I'm just curious what gets done to antiX kernels that makes them different from other kernels.

I'm wondering the same thing. And now that no one has responded to the question for more than a week, I'm beginning to wonder if there is any difference at all...Is AntiX built on a plain Debian kernel?

Anti build the kernels. Anti builds the distros. Anti answers the questions. Anti fixes the problems. Anti maintains the forum and website.

So. Exuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuse me if your query does not get answered fast enough.
I, being a kernel tester for Anti.
Can say

Beats the hell out of me.

I *think* one thing is timing. Before we started rolling our own we were sometimes in a bind not having a recent kernel that would fit our needs. I know a lot of effort went into keeping our kernel small. The larger the kernel, the less memory is available for the users. We need to have aufs support available in order for the kernel to boot in our live system. I don't think aufs is yet in the main kernel so it has to be added by patching. We try to include drivers for older systems and we include the
========= SCRAPER REMOVED AN EMBEDDED LINK HERE ===========
url was:"http://www.mepiscommunity.org/fbcondecor"
linktext was:"fbcondecor patch"
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(formerly known as"fbsplash"). This allows you to provide a border and background to the virtual consoles. I've attach a screen shot. You can see more examples with an
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url was:"https://encrypted.google.com/search?q=fbcondecor&biw=1328&bih=943&tbm=isch&tbo=u"
linktext was:"image search for"fbcondecor""
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.

You might wonder why we added this eye-candy bling to antiX which is supposed to be lean and mean. The answer is that it is bling for the virtual consoles and we want to provide good support for console-only use. I think it serves a useful purpose to let you know visually which virtual console you are on. I do the same thing with the background image with my window-manager/desktop-environment. Each workspace has a different background image. I believe we naturally use our peripheral vision to establish context so border areas (and background images that often appear as borders areas) are a natural and easy way to help someone establish context.

I spend a lot of my development time using the virtual consoles and I much prefer working with fbcondecor enabled. With the framebuffer and fbcondecor I can often be much more productive in the virtual consoles then in X. There can also be a problem on some systems were you lose some of the text near an edge due to over-scanning (or something like that). The border provide by fbcondecor eliminates this problem. I was first attracted to antiX because it was small and booted fast and had framebuffer support (when RescueCD had dropped it) which I think is almost essential for using the virtual consoles productively. I see fbcondecor as a small improvement to the framebuffer. Even console based people deserve a little bling.

Sorry if I came off a little impatient...I'm not. This is just a general chit-chat kind of question, no pressing need to answer. But, I noticed the question shortly after KrunchTime posted it, and thought"that's a good question, I'm interested in what Anti and some of the other devs have to say", but day after day no response.

So, BitJam, some interesting and insightful points you make there. And, Roky...well, I would think a kernel tester would know more than you're letting on.

Interesting that I got a response within an hour, when KrunchTime never really got a response. Was it just dumb luck? Or just the right timing? Or what?

You just caught me in a testing phase and approving new members.
On the kernel testing.
I usually find out what does not work for Anti.
So I am the bug that smashes against the windshield for this distro.

That way he knows what flags to enable in the kernel so to make my crap work.
I am bushed and freezing in TX.
So excuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuse me if I come across a little rough.

Honestly. I do not have a clue to the inner massaging Anti does on his custom kernels.
I always keep a working backup though when I start experimenting with Liqourix or other kernels from other distros and places. Which I am known for also.

All you need to do to find out for yourselves is to read the config file. i.e. /boot/configxxxxx where xxxxx is your kernel number.