a couple of things: 1) Which interpretation - and implementation - of Rich Text Format is being utilized, 2) Which RTF features are used and 3) What other software packages are interacting with it.

Most of the time people are interacting with some form of Microsoft Office in one version or another. Newer versions of Office are able to export to quite a variety of formats, so RTF isn't the only one, but it may, other than HTML, be the most common and accessible format to use. In the limited exchanges I've made, I've found Abiword to provide sufficient commonality. On the other hand, for those devices and software that can actually handle either .doc or .docx, I've found that OpenOffice, LibreOffice and Abiword can all deal with them. The ODT format is good, too, except OLDER versions of Microsoft Office don't deal well with it, though recent versions do. So in that sense, RTF still works, but produces large files, MUCH larger than .docx or .odt, both of which are more modern formats utilizing varying degrees of markup language that isn't too far from what HTML produces - exchanges between these newer formats, understandably, is much easier.

So for Ted, maybe Abiword is an alternative.

For xpdf, yeah, small size is its best attribute.
There are a LOT of PDF viewers. if that is all that you need it to do. Did you know that Firefox can view a PDF file? I just confirmed it by viewing a .docx version of my resume using LibreOffice, then exporting it to PDF, and a moment later, viewing the same document, now in PDF format, using Firefox. I happened to do all of this on MX-14.4, our distribution"brother".

For fun, I created a test .rtf file in Ted and then opened it. While double-clicking the file opened it in Libre Office, I was able to right-click on the file, tell it to open with Ted, and it worked. I know the Control Center has a place for setting certain preferred applications, but there does not appear to be a way to add to that or to set the default application for other things (such as opening .rtf files), although I'm sure there is a way. However, having only had antiX-15 installed for a few days, I have not yet found it.

If there is a way to set that preference, then I suspect Ted could be a very suitable application for writing notes and the like.

WaltH wrote:For fun, I created a test .rtf file in Ted and then opened it. While double-clicking the file opened it in Libre Office, I was able to right-click on the file, tell it to open with Ted, and it worked. I know the Control Center has a place for setting certain preferred applications, but there does not appear to be a way to add to that or to set the default application for other things (such as opening .rtf files), although I'm sure there is a way. However, having only had antiX-15 installed for a few days, I have not yet found it.

If there is a way to set that preference, then I suspect Ted could be a very suitable application for writing notes and the like.

in rox, just right click a file and select"set run action". that will let you specify what app to open what file type.

in spacefm, just right click a file and select"Choose...". There you can select an app to open a file, and there is a check box to make that app the default in the future.

dolphin_oracle wrote:

WaltH wrote:For fun, I created a test .rtf file in Ted and then opened it. While double-clicking the file opened it in Libre Office, I was able to right-click on the file, tell it to open with Ted, and it worked. I know the Control Center has a place for setting certain preferred applications, but there does not appear to be a way to add to that or to set the default application for other things (such as opening .rtf files), although I'm sure there is a way. However, having only had antiX-15 installed for a few days, I have not yet found it.

If there is a way to set that preference, then I suspect Ted could be a very suitable application for writing notes and the like.

in rox, just right click a file and select"set run action". that will let you specify what app to open what file type.

in spacefm, just right click a file and select"Choose...". There you can select an app to open a file, and there is a check box to make that app the default in the future.

I knew I had seen a way to do that and simply space it out. Now to learn how to better modify and/or create themes in JWM or IceWM, whichever one might be easier. __{{emoticon}}__ Thanks.

Of course. If you have the computer horse power. Cli apps will look ugly in comparison.

But to low power horse power beta testers like me and other users of antix with a 500hz cpu with 512MB of ram.

Hope you are getting the idea. I use a lot of cli apps I never knew about or how to use till I started using this distro.
So there are no apps I do not like that fit on a CD disk and boot up on pentium 2 and 3 gear.

Cuz we have the rest of the world to think about here. Not just us lucky ones.

I had to learn on my own links, moc, zathura, uzbl, and other lightweight applications like ted so as not to limit my knowledge to just high resource applications and sharpen my skill set from a clueless biker to a clueless antix user.

Also. Teaching myself how to use mc has bailed me out on dist-upgrades that killed my slim login or window manager not starting up.

Dirk, bear in mind that"the iso must fit on a CD" has been (still is) a longstanding design mandate.
In that context, some smaller (vs"best of breed") applications wind up preinstalled.
Although I personally disagree with some of the choices, I don't"dislike" any of the preinstalled apps.

Yes, i agree that the decision to choose/preinstall ted and xpdf seems like, at a glance,"a real headscratcher".
Go ahead, look around and choose one of the other (dozen plus) pdf reader/editor apps...
and during the process of installing each of them (non-persistent live session, so you can throw away the changes to your system)
take note how much"overhead" they add, due to their dependencies on other libraries/packages which also must be installed.
Having done the above, I've learned to respect the `necessity` behind choosing certain preinstalled apps.

For me, across several years of recommending antix to winXP&7 emigrants, the inclusion of mtPaint
has repeatedly served as a point of embarrassment. MANY windows folks are already using krita / inkscape / gimp.
Absurd but true -- it's easier (and much smaller) to install krita on windows than on linux!
On linux, I just skip installing krita (480MB, including its myriad KDE dependencies) or install during a non-persistent session, use it, then discard.
Yeah, wasteful.

Another factor affecting selection of preinstalled apps is"dependence, directly or indirectly, on systemd".
Some of us (including me) are bent on completely avoiding systemd. (Don't reply to ask why. That's a different discussion.)
I'm thankful that antix continues to meet this criteria.

Yet another consideration -- JAVA (or not). IMO the Java runtime component brings a huge, unnecessary, vulnerability attack surface.
Anyhow, I'm thankful that antix doesn't preinstall apps which depend on it. I wouldn't"dislike" finding it preinstalled; I'd just immediately uninstall.

Personally, I go even a step further, avoiding apps which depend on"gvfs" (gnome virtual file system)
so even though I might"like" a particular app (thunar, caja, file-roller, gimp, bluefish, etc) I'd think twice about shoehorning it into antix.
I'm thankful (and, quite frankly, surprised) that antix continues to meet this criteria.

-=-
pressed preview to proofread and noticed that rok has already mentioned the issue of"horsepower" (overhead vs system specs)

skidoo wrote:Dirk, bear in mind that"the iso must fit on a CD" has been (still is) a longstanding design mandate.
In that context, some smaller (vs"best of breed") applications wind up preinstalled.
Although I personally disagree with some of the choices, I don't"dislike" any of the preinstalled apps.

Yes, i agree that the decision to choose/preinstall ted and xpdf seems like, at a glance,"a real headscratcher".
Go ahead, look around and choose one of the other (dozen plus) pdf reader/editor apps...
and during the process of installing each of them (non-persistent live session, so you can throw away the changes to your system)
take note how much"overhead" they add, due to their dependencies on other libraries/packages which also must be installed.
Having done the above, I've learned to respect the `necessity` behind choosing certain preinstalled apps.

For me, across several years of recommending antix to winXP&7 emigrants, the inclusion of mtPaint
has repeatedly served as a point of embarrassment. MANY windows folks are already using krita / inkscape / gimp.
Absurd but true -- it's easier (and much smaller) to install krita on windows than on linux!
On linux, I just skip installing krita (480MB, including its myriad KDE dependencies) or install during a non-persistent session, use it, then discard.
Yeah, wasteful.

Another factor affecting selection of preinstalled apps is"dependence, directly or indirectly, on systemd".
Some of us (including me) are bent on completely avoiding systemd. (Don't reply to ask why. That's a different discussion.)
I'm thankful that antix continues to meet this criteria.

Yet another consideration -- JAVA (or not). IMO the Java runtime component brings a huge, unnecessary, vulnerability attack surface.
Anyhow, I'm thankful that antix doesn't preinstall apps which depend on it. I wouldn't"dislike" finding it preinstalled; I'd just immediately uninstall.

Personally, I go even a step further, avoiding apps which depend on"gvfs" (gnome virtual file system)
so even though I might"like" a particular app (thunar, caja, file-roller, gimp, bluefish, etc) I'd think twice about shoehorning it into antix.
I'm thankful (and, quite frankly, surprised) that antix continues to meet this criteria.

-=-
pressed preview to proofread and noticed that rok has already mentioned the issue of"horsepower" (overhead vs system specs)

Interesting that you mentioned mtPaint as I had just a few minutes earlier used it for the very first time to crop and scale down my avatar picture. For simply graphics editing such as that, it seems to work fine. I'm curious to know what you would recommend in place of GIMP for image or graphics editing if you are avoiding apps which depend on gvfs. (I've not inkscape and am not familiar with its capabilities at all.) I personally avoid apps that require and install KDE libraries. It is not a question of space (I have a 1TB hard drive, as well as a 320GB external drive salvaged from my old, dead laptop) or necessarily of RAM (4GB on board), simply one of principal. I like lighter wherever possible, and I do not like having to install dozens of KDE (or Gnome) libraries in order to use one application that I might only need once in a while.

I have not used Ted much, but it strikes me as perhaps a more robust text editor rather than a full-featured word processor. Perhaps taken in that context its inclusion makes more sense? I'm also not a huge fan of xpdf, but I haven't bothered as yet to look for a replacement.

Good discussion here. I especially appreciate mention of packages that may not - at first anyway - seem like very useful packages - that is, until you consider their resource usage, dependencies on other packages, libraries, and the size of not only the packages, but that growing list of dependencies.

