Search Results for 'microsoft'

Got a call from 0044 1436 881273 this morning, first thought not another death!.

If you are bored or want some fun just let the number ring then quickly end the call, do it a couple of times the scammers will
probably call back, waste their time as long as you can stand the hogwash they want to give you.

Turned out to be an interesting conversation,
Sir your name is George, is that correct. Why not be George for a while so yes.
Sir I am Microsoft support executive, your computer is connecting many times to our server and giving us trouble.
Sir if this keeps happening Microsoft will remotely disable your computer permanently.
Sir please give me your Microsoft product key, er how many computers do you own. Answered 5, Which windows version are they running sir.
10, Ah one moment, )I must talk to my supervisor.
Sir all of your computers are full of virus trojan and junk, you must allow our ms support to clean it for you.
Sir i need the product keys of all of your computer.

On and on in an attempt to remotely connect to my windows 10, er antiX 21 system. After about 25 minutes I got fed up and told the person
my thoughts in a manner not postable on the forum and that I run Linux. The return reaction was not friendly as expected…

I tried to get an IP for the scammers computer, the lady was very careful, guess they have been targeted back before.

Since my old 32bits HP laptop that had antiX 21 on it is currently down, I decided, this weekend to try antiX 64bits, for the very first time on real hardware and I installed it on my old (and very underpowered netbook). I’ll relate my experience here, like if it was the first time I tried to install antiX:

*Creating the live boot media – I downloaded the Linux version I wanted (antiX 21 64bits full) and tried to use the live USB creator – it refused constantly (I unmounted the thumb-drive, I rebooted, etc…) to let me create a live device with persistence (on antiX 19.X, 64 bits)- I gave up and then created the live USB in a couple of minutes… Weird…

*Booting the live media – as always, this worked like a charm. I noticed this: on the GRUB boot menu we can select twice the language we want to use- on the Select Kernel menu and on the Select Boot options – now, selecting the language on the first menu also applies to the second menu- Nice! – but has a tiny bug – the – Fx options are displayed in English on the second menu, and only updated to pt when I select the language again

*Live media performance – for those that never tested antiX in live USB (at least usb 2.0) mode – trust me- you will be fooled into thinking you are running a system already installed on your hard drive – everything just works smoothly and fast (it even seems a tiny bit faster than running the installed version on my hard drive- because my drive is so crappy)

*Installing – hum… A couple of problems here – everything would be fine and dandy if I select the option to install to the entire hard-drive (and delete all other partitions/ Operating systems- but I wanted to keep my backup system- Windows 7, with Word – just in case- I haven’t needed it in the last couple of years, but you never know…)
So I choose the (default) option to keep the existing partitions – and boy – this does look scary – for a user that does not know a lot about partitions (and most of us do not)- it’s like looking at a complex excel spreadsheet displaying lots of detailed information about a subject I know nothing about- what the hell! I just want to install an OS, not apply to an advanced informatics degree!… So I studied every option – and discovered that my old Linux partition, conveniently called by the guy that installed it (antiX-19) is where I should place my system – hum… I heard that Linux does not have a c: drive, all my stuff is kept in my home – so let me select to use that partition as my “home”… and I have one partition called Swap – let me mark to use that as Swap too – Damn- an error complaining that the partition should be at least XXgb? But that partition is 45gb! So I found out, the hard way that the partition where you install antiX can’t be formatted as “Home”, it has to be “root”- weird- why didn’t the installer just warn me that I need to create a “root” partition!!!
-the rest of the install process is a breeze – even in this crappy netbook it’s not just simple, it’s fast – I reached 95% in about 5 minutes or so… and got an error: it could not install something called Grub! It says I can take care of that from live media. I waited for 5 minutes more but nothing – no HD activity – the installer is working, I can click the buttons, move back, etc… But it’s just open, doing nothing- what am I supposed to do? I rebooted… as expected, I got an error saying no grub is found and nothing more- so I boot from the live USB- there should be an easy to see way to recover that Grub thing, right? Nope. So I ran the installer again, exact same settings, same same computer- 95%, 96%, 97%, 98%, 99%… I began to chew my nails… 100% Success!! What the hell, I did nothing different an now it works?

*Booting my new installed Operating System
-Damn- this thing may look like the poor, long forgotten twin brother of Windows 98, but is as fast as the wind!
-On the Control Center thingie is something that says “Update” – let me try – we should always keep our system up to date, right? I’ll bet it will take ages and some 50% of my hard drive… What? The update is almost 300mb but it will just take a couple mb of disk space? What sorcery is this? After some minutes of staring to some strange text running past by me on a black screen I see the best sight I ever got in my computer life – a simple window telling me that my Update was finished- no multiple reboots needed, nothing – everything is just ready to be used- has Windows been bs me all my life with that overcomplicated update process?
-Is there a way to make this thing look a bit more like… hummm… it was made in the XXI century? I read about something called Ft10-transformation on the forum – let me check that out- hum… It’s not in the “App store”… Oh! It’s in this complicated other app store, called Synaptic – it took me some 10 minutes to figure out how to install something – it has so many options! Ok. I installed it- everything just looks the same – do I have to run something? I use that app finder thingie and see I have a quazzilion of stuff saying FT10 – let me try this that says “enable FT10″… Ok, one config window, another one… I bet this will take hours… What? More sorcery? This now looks even better than Windows 10? Who is the guy that created this? I want to tell Microsoft to hire him and bring Windows back from the dark side… hum… dark ages!

-Some stuff like the browser, the office suite and some menu entries are not in my language!!! Help!!! Wait… when I searched for “language” on this new handy menu I got a hit- hooo! I just selected to “localize” my system and now, after some more black window thingies, everything now speaks my language- just half a dozen menu entries are still in English, and that file finder thingie (searchmonkey- are they kinding me? Why does this Linux thing have such weird names for apps? Couldn’t it be just “search” or “file search”?)… Now,, why does not this Language thingie part of the install process? that would be sweet!

*Installing applications- I need to install some apps – a faster browser, a more up to date Office suit, Java… let me use that handy little “app store” – I selected some 20 apps and clicked install – ok- I get that black window thingie again- boy Linux has some kind of kink with black windows? – and it says it’s done. No, I don’t want to install anything else…
What? Why did only a couple of my apps get installed???
Let me try installing one by one – man… This sucks… Let me select again, and install, one at a time (is this the dark ages?): palemoon browser (I’ve hear it light, it should run on my crappy netbook), ungoogled chromium browser (this should be nice- I don’t want google snooping all around, I just want to use the free stuff they allow me to use, he he he!!!), pulseaudio (I think Linux has some sound problems without it, sometimes)… and I need Java for work… some nice casual games, like Patience, for my free time and… SuperTuxKart? I heard it’s like that SuperMarioKart I never played when I was a kid because I was too broke to have a gaming console…
I do love e-books, so Calibre should be handy… and non-free codecs should be handy… CUPS and HP stuff for my printer at work… Ok, I think I’m good.

*Testing the system after I set it up with everything I want:
–Network – I set up my Wi-Fi without any problems, I can even access my shared folders!
–Browsing and internet related stuff– Browsing is ok – some sites take ages to load – YouTube only loads fast and with an ok video quality in Chromium, but for everything else I think firefox-esr (most compatibility), seamonkey and palemoon will do just fine. Smtube, already provided out of the box, allows me to stream YouTube videos perfectly, even in higher quality and in full screen, without ads, even on this crummy old computer? Linux, I love you! and an appimage called electronplayer allows me watch streaming services perfectly, like Netflix? and seamonkey e-mail can even be configured to access my Gmail? and this ft10-cloud thingies lets me get cloud drives, like my google drive on my File Manager? Sweet
–Office – the latest office suite, perfectly localized, and running at an acceptable speed on this old machine- great! And I can even open docx documents, without Ms Office? This has to be a scam, right? Nothing can be that good and be for free…
–File compatibility– Audio – my old audio files play great, Pictures, pdfs, everything look ok. Video- very old video files play fine. That HD video I took of my baby girl dancing? It’s… Slow, same as in Windows – let me see if there’s a way around that (hum a guy said to install Xine media player with sudo apt install xine-ui…) What this old beast plays HD video files perfectly with Xine? I could not do that with Windows 7… Again- are this Linux guys into Black magic or what?
–Gaming – I have some light games, like solitaire, chess and soduku, they run great- they are free, without ads and help pass the time, sometimes… Even that supertuxkart is playable in antiX 21, just barely – because it’s kinda of slow – on this video card that shares 8mb of my precious 1 gb of RAM! Even so, I can play an up to date 3d game on this old Windows 7 era netbook that was crappy even when it came out? Sweet!
–Sound – this netbook sound has always been crappy, even in Windows… Let me pull the volume to the max, to amplification to the max, on this pauv thingie I found out on the menu… Oh… My… Godddd…! I can hear everything perfectly – pulseaudio never worked on this computer when I was using antiX 19… This is not sorcery, it’s a miracle!!!
–Video – now… I’ve been trying to keep this light, from a newbie’s point of view, but there is something really wrong with video support – with antiX 21 and my intel video drivers- I can play video files just fine, but a couple of times now, for unknown reasons, when I try to open a video file the video player crashes- if I use the terminal I can see errors with the video driver – both mpv and xine complain about it- if I restart the session, everything just works…

Overall impression:
antix 21, 64bits, particularly with ft10-transformation, pulseaudio, xine media player and up to date applications makes even the cheapest and crappiest 64bits netbook look and feel like a middle range modern netbook running Windows or MacOS – if you have a device with less than 10 years or so- it will literally make your computer fly for most common tasks…
I have only to report, after about half day some random problem that seems to affect the part of the video driver that enables the system to play video files- restarting the session solves that instantly.
After so many problems with pulseaudio it’s a relief seeing, or rather, earing it work perfectly – I can say I never, ever heard such clear sound coming out of those tiny speakers, I though they just could not perform that good!
I give it a 98% rating on this old netbook (100% as soon as I can solve that video problem)- the problem with installing many apps with Package Installer is just a small nuisance !!!

P.

• This topic was modified 1 year, 1 month ago by PPC.
• This topic was modified 1 year, 1 month ago by PPC.
• This topic was modified 1 year, 1 month ago by PPC.

[Member PPC]

@madibi: I do agree that this off topic messages should be moved to another thread.

