About running AntiX with my old and new laptops

[Member Rockman98]

Hello,

I want to use AntiX on my modern and old machines. I have some questions.

1. I want to use AntiX on my Lenovo Legion Y520 laptop as dualboot OS with Win10, because Win10 uses 4-6 GB RAM (out of 16GB) in daily usage. I think that running a lightweight distro help me to get less noise while gaming and getting higher FPS in high settings. Am i correct?

2. My old machine is Sony Vaio VGN-A517B with 768mb ram. It’s 17 years old laptop. I want to use it along with Windows XP for internet surfing. Can i have any issues with installing AntiX on 17 years old laptop? I had issues with Q4OS. I got crackling sound sometimes when i click somewhere and while turning on/off my pc. I didn’t have issues with audio playback. Someone told me that, it was latency issue. The only thing was that turning off the audio under BIOS. So, i deleted Q4OS. Recording of that sound

3. If i have any questions/issues about AntiX, can i contact you easily? I used Q4OS a bit, but i didn’t like their support due to late answers.

4. Can i use any other Desktop Environments such as Xfce, KDE Plasma and Trinity DE with AntiX?

Thank you,

• This topic was modified 1 year, 2 months ago by Rockman98.

[Member stevesr0]

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Hi Rockman98,

Welcome to the forum.

As this is a volunteer effort, there are no guarantees of swift responses or solutions to all problems. Nonetheless, as a perennial newbie, I have been satisfied by the (free) service I have received over the years.

As my oldest current computer is only about 15 years old and has 2 gigs of ram, my experience may not be applicable to you. But I have been very satisfied with the “speed”. With low levels of ram, you may wish to take special care to minimize the demands of the packages you install. If you search thru the forum, you will likely find lots of threads dealing with low power and old hardware, since that
is a special strength of antiX.

As a side note, Windows XP is probably a risky tool to use on the internet since it doesn’t receive regular timely security updates. However, you know the issues with that OS better than I.

I have no competency with gaming so I won’t try to offer any comments about that part of your post.

stevesr0

[Anonymous]

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Hello Rockman98,

On the Lenova laptop, you will want the newer 5.10 kernel and gaming will be dependent upon the video drivers
being used. On the sony laptop the 4.9 kernel might be best. On both wifi drivers might be an issue, but without
more hardware info. please post the output of

inxi -zv7

on each if you boot from live iso. You can install
xfce or kde from the antiX package installer.

[Member PPC]

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Hi

1- You are technically correct- the less resources the OS uses, the more resources are available to games. But, probably saving 3,8-6 Gb of RAM out of 16 (antix should use about 200mb of RAM on idle, even with nvidea drivers loaded) may not be significant. FPS depend on many things, probably you won’t see a big difference.

2- antiX runs fine on a 32bits laptop, from the same era, with 1gb of RAM. Use lighter browsers (like palemoon, seamonkey) and surfing the web will be a pleasure, on most sites. For YouTube, use Smtube, included in antiX
Test antiX live, to check if it runs fine with your wi-fi cards and if you don’t have any “sound problems”

3- Yes, but this is a 100% voluntary support forum, if you get “late answers”, well, though luck

4- Yes, you can install Xfce and KDE from Package Installer (antiX small “App Store”).

[Member Rockman98]

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• This reply was modified 1 year, 2 months ago by Rockman98.

[Member Rockman98]

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Anonymous wrote:

Hello Rockman98,

On the Lenova laptop, you will want the newer 5.10 kernel and gaming will be dependent upon the video drivers
being used. On the sony laptop the 4.9 kernel might be best. On both wifi drivers might be an issue, but without
more hardware info. please post the output of

inxi -zv7

on each if you boot from live iso. You can install
xfce or kde from the antiX package installer.

Does AntiX 21 32-bit base iso have 4.90 kernel?

[Member PPC]

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As you can read here: https://antixlinux.com/blog/ (I think it applies to both full/base and 32bits/64bits):

Customised 4.9.0-279 kernel with fbcondecor splash

Unless you have limited bandwidth, my advice is this: download an iso (I recomend. for your laptop, antiX 21, full, 32bits), and boot it live… All your questions about compatibility, kernel and software versions and usability will be answered. If you can boot from USB, you may even notice that antiX tends to run, on live mode, even faster on USB 2 than on very old hard drives. If you have to boot from cd/dvd you’ll notice that it takes ages to start and load apps…

P.

[Member Rockman98]

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PPC wrote:

As you can read here: https://antixlinux.com/blog/ (I think it applies to both full/base and 32bits/64bits):

Customised 4.9.0-279 kernel with fbcondecor splash

Unless you have limited bandwidth, my advice is this: download an iso (I recomend. for your laptop, antiX 21, full, 32bits), and boot it live… All your questions about compatibility, kernel and software versions and usability will be answered. If you can boot from USB, you may even notice that antiX tends to run, on live mode, even faster on USB 2 than on very old hard drives. If you have to boot from cd/dvd you’ll notice that it takes ages to start and load apps…

P.

My old laptop could not boot from USB.

[Forum Admin anticapitalista]

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If I were you, stick with what you already have on that old laptop.
Your expectations are far too high.

Philosophers have interpreted the world in many ways; the point is to change it.

antiX with runit - leaner and meaner.

[Member PPC]

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@Rockman98 – anticapitalista knows his stuff (after all he created antiX) but, if you want to quicky test antiX (or any other Linux distribution) on your old laptop, you can download and burn a plop cd (available here: https://download.plop.at/files/bootmngr/plpbt-5.0.15.zip), boot from that CD and then use the menu from that boot cCD/DVD to boot (very quickly) from any USB pen-drive connected to your laptop. That was how I installed antiX 21 on my old laptop.
If you want only to browse the web (with nothing else open on that laptop) your RAM should be just about enough to have a light browser (or stream _Youtube from Smtube. Don’t expect to be able to confortably use any web office suite or stream Netflix or hi resolution video on that device (although usually I can do it on my old laptop). You can, also install Xine media player and probably you’ll be able to watch off-line HD videos on that computer… You can also use that laptop for office work (using LibreOffice). