Search Results for 'boot from iso'

[Member Xecure]

Hello, stoeren

stoeren wrote:

my qusten is: how i can install antix on the stick but not as live distro without having troubel with the secure boot?

You have these options:

A) Use your USB key as Persistance device. It is similar to installed, with the option to boot both as the original live-iso or with your changes saved. With this you also have the advantage of a live antiX environment that works even with Secure Boot.

B) Have a Frugal install on your system. What this does is create a folder (where antiX will be installed) inside an existing partition, for example your Windows partition, without having to format and create specific partitions for antiX. In your case, your Disk space is so small this option is not worth it. For any other people interested, you can read more in the antiX FAQ for Frugal Install.

C) Install on a different USB stick. From the Live environment, you can choose to install antiX on a different USB device from the live USB. I am not sure this is possible to install and boot if the Secure Boot is enabled. Hopefully someone more knowledgeable can answer this.

D) Disable Secure Boot. If you cant do c (because of Secure Boot) and still want to have it installed on the stick or you want to replace Windows some day, you may need to disable Secure Boot before being able to install.

The most interesting in your case may be option A. I will also explain option D as it may be useful for you or someone else.

USING YOUR USB LIVE ENVIRONMENT WITH PERSISTANCE
If you have burned your antiX ISO in the USB stick with option to create persistence (non dd), you should be able to Create a Persistence homefs and rootfs files to store all changes you perform in the live environment. There are two ways of setting up persistence, but I will explain the simplest one.

When booting to USB, before starting up the hole antiX system, you will have different boot options to choose from. I presume your system has UEFI Bios, so I will explain the steps to follow (if you have a Legacy Bios, it will be even easier than this, as you would be able to choose options with the Function keys: see video linked below).

1. Choose the antiX Full Customize Boot (text menus) option and hit Enter.
2. Choose your language, console columns (I choose default), Timezone, Special boot option (if in antiX 17.4, and you would like wicd to manage your wifi connection, select wicd option if you dislike ceni), and mount option (default is automount).
3. IMPORTANT OPTION: The next option is the important one. It is the Persistence option. These are the most important options for a newbie (in my opinion):
a) persist_static The best option for you. It will save all your changes continuesly in the USB device. It is a bit slower than other options but it will respect your RAM.
b) persist_all Not the best option for your very small amount of RAM. It will load all persistent files in RAM. All changes done in the live environment will be saved in RAM, but on shutdown the changes will be saved on your USB device (or manually saved if so you choose). It runs faster as it isn’t limited by the speed of your USB device/port, but at the expense of taking some of your RAM.
4. then select font dpi.
5. SETING UP PERSISTENCE If you chose this option and your USB permits it, you will be following the steps to create and configure your persistence system. antiX will ask you to create a rootfs (where all your programs will be stored), and a homefs (where you will save your personal files, like downloads, pictures and documents) file. Depending on the amount of space available in your USB device, you will have to decide how much to give each one. Don’t panic, you can resize them later if you want from inside your antiX live environment. Let us imagine you have a 10GB USB device. I would start assigning 1GB to rootfs and 2GB to homefs. You can later resize them if you need more space. For now it is a good exercise.
You will be asked to change the demo and root passwords (for security reasons, as this device is no longer a “virgin” liveUSB and will contain you system). Give them a password you will remember.
6. After setting this up, you may be asked about how you want your persistence changes to be saved. If you have chosen persist_static, ignore this option, as your changes will be continuously saved in the USB device automatically. For persist_all option, Automatic means all changes will be saved when you power-off automatically (as they are all saved in RAM and not USB). Semi-Automatic will enable you to choose to save your changes or not when powering off (a prompt will ask you if you want to save your changes when you are shutting down).
7. Select your preferred Desktop and you should boot into your new antiX persistence.

These steps may be a little different if using antiX-19. If you want to see a step by step video guide, follow dolphin_oracle’s video linked below.

More Information:
dolphin_oracle video tutorial
antiX FAQ – Persistence

DISABLING SECURE BOOT
You have to disable Secure Boot. Only distros that are signed by Microsoft can (theoretically) install and work with Secure Boot. Debian 10 and Ubuntu (and maybe openSUSE) have that feature. I had to disable Secure Boot in my tablet for antiX to install.

If you want to continue and Disable Secure Boot and install antiX (or some other distro) in your device, you will first have to enter the BIOS configuration.
For your device, the ASUS website recommends two options:

a) The laptop must be powered-off / turned off. Maintain F2 Button pressed. While doing so, press the Power button as you would do for starting up the laptop. Keep pressing the F2 key until the BIOS Configuration comes up.

b) Accessing UEFI BIOS from Windows. You will have to restart the computer and access the Advance Startup EFI screen. There is a key combination on the restart session, but I cannot remember it right now. The GUI way is: Settings > Updates and Security > Recovery > Advanced Startup > Restart Now (you can follow the video in ASUS page linked below). Once it restarts, navigate to the UEFI options: Troubleshoot > Advanced Options > UEFI Firmware Settings > Restart. You will now enter the BIOS.

Source: ASUS FAQ – Entering BIOS for ASUS laptops

Extra option (for other cases): If Fast Boot is enabled, you won’t be able to follow the previous steps to access the BIOS configuration. Completely Shutting Down Windows will “disable” the Fast Boot for the next session. From the Windows Login screen, maintain Shift Key pressed while clicking Shut Down. Wait until your computer completely shuts down before releasing the Shift key. Then follow step a) to enter the BIOS.
You can also enter the advanced EFI options by doing the same process but clicking Reboot instead. On reboot, it should display Windows’ Advance Startup EFI screen, where maybe one can find the option to access the UEFI Bios Configuration.

Once inside the BIOS configuration you will be able to disable Secure Boot. You should be able to find the option in the BOOT Tab.

I hope this helps. I am sure someone will correct me if

• This reply was modified 3 years, 10 months ago by Xecure. Reason: Big Update explaining Persistence
• This reply was modified 3 years, 10 months ago by Xecure. Reason: Adding enfasis
• This reply was modified 3 years, 10 months ago by Xecure. Reason: Extra information about accessing BIOS

antiX Live system enthusiast.
General Live Boot Parameters for antiX.

I have created Antix LiveUSB (latest release – antiX-17.4.1_x64-full.iso).
I was able to boot AntiX Live USB just once on my old old PC (MSI 945P Neo3) and then after reboot I get an error during boot process: “Could not find file antiX/linuxfs”
I have mounted USB dongle under my regular PC and I can clearly see the file DOES exist.
Moreover, I have tried it on modern PC: DELL Optiplex 780 and it works there…
What is wrong then? Any suggestions?

ls -al antiX/
total 961512
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root      4096 Jul  6 09:10 .
drwxr-xr-x 6 root root      4096 Jul  6 09:10 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root        10 Jul  6 09:10 esp-uuid
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   3765843 Mär 28 16:00 initrd.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root        44 Mär 28 16:05 initrd.gz.md5
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 976269312 Mär 28 16:03 linuxfs
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root        42 Mär 28 16:05 linuxfs.md5
-rw------- 1 root root       512 Jul  6 09:10 random-seed
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   4514592 Mär 28 16:00 vmlinuz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root        42 Mär 28 16:05 vmlinuz.md5

• This topic was modified 3 years, 10 months ago by czezz.
• This topic was modified 3 years, 9 months ago by rokytnji.

Attachments:

1. 

   AntiX_DSC_0580_1.jpg
   

[Anonymous]

the toram option gains nothing

skidoo doesn’t have the time or energy today to thoroughly refute the quoted bit.
I’ll just quickly mention that we gain the ability to enhance OPSEC isolation, by physically removing the boot device…

[Member Xecure]

Hardware

The user will be able to view the relevant Information of the hardware detected on their system. They will also be able to manage and configure Audio, Mouse and Printers.

PC Information
It will launch a simple interface where the user can select the information for certain devices that the system is able to detect, from the PCI and USB devices, Audio and Graphic devices to Partition and Network information. The user double clicks the desired option and clicks OK to display information for that option/device. What it really does is execute a command to retrieve the desired information and gives the option to save it as a text file, while displaying the information about the selected device/tool. As the commands used are also specified, the user can learn a lot from this app that can help them troubleshoot hardware and device problems in the future.

Configure Mouse
In antiX 19b1, Mouse Configuration
With this application the user will be able to change mouse sensitivity and behavior. The cursor size can also be set with this program. Changes will take effect for the current session and will be reset on Reboot. To make changes permanent, the user must “Enable mouse configuration on startup” option in this app.
Some mouse changes may only take place after Restarting Session or after Reboot, like the Mouse Cursor size change.

Setup Printer
In antiX 19b1, Print Settings
This application is an interface to use CUPS that helps connecting and setting up printers on linux. If the printer is not detected, some specific driver or firmware for your printer may be needed. Try Help > Troubleshooting before gathering information on the net for your specific printing machine.

Set Default Sound Card
In antiX 19b1, Sound Card Chooser
If the machine where antiX is installed has more than one sound card, use this tool to select the default device for audio output.

Test Sound
When clicking this tool, it will perform a test three times for each speaker. The user should be able to hear a voice coming out of their speakers. If they cannot hear anything: first, check that the speakers are ON and connected; second, check they have the correct default sound card selected in Set Default Sound Card program; third, check that they have not muted their system; fourth, increase the system’s volume in case it is too low before performing the test again (for example, using the Adjust Mixer tool). If nothing works, they will have to check for problems with their driver and/or audio device.

Adjust Mixer
Launches a terminal based app to help adjust some sound and volume settings for the AlsaMixer audio controller.

Alsamixer Equalizer
Helps the user adjust the levels for different sound frequencies (audio equalization) in a terminal based app.

Drivers

Nvidia Driver Installer
Helps the user find and install Nvidia related drivers. Needs root privileges.

MS Windows Wireless Drivers
In antiX 19b1, Windows Wireless Drivers
Some wireless devices may not be detected by the antiX system and may be installed using Windows’ drivers. If the user has those drivers at hand, they may be able to install them using this program. May not work with all devices. It requires NDISwrapper package to work.

Install Restricted Codecs
In antiX 19b1, Codecs Installer
Some Video and Audio files may require proprietary codecs to be properly viewed and displayed on linux. They user may try installing them through this program if they have problems with said files.

Maintenance

Create Snapshot (ISO)
In antiX 19b1, ISO Snapshot
With this tool the user can create a bootable image of their working system, be it of their installed system or their Persistent live-USB system. The ISO created using this tool can be kept as a backup, burned to a DVD, used to install the exact system configuration (with apps and home configuration) to a different computer or to be “burned” to a USB device creating a custom live environment with all their desire apps and configuration out of the box (using the Create Live-USB tool found in Control Center > Disks).

System Backup
Launches luckyBackup in super user mode. This application is used to create backups of the users folders, be them system folders or home folders. Very easy to configure and set up.

Network Troubleshooting
In antiX 19b1, Network Assistant
This program contains various tools to assist the user troubleshoot their network problems. It provides information about the network’s status (device used, external and internal IP address, active interface), Linux and/or Windows drivers used, and some simple Net diagnostic tools (Ping and Traceroute).

Manage APT Repositories
In antiX 19b1, Repo Manager
With this tool, the user can manage their antiX and Debian repos. They will be able to select a different antiX source repo between many mirrors in different countries, or let the program select the fastest one for them. antiX, by default, uses a modified list of the official Debian repos, set to the current Debian stable version, but it allows the user to change the Debian source version to testing and even unstable (sid). Upgrading to a different Debian version is considered irreversible, so the user must know what they are doing and that they may encounter problems in their system after the change.
All APT source lists can be manually modified using the Edit Config Files button found in the System tag inside the Control Center. These source lists are hosted in the /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ folder.

Boot Repair
With this program the user can Reinstall, Repair, Backup or Restore their GRUB configuration, which may help them repair their boot process if they ever have trouble booting into their antiX system.

Menu Editor
For any of the default antiX Window Managers, the user can customize the Applications menu and Personal menu using this program. They can manually Show or Hide programs in the Applications menu from the list of installed programs in their system displayed by this app. They can also customize their Personal menu by adding or removing new entries, giving them a customized name, selecting a customized icon and even creating their own launch parameters for apps not in the list. It is the easy way to adding items to their menu without touching the menu configuration files. Also, all modifications to any of these menus will take effect on all default Window Managers.

User Manager
Only available on installed, frugal and persistent systems.
Clicking this will launch a very important program that contains many tools. The antiX User Manager provides system administrators with powers to Add and remove users and groups and change their privileges.

• Administration will help the user manage all User Accounts (creating and removing users, modifying passwords for each user, deleting the old user’s home folder).
• Options provides a simple way to manage Autologin for each user account and restore their default group memberships (in case something went wrong in the Group Membership configuration).
• Copy/Sync can aid the user copy folders, even the entire home folder, between different users. Can also enable to sync folders so that configuration changes applied by one user will take place also for other users. Very convenient after creating new users, as the app and graphical configuration can easily be replicated, reducing the amount of work for the system administrator.
• Add/Remove Groups provides and easy and user friendly way to add and remove groups.
• Group Membership helps the user select the different groups. Groups have access to specific folders and files, so disabling a group membership for a user will make it impossible for them to modify or even access anything related to the group. Assigning wrong group membership can break your system, so beware. In case this happens, Restoring Default Group memberships can be done in the Options tab previously described and may fix the problem.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 10 months ago by Xecure.

antiX Live system enthusiast.
General Live Boot Parameters for antiX.

[Member Xecure]

Shares

Configure ConnectShares
In antiX 19b1, ConnectShares Configuration
Helps the user connect to remote shared directories in a local network. Generally, once set up, it will not need to be reconfigured. More information in the ConnectShares FAQ.

DisconnectShares
Disconnects all remote share connections configured by ConnectShares Configuration.

ShareFiles via Droopy
In antiX 19b1, Droopy (File Sharing)
Helps the user create a folder in their antiX system that is accessible for other systems using a network connection. For more information, read the FAQ section about Droopy.

Session

Set Screen Resolution (ArandR)
Launches ArandR, a gui for XRandR, an application that helps the user change monitor configuration. The user will be able to modify the resolution of all active monitors, change their orientation, change their placement, activate/deactivate them, save the changes and load previously set monitor configurations. All changes will be reset on reboot. To avoid this, save the changes and load them on startup.

Change Keymap for Session
Launches LXKeymap. Modifies the keyboard layout and functionality only for the current session. Very useful for testing keyboards, and finding out how well the layout works before setting a permanent keyboard layout in the System tab found in the Control Panel Center.

Change Slim Background
Changes the background for the SLiM (Simple Login Manager) login screen.

Set Grub Boot Image (jpg only)
Changes the background present in grub on boot.

Set Auto-Login
Giving the username and password to this application will configure your system to auto-login, skipping the SliM screen after bootup. Very useful if there is only one user and to speed up login time.

Password Prompt (su/sudo)
If the user is annoyed that, every time they are asked for a password, the password prompt grabs the hole screen (for example, making it impossible to use an on-screen keyboard), they can change this behavior with this program. They can also change the Authentication mode (su or sudo) with this application.

Set Screen Blanking
If the user wants to control how much time the computer must be inactive before the screen goes blank, they can achieve this with this app.

User Desktop-Session
Selecting this option will launch Geany and open the desktop session related configuration files stored in ~/.desktop-session/ folder:

• Configure automount behavior (automount.conf stores the selected changes from the gui Configure Automounting in the Disks tab inside the Control Center).
• Wallpaper configuration (wallpaper-list.conf and wallpaper.conf store the changes applied by the Choose Wallpaper app found in the Desktop tab inside the Control Center).
• Mouse configuration (mouse.conf stores the mouse behavior the user has configured in the gui application Configure Mouse found inside the Control Center’s Hardware tab).
• Desktop session loading options (desktop-session.conf stores options related to the desktop session loading, like the startup delay, number of checks to see if the window manager has loaded correctly, notification and startup sounds, and many other options, some which can be changed from other apps).
• What loads on startup (apart from the startup files for the different window managers, there is also this startup file that can be used to choose different commands and programs that will always launch on startup no matter what window manager is selected).

Live

This tab and the different options will only be available if the user is running antiX in a live environment. When antiX is installed, this tab is inaccessible.

Configure Live Persistence
The user can set how the changes must be saved when using persistence on their USB device. All options are explained (Automatic saves on shutdown, Semi will ask before saving, Manual will require the user to save changes manually, etc.).
The program will always ask if you want to exit the program before permanently leaving closing the Configuration program.

Set Up Live Persistence
If the user want to create a persistence file or manage all live-USB related files and folders, this is the application to use. The user can create a Root or Home Persistence File, resize them, change the Persistence Device or the Persistence Path, delete old persistence or remastered files, etc. One of the most important options here is the Exploration Menu, which will load in a new File manager window the path to the persistence device or to the specific folder where the persistence files are stored.
For more information about Persistence, please read the Persistence FAQ.
The program will always ask if you want to exit the program before permanently leaving closing the Configuration program.

Live-USB Kernel Updater
When a user wants to update the antiX linux kernel to a newer one on the live USB with persistence (or even downgrade the kernel for better compatibility for older computer), they first need to download and install it, then Remaster the running live-USB system, and then use the Live-USB Kernel Updater. It will launch a CLI program that will guide the user through the process of updating the kernel for the live USB device. Once rebooted, the live-USB will start up with the updated kernel.

Edit Exclude Files
Clicking this option will launch Geany and open various configuration files stored in /usr/local/share/excludes/ that manage different directories to be excluded for different process related to persistence (persistence-save-exclude.list and static-root-delete.list), remastering (live-remaster-exclude.list) and snapshot building (iso-snapshot-exclude.list). All paths included in these configuration files will be excluded (including all files they contain) from the previous related saving processes.

Edit Bootloader Menu
It will open the important configuration files related to the live-USB bootloader in Geany. The user will be able to edit grub.cfg file to manage grub configuration and syslinux.cfg to change the main bootloader menu on a LiveUSB.
Only accessible from live-USB system (non dd).

Remaster-Customize Live
This application will remaster the live-USB antiX system with all the changes performed in the current live session or with the changes in a specific already saved persistence file. If enough space is available in the live Media, this will create a new linuxfs file beside the old linuxfs(.old) file that managed the hole live-USB system (so it is a non-destructive process). For more information, please read the entry about Live Remastering in the Remaster section of the antiX FAQ.
Only accessible from live-USB system (non dd).

Disks

All related Disk and device mounting and partitioning can be managed from this tab. Also, burning Live USB from an ISO and synchronizing directories (even with other partitions) can be done from here.

Install antiX Linux
Application to install antiX to your system.
Only available if antiX is not installed (if running on a live environment).

Configure Automounting
In antiX 19b1, Configure Automount
Gives the user control over how antiX handles automounting devices. It can even override the Spacefm automount settings. It will not limit the user in manual mounting. The configuration file for automounting can be found in ~/.desktop-session/automount.conf

Mount Connected Devices
Helps the user mount and unmount devices in /media/ without the need of the terminal. List will display all available devices so the user knows if they are detected and what is “their path”. The user can also change the name of the mounting point manually.

Create Live-USB
In antiX 19b1, Live USB Maker (gui)
With this application the user will be able to “burn” an ISO linux system to a USB device. It should be able to create live-USB from any Debian based linux installer ISO on a separate blank USB device. It also gives the user the possibility to burn a snapshot of an installed antiX system so that they can be kept as a live system or as a copy for backup.

Image a Partition
Launches a CLI program that can transform any partition to a new image file or restore a partition from a previously created image file. Very useful for backup and restoring, not only antiX systems but broken or faulty machines with other distros or data.

Synchronize Directories
Launches Grsync, a gui for rsync, that helps the user to copy or sync files and folders in the same machine. It is very useful for keeping incremental backups of an important folder on different partitions in a computer, for easy backups on a removable media, for mirroring files in different folders in the same system so that all changes in one file also take place in its synchronized mirror, etc.

Partition a Drive
Launches Gparted, a very usefull tool for managing partitions. It can delete, create, merge and format partitions from different devices connected to the antiX system, and much more.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 10 months ago by Xecure.
• This reply was modified 3 years, 10 months ago by Xecure.

antiX Live system enthusiast.
General Live Boot Parameters for antiX.

[Member PPC]

@Dave – Wow! Applauncher now looks a lot more polished! Ready to be put in general use, as very good application launcher.
The “search bar” and filtering system is very cool. Example (for those that have not tested it): if the user types “LibreOffice” only LibreOffice applications will be displayed!
In terms of usability that puts it up there with XFCE’s whisker menu, with only one thing missing (like you said “should be added”):
-a full “app search”- example: ideally if Applauncher was able to search the application by it’s name contents and (that would be perfect) description, a user could type “Writer” and have LibreOffice Writer pop up (along with all other apps that include the word “writer” in their name/description).

P.S.- I didn’t mention this in my first reply to you, but recently, reading this thread I thought: “if I knew programming I would try to create some kind of basic application to read desktop files, and present them in a list, stripping them from their extension, ideally showing the icon and app name… and antiX would have it’s own very handy launcher…” I thought about googling yad scripts and try to patch together something better than the default yad desktop application. I’m glad people that really know what they are doing took that small “problem” in their own hands and solved it.

Update- P.S. 2- It just crossed my mind- do you think there’s a need to translate this to other languages? How exactly does one translate a *.py file? Just edit the text and you end up with as many .py files as the there are translations or is there a more general way to go around that problem (ex: place holders than can be translated “in bulk”)?

@Dev team -Side note: antiX has been running strong for years, but only recently users have begun to really “complain” about some parts that could use some improvement:
0- The distro looks- anticapitalista took really good care of that- the system looks amazing, with new wallpapers, fonts and icons. Folks even managed to make Fluxbox look really cool with very good themes (as you can see from Xecure screen grab)
1- Menu overcrowding and application launching- (I tried a bit with a YAD script but) this python script solves the last part, also easing the “menu” problem- the devs, if they so wish, can clean up the menu, and still have everything readily available from the applauncher
2- A GUI way to change time/date settings (and not only the time zone)- I bet 99% of the users never needed to do that, but someone mentioned that and skiddo took care of that (offering a script of his own and even improving a script I found on-line to set time and date via a GUI)
3- This probably affects even less than 1% of the users- How to change not only the keyboard language, but the OS language? Once again this situation never crossed my mind until noClue talked about that and I realized- hey, its true! I’m trying out antiX 19b1 running the iso live from my HD, from GRUB- I have no “boot screen” to choose my language and didn’t think to set that in the grub entry (I know I can edit it, duh!), so I’m stuck with English. That doesn’t really bug me, as you can see, I do read and write in English with some proficiency. But if someone that does not speak Portuguese wants to use my installed antiX system, I found no easy and fast way to change the OS language on the fly. It’s way faster to reboot and run antiX live from USB, selecting another language, than try using any of the ways I digged around the web to change language in a Debian system. That, it seems is a Debian problem, not a antiX problem only… I even tried live Debian XFCE to see if they found a way around that and there was nothing I could see, I even thought antix CC has way more options than the original Debian system options ( I salute you for that, anticapitalista, and the rest of the dev team).

P.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 10 months ago by PPC.
• This reply was modified 3 years, 10 months ago by PPC.
• This reply was modified 3 years, 10 months ago by PPC.

[Member PPC]

BobC wrote:

I am trying to trim the 32 bit version down to fit on a CD as my older machines are pre-USB 1.1 and don’t have DVD drives. I removed a lot of stuff I don’t use, but only got down to 811 mb. I removed more things like CUPS and all the printer drivers except HP and Brother, and PPP and all the spelling and word processing stuff possible, but its still too big. The only thing left to remove is the new icons at this point, as it looks like they take up a lot of space, but are hard coded on the icewm menus, so I’m trying to keep them or the menus look bad.

@BobC – I came in quite late to comment on your situation and I know this is not really connected to the thread (that’s been hijacked to discuss all kinds of stuff, even by me) but, for users that are in your situation- meaning- wanting to install antiX on a device without a DVD-rom drive or compatible USB port/pen drive- if the computer already has grub installed, perhaps copying the antiX iso you want to use (downloading it or copying it using USB pen drive or copied over 2-3 CD-roms) to your hard drive and configuring grub to boot from that ISO from the hd would be the fastest way to install it? I never tried installing antiX when running its ISO from hd, but if you can’t install to the same partition where you copied the ISO file, simply create a new partition, just big enough for the ISO and copy it there… not all users have know-how that enables them to trim the ISO, like you did…
I have to say that booting antiX 19 ISO from hd gives me the fastest boot time I ever saw… It’s like using it via live USB, on steroids…
The one “con” it has- you lose the boot screen, so you have to enter all the boot cheat codes on the grub entry or manually (for example, my desktop needs “nomodeset xorg=safe”, that I had to manually enter in the grub entry I created).
If someone wants to try this, just search “boot iso from grub” and you’ll probably get a decent tutorial…

P.

[Anonymous]

Thanks Xecure. Yes, I probably chose this topic for the wrong reasons–mine was just a straight up .iso download and burn-to-stick. There was a time when I built up an AntiX Xfce system all the way up from the late lamented core-libre (40 MB or something crazy small like that). Followed dolphinoracle’s series on the subject. But I’m a lot lazier now.

So for some reason, after a couple of boots, conman is connecting by itself just fine. I don’t actually want it to, for production. But until I get a handle on an interface for it, this’ll do. And then I’ll get rid of Ceni and probably a lot more besides, stripping down before I built back up. It’s nice to be back in the game.

[Forum Admin BitJam]

I’m reply to this post because it explains the expected behavior clearly (and a couple of unexpected things).

dgh wrote:

text splash loads
gets to 4 dots (start init)
screen ‘goes black’ for maybe 1 second with a horizontal line @ 75-80% height (near the top)
splash comes back with 6 dots (udev done)
dots momentarily disappear as the 7th is filled

This is what is expected except for the horizontal line. We “go black” for about a second to hide the screen jumping around and sometimes getting jumbled if/when udev loads a KMS video driver. Most distros don’t have to worry about this because they try to load the video driver from the initrd ASAP. But this can drastically increase the size of the live initrd which makes the iso file larger and also slows down the boot process.

hit reboot (or shutdown)
normal antiX shutdown screen momentarily visible (again, maybe 1 second)
text splash takes over

This is expected too. I do not know why we see tty1 for about a second. Maybe slim is doing that? IIUC the Xserver is configured to automatically switch to the tty that was enabled when X started. This is pretty cool because if tsplash is enabled then it switches to tty10 but if it was not enabled then it switches to tty1. If you boot into runlevel 3 and run “sudo service slim start” from tty2 then when you shut down from X you get switched back to tty2.

with splasht=va, when rebooting/shutting down, the text cursor is momentarily visible beneath the word reboot/shutdown

Good to know. I haven’t seen that here. I can try to get rid of it.

I’d like to get rid of that brief visit to tty1 on shutdown but I don’t know what is causing it.

The idea of tsplash is to *hide* the “scary” text with much less scary text. The Linux reviewer Dedoimedo has requested something like this since the release of the first version of MX, MX-14. IMO the jumping and jumbling that happens when a KMS video driver kicks in really should be covered up. But I’m not ready to bloat the system and slow the boot to hide it so I’ve settle for a blank screen.

BTW: it might be possible to significantly reduce the amount of time the blank screen is show by using a udev rule that kicks in when the framebuffer changes. We already use such a rule to re-scale the console font and redraw the console decoration. Unfortunately I ran into several problems when I tried to do the same thing for tsplash. Currently each time tsplash needs to do something is is called anew usually using “openvt 10” to make sure it draws on tty10. I also tried using a fifo which is more efficient but ran into more problems with that. I decided that slow and stable was best for now. On tests I’ve done on a relatively fast machine, tsplash added about 0.3 seconds to the boot time. This is easy to measure with the start-t program which will tell you the number of seconds between when the kernel started and when a program started. I use
start-t conky
to measure how long it takes X to start.

Anyway, there are a number of problems when I try to run tsplash from a udev rule. First, the udev rule always gets called twice. I don’t know why. I also include a third call at the end of the udev init.d script to restore the splash screen just in case the framebuffer was never changed so the udev rule is never called. These three calls overlap each other. That can be okay because openvt can act as a locking mechanism and if another program is using the tty you want to use then openvt will bow out. But then I ran into problems calling openvt from within a udev rule. Perhaps IO redirection would work instead:
tsplash </dev/tty10 >/dev/tty10
but I stopped experimenting and tried to get what I had into the beta so we could get feedback from people and to see how it worked on a variety of hardware systems. It’s been a journey of a lot of trial and error, filled with surprises.

Fehlix and I created much larger console fonts yesterday going up to twice the previous maximum size. These would have made tsplash work well even on most high dpi displays set to maximum resolution. Unfortunately, the setfont program which is used to set the console font has a limit of 32 pixels and won’t load fonts larger than that. I just heard back from the setfont dev who said the font size limit of 32 is baked into the kernel. (sigh)

The combination of the kernel limiting the console font size and the default of setting the console resolution as highest as possible is unfortunate. It means we are still going to struggle to make the consoles usable OOTB on high dpi systems.

For the early boot before the KMS video driver kicks in, I think we have limited the resolution both in legacy boot and UEFI boot. For UEFI we put a list of resolutions to try in gfx_payload that are one half or one quarter of all the high dpi resolutions we could find, followed by the normal resolutions and finally “auto” in case none of the resolutions we listed match. I haven’t tested this but I think it works. I’d love to do the same thing in X windows. I even modified our make-org-conf program to make an xorg.conf that lists those same resolutions but the version of X in Buster (and maybe earlier) seems to ignore the resolution suggestions in xorg.conf. Maybe there is some other way of specifying a list of resolutions now.

I find the situation maddening because it was totally obvious for many years that after stalling out at 1920×1080 for a while, the resolutions of laptops and other devices was going to increase. Yet most desktop programs, and now even the virtual consoles, are completely or nearly unusable at the those high resolutions. The kernel people, at long last finally added 32 pixel console fonts to the kernel but this was way too little way too late IMO.

It is almost as if they are trying to make it as difficult as possible to have Linux boot into a working configuration OOTB on the first live boot. Almost every year they create new obstacles. OTOH, maybe there are ways around these problems that I don’t know about. If there was the equivalent of the grub2 gfx_payload variable that would allow us to set a list of acceptable resolutions followed by “auto” in case none of those resolutions matched then that would solve the problem. Likewise if there was a way to tell the KMS driver to use the current resolution that would also solve the problem. If we were allowed to have larger console fonts, that would at least solve the problem in the consoles.

/rant

Context is worth 80 IQ points -- Alan Kay

[Member macondo]

Did you overlook the availability of antiX “core” version?
No SliM, and as far as I can tell… it would fit what you described.
If you check it out, and it too misses the mark, please post back and provide a list of its unwanted (or missing) packages vs what you think would be ideal.

I will try the core, but I don’t think it will be different from the net one. In an attempt to look geeky it fails, errors appear when there is no need for it IMHO.
The regular installer (base and full) is perfect. For net and core just leave the base apps in and the rest of the apps out, including xorg. After reboot, the user installs xorg and whatever he wants, but use the SAME installer, do not invent the wheel or like we say in my neck of the woods: don’t look for a fifth leg in a cat.
I find the menus cumbersome and with too many apps some of them repeated.

Whatever hapenned to “lean and mean”? You cannot be everything to everybody, lean and bloated with apps to make life easier for windoze refugees who will not learn Linux because we are trying to make life similar to what they had before. They continue “pointing and clicking” without understanding anything.
I have to use slim, I cannot get rid of it without locking myself outta the OS,
and leaving .xinitrc unusable because slim controls most of the options that otherwise would go there. If you want to use slim fine, but let the user be able to use startx.

The way it is now, you got things networked together with the (xxxxxx.antix)dependencies, you can’t get rid of something without the .antix dependencies, it’s endemic, reminds me of systemd in a way. I will probably be thrown out of the forum, but you wanted to know what I thought 🙂

I cannot resist asking:
What is appealing in antiX?
What was lacking from the devuan+ratpoison system you already had (or still have) up-and-running?

I like:
1.No systemd
2.Installer is great.

Nothing was lacking. Curiosity. I use the bsd distros (freebsd and openbsd) to see, compare… Been using antiX on and off for many years, since anti was a
tongue-wagging revolutionary fluxbox addict. 🙂

Of course, I’m ignorant of the repercussions and politics that are involved in single-handled creating a distro, a man has to do what a man has to
do. Peace!

• This reply was modified 3 years, 10 months ago by macondo.
• This reply was modified 3 years, 10 months ago by macondo.

antiX Core 64 Bit Runit IceWM

"Sometimes a man finds his destiny on the road he took to avoid it."

[Member macondo]

Hi BobC, I failed miserably at that. Usually, you just deinstall it with apt-get or dpkg. I am now in freebsd and installing some hd. I wrote my experience in another post which I cannot find but basically this is what I remember:
# dpkg -P slim
IIRC, gave me an error and some dependencies of slim, so I tried it again,

#dpkg -P slim dependency1.antix dependency1.antix etc
then it worked, next I went to /etc/inittab and changed the run level from 5 to 3

#nano /etc/inittab

#rebooted

no dice, I could not get in, then reverse-engineered everything and insstalled slim went to /etc/inittab and changed the run level back to 5 and rebooted.
No luck. Ended up reinstalling antix-base, in other distros this would have worked.

I found the post:

https://www.antixforum.com/forums/topic/launching-ratpoison/

“1. Thank you gents, went to slim.conf and put rp as the default.
It appeared on the F1 list, but never started, gave me an error, back to icewm.

2. Yesterday, I deleted/purge slim and rox-filer, conky says it is not installed, and chose “3” in the default run level at /etc/innitab, rebooted
nothing! re-installed slim, changed the run level back to 5 and rebooted, zip.
Did a quick reinstall and that’s how I am here.

3. Forgive me, am an old man, “lean and mean” to me, means no eye candy and superfluous stuff. Why slim? you still need a username and password to be entered, which can be done in startx, save space and headaches. That conky, I need it like another hole in my head, KISS it.

4.Net installation CD, is a mess! All you need is the regular installation CD (base or full) but without the apps just the base ones, the user installs xorg and whatever he wants, use .xinitrc and startx. antiX has one of the best installers hands down, quick. Grub does not fail like in other distros.
Being modern and flashy doesn’t necesarily means advanced. Just my opinion, no insult intended, last thing I want is to ruffle some feathers.”

• This reply was modified 3 years, 10 months ago by macondo.
• This reply was modified 3 years, 10 months ago by macondo.

antiX Core 64 Bit Runit IceWM

"Sometimes a man finds his destiny on the road he took to avoid it."

[Anonymous]

ratpoison?
strange but true…
when I checked whether I’ve gathered any ratpoison tips in my browser bookmarks, I found two…
https://dev1galaxy.org/viewtopic.php?id=1695
http://www.debianuserforums.org/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=2934
and both were authored by a fella named Lou
aka macondo, which would be… YOU !

Each O/S has a different approach to handiling xinit and Xsession startup, eh?

went to slim.conf and put rp as the default.
It appeared on the F1 list, but never started, gave me an error
. . .
I deleted/purge slim and [..] chose “3” in the default run level at /etc/innitab, rebooted
nothing! re-installed slim, changed the run level back to 5 and rebooted, zip.

In another (possibly related) topic, anticapitalista pointed to a debian forum post:

http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=134425
Problem solved.
After installing xserver-xorg-legacy I needed to add the following line to /etc/X11/Xwrapper.config:
needs_root_rights=yes

After this startx works for normal users. Running dbus is not necessary.

EDIT: Also need to add user to video group or /dev/dri fails to open due to lack of permission.
man Xwrapper.config

.

I’m unsure which version of which antiX release you’re using (your post mentions 3 versions)

Why slim? you still need a username and password to be entered, which can be done in startx
. . .
Net installation CD, is a mess! All you need is the regular installation CD (base or full)
but without the apps just the base ones, the user installs xorg and whatever he wants, use .xinitrc and startx.

Did you overlook the availability of antiX “core” version?
No SliM, and as far as I can tell… it would fit what you described.
If you check it out, and it too misses the mark, please post back and provide a list of its unwanted (or missing) packages vs what you think would be ideal.

I cannot resist asking:
What is appealing in antiX?
What was lacking from the devuan+ratpoison system you already had (or still have) up-and-running?

[Member seaken64]

My thought was that I could not get antiX installed if I could not read a USB or DVD but only had a CD. Maybe I can figure out how to snapshot a system that started out as a larger-than-CD iso. I had not considered using Grub. That may work. But I am also concerned about hard disk size for the initial iso file to boot from the Grub. Frugal may allow this to work better since it will be a smaller footprint. Once the frugal install is in place I can remove the original iso file to recover HD space.

No time right now to try this. Just considering ideas. I will report back when I have time to do the experiments.

Seaken64

[Member seaken64]

Do you think I can get v19 down closer to 50Mb on initial boot/idle? I am able to do that with v16 and v17 by choosing one of the minimum window managers. I run v16 and v17 on a couple machines with 256Mb of RAM. Can browse a little using NetSurf or Dillo. But not really a great experience trying Palemoon or SeaMonkey. I use those machines for mostly text based stuff anyway. Although Cantata runs good.

I did some tests in a VM today. Here’s what I get at initial boot without making any changes such as you highlight here – just straight boot from installed iso. I did change the screen resolution to 1680×1050.

from ps_mem.py
v19b1-32bit = 143
v19bi-64bit = 197
v17.4.1-32bit = 119
v17.4.1-64bit = 161
MX18.3-32bit = 286
MX18.3-64bit = 348
Q4OS2.7TDE32 = 169 HTOP
Q4OS2.7TDE64 = 244 HTOP

v19 weighs in more than v17 in general. MX and Q4OS for comparison of XFCE and TDE desktops.

Seaken64

This has to be done on a per-machine install basis not a live usb
that gets taken from pc 2 pc. Overall ram usage is lower to due to
them not getting loaded. This helps making an isosnapshot smaller and
a live-persistant usb for a particular pc.

1: In a terminal using the lspci command
or using inxi -Fxz make a note of which drivers are
being used.

2: Open synaptic and do a search for the firmware and remove the ones
the pc doesn’t need. Then do another search for xservers and remove all
the extra video drivers that aren’t being used. I left the vesa, intel,
and fbdev ones on mine. Be sure to leave fbdev as the kernel loading uses it.
I also removed the amd-microcode package since This cpu is intel.
If the cpu is AMD then you could remove the intel-micrcode package.
Doing a search for printer-driver and removing the ones not needed can
trim space on a iso or usb-persist as well.

3: Apply and reboot.

4: Enjoy seeing the memory usage for overall alot lower in sudo ps_mem.py