On what you said- I agree: there are very little “free lunches”- if you get something cheap or for free, if you don’t pay with money (and it’s not open source and free, like antiX, LibreOffice, etc), you are paying in some other way- I don’t mind paying with my attention- seeing adds- I’ve been doing that, when watching TV my entire life. I don’t also mind paying with my data, if I expressly choose to do so (I have Brave installed in my system so I can play, for free Stadia games, and access Gmail).
That was (paying with your attention, seeing adds), for some years, the way free stuff worked on-line. But this began to get more insidious- companies like Meta, Google, Apple and Microsoft, etc are tracking every single thing users do, even when they are not using their services directly, because they are now companies that sell targeted advertisements (tailored to the profile they created about each one of their users) – that I don’t agree with.

Are you aware that, even if you have GPS off on your android device (no matter if it’s a phone or a tablet) it is in fact still on and constantly sending your precise location to Google? Are you in doors, without a GPS signal? The addresses of near by wi-fi networks are used to track your position. Are you ok with that? I’m not… Do you want to turn it off? You can’t (not completely, not without installing another OS in your phone).

Yes, I have android devices, but I still try to avoid using Google services as much as I can- there are open source alternatives that do exactly the same thing that Youtube, Google Calendar, Gmail, Google Maps, Weather, Play store, some Games etc, and do not track you.
Do you know, for example, that Apple can (and does) track every single file on their idevices? Originally, and officially this began as a way of reaching the (commendable) goal of fighting child porn. But once a company can check every little thing you have on your device, what stops them from doing so, even if you don’t want to lent them do so? And you can’t say Apple users should let Apple do that, because they bought a cheap device.
In particular idevices seem to be transmitting your location even when they are turned off- the only way to stop them doing that is run the batery down to compelte 0%…

I’ll go one step further: Imagine mobile devices makers being forced, by the Country they operate in, to warn the police if someone is sending a message to set up a manifestation again War, or Corruption on the government… Or if you are gay and take a picture with your loved one in a country where being gay is a crime, and the Company that made your phone tells the cops about it… Or if you take pictures of the army that is invading your country and your phone relates your exact position and personal data (name and address, not just an IP) to the government of the invading country… Does that sound scary now?

A country (you can “google” which one), during the start of the pandemic, made it mandatory to have a tracking system on mobile devices, with the promises that would be for “health reasons” only. Now, that country made all that tracking data available to the police… Hum… “Not my problem, that is useful for stopping crimes? I have nothing to hide!” You may think? Ok, I can disagree but respect that position… But what about in states (that I won’t name here) where there’s also a “though police”?

Another country had location data from about 80% of it’s citizens, also obtained from a “Covid-19 tracking” application (people can see from my previous posts, that I’m a believer on the scientific method, on applying critical thinking to every day events, I had people close to me suffer from Covid, and I’m fully vaccinated, and take every possible care not to get contaminated, even though I hate masks, I wear one, anyway, I digress- my problem is with any way to track citizens without a Court order)… They promised that that personal data “was safe”… and guess what- they got hacked- now hacker’s somewhere know exactly where you’ve been for the last 2 years or so, if you live in that particular country – Scare, but also happened already… I’m not making this up, you can search on-line…

Facebook’s app on idevices had “a bug, not a feature”, that, without users knowing turned on the camera, took a picture and uploaded it to their servers– does that sound ok to you, just because you are using a “free service”?

Do you know that, when Facebook (now Meta) acquired Whatsup, they had to promise they would not share that app’s data with Facebook… Guess what they ended up doing?

I did not read up on this (I would have to read a huge EULA, to make sure this one is true)- but I read on-line that, if you use MS office On-line (now Office 365 on-line), all the files you create are owned by Microsoft (they are, in fact, in MS owned hardware, but that still seems too weird to be true, specially here in the EU, with all our privacy laws).

These examples are not conspiracy theories (I wish they were), nor a bad “Black mirror” episode. Unfortunately, this is the real world, and are real problems that, if not already happening, will do so in the very near future (months to short years).

Knowing all that, I’m not against Apple or Google – I’m against people being stripped of the their fundamental right to privacy, because they have a mobile device on them (which most people on developed countries do, there’s almost no way around that).
I think private companies do have the right to make a profit, yes. I work, I like to make a profit (even if I make 0 euros from my contributions to the Open Source world). But I also know most “non geek” people (some 95% of device users in the world) have no idea how tracked they are.
Many times, if you want, for example, do to on-line banking, you have to have a phone app for that- that’s “expected” even by banks, and also by state services, etc.
Do you know that, in order to have a banking app, on an android device, it probably requires google services to be running (and google services, of course, share data with Google Services, like your device ID, that is directly linked to your name, and also that you are paying for something and where you are doing that. Is that technically needed? No. here in Portugal, my bank’s app does require Google Services, but the biggest on-line payment service did not, with worked fine without google services turned off. Guess what, after last update? It now does not work without Google Services being active in my device.
Even Streaming services complain that they need Google Services to run on android devices – and do they? Nope, they run just fine with them off, and you are paying cash for that service, it’s not even remotely “free”.

Also, check out the large amount of “free” apps on the android store that does not work without Google Services and an Internet Connect (so they can upload all your data to their servers and then sell it to the highest bidder).

Even people that pay for MS Windows 11 have, by default, every single character that they type recorded and sent to MS servers (once again, you can “google” that fact)- does MS really need (or even deserve) to have that info about you?… and what happens if a non democratic Country’s Government demands access to every single thing their people type on a computer??? Well, antiX does not need that, to be what probably is one of the very best OS’s in the World, on any device, so why does Google need it, or MS?

That’s why I talk about the lack of privacy when using certain types of services… I’m not bashing any particular company, I’m trying to make people be more aware of what they agree to when they use a “free service”.

Let me finish with this one- at least, to some degree, Google is “honest”. I recall the time when their motto was “Don’t be evil”. They removed that motto long ago, I wonder why…
I use, every day, Google and, sometimes, Microsoft and Meta services, when I have to, but I do so fully knowing what I’m getting myself into, and always try to minimize the exposure of my personal data (that’s more than most people out there). They are not Evil, nor the Devil. They are just private companies that most countries in the world didn’t notice gathered more info on their citizens than most Intelligence Services can… All in the name of profit.

P.

Edited to add even more examples about privacy problems on-line and on mobile devices, reedited to clarify some points and correct some typos.

• This reply was modified 1 year, 2 months ago by PPC.
• This reply was modified 1 year, 2 months ago by PPC.
• This reply was modified 1 year, 2 months ago by PPC.

[Member Egzoset]

Hello,

Well i remember vaguely about having to edit text in desktop objects that didn’t come with an icon at times. Long long ago, **elsewhere**!

The reason i tag Linux as “Fix once Break many” is because such work got rendered useless with a next update…

But the creator(s) or ‘GrUB2’ gave us all the tools we need and YOUR antiX 21 release gave it some fair justice, as far as i’m concerned the potential has been demonstrated beautifully.

Thanks for the tip about the ‘ft10-transformation’ package for my native language, you’re quite right to mention Linux Mint actually, but its life was short although its responsiveness felt seriously improved in comparison to Windows 10 – which is the end of the road on my CherryTrail tablet anyway…

Linuxium looked promissing until an automatic update killed it, too bad GrUB installs prove so fragile!

Other OSes gave me trouble even locking me out of my own stuff, etc. This tablet ain’t going back to Windows in any case, i’m quite willing to flush Microsoft before it flushes my Intel i3 machine this next summer.

Relatively to PulseAudio, all Linux i tried always make me install ‘PApRefs’ because its a main function of the computer in here: display TV and manage wireless (BT) headphones that may come in pairs, especially with “open ear” types like the bone-conduction units. Any Linux i choose has to meet these requirements as a minimum, so i salute your sense of fairness while the margin gained remains an asset.

IMO antiX 21 compared nicely to Fossa Puppy Linux v9.5 and i like having tools around as Synaptic, etc., not to mention although Slackware 15.0 is freshly released some antiX respin of it would be of no help, ’cause Slackware officially announced a defavorable position toward hybrid 32-64 boot-loaders exactly.

Debian 11.2.0 does indeed come with a ready-made binary called ‘bootia32.efi’ and distros as Linuxium started to include it in their 64-bits .ISOs for the purpose of compatibility exactly, and it turned out i DIDN’T need to worry about such patch-work just to enjoy a GrUB boot menu from antiX 21, so i gave it some time.

But…

My appologies, the news are bad this morning. The thing is both display monitors went blank and hence i started downloading alternatives again, so i’m back to the slow process of creating a new USB thumbdrive only to erase it. SparkyLinux seemed slightly more agile than Linuxium, while FossaPuppy simply won’t complete booting, perhaps in reason of some driver for eMMC storage – FAT32 partition & frugal mode still failed.

Not to mention the 128 GB uSD flash drive doesn’t exist at boot time, unfortunately.

I did have an Atom N270 around too but it died last year, on another hand my HP-48 calculator stays on my desk since late ’93 when i bought it…

One been replaced almost naturally, the other will leave an immense void when its turn comes. Which by the way reminds me i’ll want to run an HP-48 emulator someday, sooner than later hopefully! …

Thanks for the additional suggestion. Slitaz being Slackware-based, as i recall, it won’t be possible to patch it with ‘bootia32.efi’ unless i compile it myself – and that’s a No-No! Maybe later, much much later when there’s nothing else to do.

There’s a grandma machine that could benefit from what i’ll find eventually. In the meantime here’s what i can contribute with as a newbie on planet antiX:

Monitor resolution can get wrong and direct right-click desktop access would help a bunch, instead of going through multiple menu items until the obscure ‘ARandR’ utility pops up, ’cause i garantee grandma wouldn’t have known, so my guess is a short descriptive word besides “ARandR” might be a good start. Or mention it on the GrUB splash screen? …

Please take no offence if my intervention seems like a hit ‘n run, i don’t know myself what’s next except many more thumbdrive swaps at the moment. Fingers crossed!

Who knows, next time i may relay a 2nd expression of gratitude, in the name of a grandma dropped like rotten cabage by Microsoft Windows XP…

Good day, have fun!!

• This reply was modified 1 year, 2 months ago by Egzoset.
• This reply was modified 1 year, 2 months ago by Egzoset.
• This reply was modified 1 year, 2 months ago by Egzoset.

[Member sta]

inxi -r
Repos:     No active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list 
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/antix.list 
           1: deb http://la.mxrepo.com/antix/testing testing main nosystemd nonfree
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/buster-backports.list 
           1: deb http://deb.debian.org/debian buster-backports main contrib non-free
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian-stable-updates.list 
           1: deb http://ftp.pl.debian.org/debian/ buster-updates main contrib non-free
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian.list 
           1: deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ testing main contrib non-free
           2: deb http://security.debian.org testing-security main contrib non-free
           No active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/onion.list 
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/teams.list 
           1: deb [arch=amd64] https://packages.microsoft.com/repos/ms-teams stable main
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/teamviewer.list 
           1: deb https://linux.teamviewer.com/deb stable main
           No active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/various.list

[Moderator Brian Masinick]

@stevesr0: You are right about a lot of what you say. In the retirement community where I live, a great number of people use iPhones, iPads, and iMacs. The majority of them have no idea how to use the more “sophisticated features” found in Pages, the Word processor provided by default in most Apple products. Though they CAN also use a much simpler Google Docs and other Google provided “office tools”. I can tell you this: whether you like Google any more or less than Apple or Microsoft, the various Google tools in their freely available suite is quite straightforward, fully capable of doing any routine task, to the point that I rarely bother grabbing LibreOffice, OpenOffice, or one of the other office suites any more, unless they are already included in the stock distribution I happen to be using.

The most recent time I wrote and updated a resume, and for the past 10-20 years I’ve been using either StarOffice, OpenOffice, or LibreOffice, and I have compared their documents and looked at them on Microsoft Office (Word) and they look fine. But now, so does Google Docs, and it’ll save in any common format you want, from PDF, .doc, .docx, .odf, .odt, plain text, and others.

I know there are people here that absolutely detest ALL of these companies; that’s their opinion and that’s their fair choice, just as I have my choices and you have yours.

But what I wanted to say about the seniors here is that after getting these fancy Apple products, VERY FEW of them know how to do much more than answer their phones and check their Email. If they receive an attachment or if they have to create their own document, ESPECIALLY if they are the member of a committee in our community, most of them are clueless as to how to use the products effectively. (One person asked me what technology to buy; I suggested a moderately priced Chromebook; they went out and bought an expensive Apple product. 2-3 months later they saw me before or after a meeting and quietly said to me, “I should have taken your advice: I see all of the great things that Mary (my wife) can do with her simple, lightweight, moderately priced Chromebook; I should have listened!” So be it).

My wife is NOT a technology genius at all, but she is TERRIFIC at being able to attend a meeting, listen to what’s going on and take notes on the meeting and the discussion. She was a public school speech and language teaching specialist and added a guidance counseling background to these skills. I can walk circles around her on the computer, but she takes better notes than any of the professional associates I’ve known. I was able to create good notes and good meetings, but ONLY by having virtually complete control over the agenda AND by speaking individually with the members of the teams I worked with to ensure that all content was relevant and accurate; SHE can do that because she LISTENS and digests information very well. Everyone tries to get HER to take minutes; this year I told her to be on the counsel and one committee; let other people figure it out or HIRE a stenographer or secretary to take notes for them!

Anyway, outside of business and technology circles, the level of experience in effectively using tools, especially in older communities, declines greatly! (in fairness, MANY people younger than me can do things on computers that I have no clue how to do, AND I’m BECOMING one of these “OLD” people, more and more as each day, month, and year passes!)

--
Brian Masinick

[Member ModdIt]

i would speculate is that the excessive disk i/o activity may also be associate with solid state drive hardware

Nope nothing to do with an SSD, if you had a fast rotating disk you could hear the head seek click.
The installer, it was adopted at a late stage just before release and a problem overseen..

If you do not accept the fact that some services were found to have been started without neccesity you will never fix
your issue.
More background info and reading regarding conmann. A tool many like.
https://www.antixforum.com/forums/topic/wifi-with-connman-antix-19-2/page/7/#post-72056
More info and reading
Updating your system will fix some of the issues, regarding info and assistance from the forum others.

The only way I have found to date to get rid of spurious disk and network activity, dump conman for ceni, conmann pings
a microsoft server, if it is unable to get an answer forever at rapid intervall.
Switch off all services which are not essential to your user case.
Use nearby time servers so NTP time synch activity is short as possible. Make sure BIOS battery is OK on older devices
or clock may drift excessively.
Stop all logging, which can be a disadvantage.
Set your system to swap only when absolutely neccesary. I have 8 GB Ram, only see swapping while attempting to compile
a browser or working with Nikon Raw images which are more than double my memory size. for example.

• This reply was modified 1 year, 3 months ago by ModdIt.

[Moderator christophe]

My thought is that the sponsors themselves will not destroy the distro. If I recall correctly, the centos debacle was because redhat bought it, then IBM bought redhat. Then, since IBM OWNED the distro, they decided to use it in a way that benefitted THEM, but wasn’t what the user base wanted. IBM must have expected a great success, but I suspect they have no one who wants to use centos as their testing-bed. They may have just wanted to destroy centos in their greed, since it was a free version of rhel.

So I figure that until Microsoft or Amazon or one of the other sponsors actually buys out the ownership of the distro, it should be OK. But even if it were to be bought by a big company, the owners should know that they wasted their money, if they buy the distro & do what IBM did — they would lose the user-base.

This is FOSS. Another one will take its place, right?

• This reply was modified 1 year, 3 months ago by christophe.

confirmed antiX frugaler, since 2019

[Member olsztyn]

Brian Masinick wrote:

The theory and hypothesis is this: a “smart system”, one that knows if memory is a widely available resource or a scarce resource MAY decide to allocate, even pre-allocated chunks of memory to use for anticipated (perhaps even expected) usage patterns. IF – that is if and ONLY if a generous amount of unused memory IS available, the system algorithm will be to allocate and pre-allocate a comfortable amount of cache and/or unused free memory to the active system memory pool. If it finds the memory unused, it’ll release it, but if the system has idle CPU cycles AND available free memory, it may once again preallocate some memory. This is just a guess on my part, but based on discussions and articles that I’ve read in the past, some memory management systems may actually behave in this, or a similar manner,

I am aware of such ‘designs’ that proactively pre-allocates large chunks of memory based on anticipation of use. Windows is probably the best example of such. Depending on algorithm it may or may not be found beneficial in normal operation. I have not done proper analysis of such design and have not seen specific analysis and benchmarks performed on Linux systems to compare behavior but my personal and very subjective experience based on Windows is that Windows has always (since XP) has been using excessive amount of memory with no visible benefit translated into responsiveness of the system. On the contrary, I find Windows way more sluggish than simple Linux systems that do not employ such pre-allocation memory schemes, antiX being extreme such case. But on the other end some Linux systems went out of their way in their ‘smart’ imitating and ‘enhancing’ Windows’ bloat and developing inefficient garbage that even Windows could be considered lighter in comparison…
As I remember Microsoft has been touting various schemes showing off ‘smartness’ of the system and to me it always has been at the expense of something else.
My reports of my experience with Linux distros leaking memory was not much about ‘smartly’ pre-allocating memory in anticipation of need, but just clearly leaking memory that never seems to be recovered regardless of usage pattern. And it is not just 10 or 20M as you noticed about XFCE, which would be very modest and acceptable, but instead leaking memory in much larger quantities, that effectively leads to issues in the course of time, such as responsiveness or even freezing as I experienced with some.
My example was Q4OS I stress tested with Google Earth, which after short use effectively froze the entire system, probably due to memory management problem. It is not issue with Google Earth because the same Google Earth runs fine continuously on antiX 21, on the same machine. Understandably Google Earth might be considered a tough stress test but you cannot stress test a system running just a light application such as terminal…
Just my opinion.

• This reply was modified 1 year, 3 months ago by olsztyn.

Live antiX Boot Options (Previously posted by Xecure):
https://antixlinuxfan.miraheze.org/wiki/Table_of_antiX_Boot_Parameters