For current generation hardware, there is no doubt that"newer" software sometimes offers useful features, but few of us can deny that new usually means large, even huge at times, requiring the very newest hardware to make it all work. As others have pointed out, the true advantage of antiX is the nimble manner in which it considers all of these things.

However, even though this topic is aimed squarely at the antiX-15 Killah P release, a good take-away discussion, particularly for some of our recent derivative projects (MX-14 and the MX-15 that is under development) may be the ways in which we can accommodate some of these interests in our other efforts and keep antiX lean and efficient for those with 500 MHz processors and 10 GB or less of disk space and 1 MB or less of memory. The MX project can focus on ease of use, effective compromises between fast and functional.

Keep in mind that we also have antiX Base and antiX Core, from which you can build whatever you want!

atmel-firmware Firmware for Atmel at76c50x wireless networking chips.
bluez-firmware Firmware for Bluetooth devices
firmware-adi Binary firmware for Analog Devices Inc. DSL modem chip
firmware-atheros Binary firmware for Atheros wireless cards
firmware-bnx2 Binary firmware for Broadcom NetXtremeII
firmware-bnx2x Binary firmware for Broadcom NetXtreme II 10Gb
firmware-brcm80211 Binary firmware for Broadcom 802.11 wireless cards
firmware-intelwimax Binary firmware for Intel WiMAX Connection
firmware-ipw2x00 Binary firmware for Intel Pro Wireless 2100, 2200 and
firmware-iwlwifi Binary firmware for Intel Wireless cards
firmware-libertas Binary firmware for Marvell Libertas 8xxx wireless car
firmware-linux-nonfree Binary firmware for various drivers in the Linux kerne
firmware-myricom Binary firmware for Myri-10G Ethernet adapters
firmware-netxen Binary firmware for QLogic Intelligent Ethernet (3000
firmware-qlogic Binary firmware for QLogic IBA7220, QLA1xxx, ISP2xxx a
firmware-ralink Binary firmware for Ralink wireless cards
firmware-realtek Binary firmware for Realtek wired and wireless network
firmware-zd1211 binary firmware for the zd1211rw wireless driver
libertas-firmware Firmware for Marvell's libertas wireless chip series (
midisport-firmware Firmware loader for M-Audio's MidiSport devices
zd1211-firmware transitional dummy package for firmware-zd1211

Contrib packages installed on antiX1

b43-fwcutter utility for extracting Broadcom 43xx firmware
firmware-b43-installer firmware installer for the b43 driver
flashplugin-nonfree Adobe Flash Player - browser plugin

21 non-free packages, 1.5% of 1442 installed packages.
3 contrib packages, 0.2% of 1442 installed packages.

__{{emoticon}}__

Thank you all for your considerations on this. Make no mistake: I, also, am very impressed with AntiX's small footprint. I wouldn't want it otherwise. Another small statistic: my previous Ubuntu installation took about 26 or 27 Gb (including home folder), or 90% of its allotted SSD. I started worrying about filling the disk completely, so I bought another, bigger one for a fresh installation. Thought it was the right time to experiment with Antix. If I ran into trouble, I could always boot from the old disk for urgent work. Now, under AntiX, I run essentially everything I used before using less than 11 Gb (including home but excluding documents, media files, mail, etc.). About half of that is taken up by one single application: SAGE, a huge mathematics program. So I'm very happy with AntiX. As someone said: it's not that I can't afford bigger disks. But a smaller system is also a much faster, simpler and more robust system I hope.

@Dolphin-Oracle: setting the default program to open RTF's in SpaceFM doesn't always work. Since I installed Wine, RTF's open in Wines Wordpad. Yet another complication. Choosing Ted as default program in SpaceFM doesn't change that. But, since using Antix, I learned about mime-lists and the like. It's a bit more complicated than SpaceFM, but if I succeed in making Ted the ONLY program to open RTF, I will give it a second chance, and then I may even start to like it. Especially since it loads so fast.

order matters. installing wine often leads to takeover by windows apps. so if you install wine after setting the default in spacefm then wine apps may take over default duties and you have to specify again.

Remarkable functionality in antiX-15. This is less a question of what I do not like than what I do not need or use. GAMES - just do not bother. mtPaint, xpdf (I do use Firefox, in fact) ClawsMail (I use gmail. Never download email or attachments) Connect Shares, Disconnect Shares, (Don't do it so I don't have to disconnect it.) HexChat, LibreOffice (gone in favor of AbiWord and Gnumeric).
A word about system tools: A great strength of antiX. These are well chosen and efficient.
IceWM: Not sure I like it, but it packs great functionality in a light package. I prefer either Xfce or Mate, but they are significantly heavier, so IceWM lives on.

I do not like Gnome MPlayer. This bastard do not work as it should (some times ago, i try it on Linux Mint, Mageia and finally on Debian 8 ). Poor video, audio quality, also it freeze once my dekstop....So, i uninstall it, and install Smplayer. Works perfect.