Updated Wireless Desktop in shop

harry@shop:~
$ inxi -zv7
System:    Kernel: 5.10.57-antix.1-amd64-smp x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 10.2.1 Desktop: IceWM 2.9.4 vt: 7 dm: N/A 
           Distro: antiX-21_x64-full Grup Yorum 31 October 2021 base: Debian GNU/Linux 11 (bullseye) 
Machine:   Type: Desktop System: LENOVO product: 6075BHU v: ThinkCentre M57 serial: <filter> Chassis: type: 3 serial: <filter> 
           Mobo: LENOVO model: LENOVO serial: <filter> BIOS: LENOVO v: 2RKT41AUS date: 03/20/2008 
Battery:   Message: No system battery data found. Is one present? 
Memory:    RAM: total: 3.58 GiB used: 1.04 GiB (29.0%) 
           RAM Report: permissions: Unable to run dmidecode. Root privileges required. 
CPU:       Info: Dual Core model: Intel Pentium Dual E2160 bits: 64 type: MCP arch: Core Merom rev: D cache: L2: 1024 KiB 
           bogomips: 7181 
           Speed: 1449 MHz min/max: 1200/1800 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 1449 2: 1742 
           Flags: acpi aperfmperf apic arch_perfmon bts clflush cmov constant_tsc cpuid cx16 cx8 de ds_cpl dtes64 dtherm dts 
           est fpu fxsr ht lahf_lm lm mca mce mmx monitor msr mtrr nopl nx pae pat pbe pdcm pebs pge pni pse pse36 pti 
           rep_good sep sse sse2 ssse3 syscall tm tm2 tsc vme xtpr 
Graphics:  Device-1: Intel 82Q35 Express Integrated Graphics vendor: Lenovo driver: i915 v: kernel bus-ID: 00:02.0 
           chip-ID: 8086:29b2 class-ID: 0300 
           Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.11 driver: loaded: intel unloaded: fbdev,modesetting,vesa 
           resolution: 1280x1024~60Hz s-dpi: 96 
           OpenGL: renderer: Mesa DRI Intel Q35 v: 1.4 Mesa 20.3.5 direct render: Yes 
Audio:     Device-1: Intel 82801I HD Audio vendor: Lenovo driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus-ID: 00:1b.0 chip-ID: 8086:293e 
           class-ID: 0403 
           Sound Server-1: ALSA v: k5.10.57-antix.1-amd64-smp running: yes 
Network:   Device-1: Intel 82566DM-2 Gigabit Network vendor: Lenovo driver: e1000e v: kernel port: 1820 bus-ID: 00:19.0 
           chip-ID: 8086:10bd class-ID: 0200 
           IF: eth0 state: down mac: <filter> 
           Device-2: Realtek RTL8191SU 802.11n WLAN Adapter type: USB driver: r8712u bus-ID: 2-6.4:5 chip-ID: 0bda:8172 
           class-ID: 0000 serial: <filter> 
           IF: wlan0 state: up mac: <filter> 
           IP v4: <filter> scope: global broadcast: <filter> 
           IP v6: <filter> scope: link 
           WAN IP: <filter> 
Bluetooth: Message: No bluetooth data found. 
Logical:   Message: No logical block device data found. 
RAID:      Message: No RAID data found. 
Drives:    Local Storage: total: 298.09 GiB used: 15 GiB (5.0%) 
           ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Western Digital model: WD3200AAKS-00B3A0 size: 298.09 GiB speed: <unknown> type: N/A 
           serial: <filter> rev: 3A01 scheme: MBR 
           Optical-1: /dev/sr0 vendor: HL-DT-ST model: RW/DVD GCC-H30N rev: 1.02 dev-links: cdrom,cdrw,dvd 
           Features: speed: 48 multisession: yes audio: yes dvd: yes rw: cd-r,cd-rw state: running 
Partition: ID-1: / size: 252.52 GiB used: 15 GiB (5.9%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda4 label: rootantiX21 
           uuid: f1b7ea1f-dd9f-479b-8bf1-56d1ac2e1a8b 
Swap:      ID-1: swap-1 type: partition size: 3.91 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) priority: -2 dev: /dev/sda2 label: N/A 
           uuid: 83f3c3a7-56c1-4666-b6ba-87069c6ee9cf 
Unmounted: ID-1: /dev/sda1 size: 36.56 GiB fs: ext4 label: N/A uuid: 5091df41-e1b4-4c73-a7bf-a05357b81d9a 
           ID-2: /dev/sda3 size: 1024 KiB fs: ext4 label: /data uuid: cfc7c48a-7166-4682-bb9a-8da7af996851 
USB:       Hub-1: 1-0:1 info: Full speed (or root) Hub ports: 6 rev: 2.0 speed: 480 Mb/s chip-ID: 1d6b:0002 class-ID: 0900 
           Device-1: 1-2:2 info: Super Top USB Mass Storage Device type: Mass Storage driver: usb-storage interfaces: 1 
           rev: 2.0 speed: 480 Mb/s power: 400mA chip-ID: 14cd:8168 class-ID: 0806 serial: <filter> 
           Hub-2: 2-0:1 info: Full speed (or root) Hub ports: 6 rev: 2.0 speed: 480 Mb/s chip-ID: 1d6b:0002 class-ID: 0900 
           Hub-3: 2-6:4 info: Super Top 4-Port hub ports: 4 rev: 2.0 speed: 480 Mb/s power: 100mA chip-ID: 14cd:8601 
           class-ID: 0900 
           Device-1: 2-6.4:5 info: Realtek RTL8191SU 802.11n WLAN Adapter type: Network driver: r8712u interfaces: 1 rev: 2.0 
           speed: 480 Mb/s power: 500mA chip-ID: 0bda:8172 class-ID: 0000 serial: <filter> 
           Hub-4: 3-0:1 info: Full speed (or root) Hub ports: 2 rev: 1.1 speed: 12 Mb/s chip-ID: 1d6b:0001 class-ID: 0900 
           Hub-5: 4-0:1 info: Full speed (or root) Hub ports: 2 rev: 1.1 speed: 12 Mb/s chip-ID: 1d6b:0001 class-ID: 0900 
           Hub-6: 5-0:1 info: Full speed (or root) Hub ports: 2 rev: 1.1 speed: 12 Mb/s chip-ID: 1d6b:0001 class-ID: 0900 
           Hub-7: 6-0:1 info: Full speed (or root) Hub ports: 2 rev: 1.1 speed: 12 Mb/s chip-ID: 1d6b:0001 class-ID: 0900 
           Hub-8: 7-0:1 info: Full speed (or root) Hub ports: 2 rev: 1.1 speed: 12 Mb/s chip-ID: 1d6b:0001 class-ID: 0900 
           Device-1: 7-1:2 info: Microsoft Wheel Mouse Optical type: Mouse driver: hid-generic,usbhid interfaces: 1 rev: 1.1 
           speed: 1.5 Mb/s power: 100mA chip-ID: 045e:0040 class-ID: 0301 
           Hub-9: 8-0:1 info: Full speed (or root) Hub ports: 2 rev: 1.1 speed: 12 Mb/s chip-ID: 1d6b:0001 class-ID: 0900 
           Device-1: 8-1:2 info: IBM NetVista Full Width Keyboard type: Keyboard driver: hid-generic,usbhid interfaces: 1 
           rev: 1.1 speed: 1.5 Mb/s power: 100mA chip-ID: 04b3:3025 class-ID: 0301 
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 47.0 C mobo: N/A 
           Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A 
Info:      Processes: 140 Uptime: 4h 20m wakeups: 1 Init: SysVinit v: 2.96 runlevel: 5 default: 5 Compilers: gcc: 10.2.1 
           alt: 10 Packages: apt: 1605 Shell: Bash v: 5.1.4 running-in: roxterm inxi: 3.3.06 
harry@shop:~
$ inxi -r
Repos:     Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/antix.list 
           1: deb http://mirrors.rit.edu/mxlinux/mx-packages/antix/bullseye bullseye main nosystemd nonfree
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/bullseye-backports.list 
           1: deb http://deb.debian.org/debian bullseye-backports main contrib non-free
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian-stable-updates.list 
           1: deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ bullseye-updates main contrib non-free
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian.list 
           1: deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ bullseye main contrib non-free
           2: deb http://security.debian.org/ bullseye-security main contrib non-free
           No active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/various.list 
harry@shop:~
$ sudo apt -f install
[sudo] password for harry: 
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
  gir1.2-polkit-1.0 libpolkit-agent-1-0 libpolkit-gobject-1-0 libpolkit-gobject-elogind-1-0
Use 'sudo apt autoremove' to remove them.
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.

Wireless setup

http://thumbs2.imagebam.com/45/9a/94/62080f694680953.jpg

Sometimes I drive a crooked road to get my mind straight.
Not all who Wander are Lost.
I'm not outa place. I'm from outer space.

Linux Registered User # 475019
How to Search for AntiX solutions to your problems

[Member ahoppin]

Robin, thank you for the suggestions.

I’ve used Noscript with Seamonkey and Palemoon in the past. Perhaps I didn’t use it correctly. No matter what I whitelisted with it, Captchas wouldn’t display, so some websites refused me entry.

I’ve also found that some websites (including my bank website) don’t like even the most recent Seamonkey. Some essential function will fail, even when I set the user agent string to say that it’s Firefox. Maybe genuine Firefox would work. I haven’t tried it.

Instead, I’ve been using open source Chromium for those sites. Maybe that’s a foolish choice.

However, I don’t allow the spyware on any of those troublesome websites to know of other sites that I visit. I have a frugal Puppy Linux installation with Chromium and multiple savefiles, one savefile for each website, and never visit any other sites with that savefile.

I assume that the same could be done with multiple copies of Antix live.

I’ve not yet had a website reject Chromium, and everything seems to work.

So I think that Moddit is right, that Google forces their “standards” on the web. Google and Chrome are now similar to Microsoft and Internet Destroyer years ago. They are too rich and powerful.

Between 1995 and about 2005, the web was a relaxed and friendly place to be. It seemed full of promise for a better future. Today it’s hostile and dangerous. Sometimes it seems like walking alone through Chicago Riverdale, or La Chapelle in Paris, at 2 AM.

What a pity that we can’t null out the disk, reinstall the web, and start over, this time without advertising.

Thanks again to all at Antix for your hard work in defense of our privacy!

• This reply was modified 1 year, 3 months ago by ahoppin.

[Member ModdIt]

Please keep this thread clean.

Apple pays Mozilla for user data along with google. Policy at Microsoft is Embrace and destroy.
The present MS boss has repeatedly called linux the biggest threat to the business model and a scourge.
He is repeating what those who came before hiom said…

Further opinions and non browser facts please post in Cafenio.

[Moderator Brian Masinick]

In my opinion, I am happy for the many alternatives, both free and non-free. Also for all the comments about using our data for profit, imagine the issues with Microsoft and Apple products!

I’d rather let Mozilla use my data before MSFT or APPL any day. Actually I have more against Apple than I do Microsoft. Apple uses and modifies free software, and only rarely contributes free software and they charge exorbitant prices for hardware and software.

Microsoft used to criticize free software; in recent years they’re sharing more software and behaving more like a partner. They still sell commercial hardware and software. I don’t mind that. We need the choice of free and proprietary; both have a legitimate place.

I still value free stuff, but I have always said that choice is good.

--
Brian Masinick

[Member stevesr0]

Learned about software to test usb from usb.org/compliancetools. Runs in Windows. There are 2 versions for Windows XP. Although I have able to run amd64 kernels on this machine, the 64-bit version refused to install, while the “regular” (presumably 32-bit version did. However, the program requires a microsoft xml parser (msxml, version 6), which refused to install saying it wasn’t compatible.

So, I may never know if this testing program (usb20cv.msi) would have detected a specific hardware error or not.

stevesr0

[Moderator Brian Masinick]

I love the projects you guys are working on, but as for me, I am an unapologetic Linux user, and have been ever since I bought my first personally owned desktop computer.
For many years, I at least kept one image of some version of Microsoft product handy, but I’ve found I really do not need to do that, and since I have been retired, I DEFINITELY do not need to do it. I’ve been able to communicate with people who use different brands and types of phones and computers, and my Linux interests have also served me well when I use phone products. I am not seduced into believing that these are 100% Linux products; the ones I use have hardware and software produced by a variety of open and commercial sources; I use what I like, whether free or commercial, though when I have an opportunity to use freely available software, most of the time that is what I use and choose.

Since retirement I’ve not used a lot of Microsoft or UNIX hardware/software, unless I am using public property that I do not personally own; those moments have been few since there is so much good mobile technology these days.

Nope, for me, I don’t have to pretend it looks like Windows, it never is, nor does it deliberately attempt to look that way. I tend to enjoy nature scenes, like waterfalls, ocean shoreline, open fields or wood and grassy backgrounds. They might come from sites that could be used on Microsoft Windows, but one of my favorites comes from a Corbin, Kentucky waterfall called Cumberland Falls. I drive near it every time I drive to Ohio or Michigan from the South, though I’ve not stopped to site-see or camp.

Anyway, the freedom of choice is what really matters here, and I am extremely grateful that each one of us has the freedom to choose the environments and appearances that we visually enjoy and the technical details that work best for each of us.

--
Brian Masinick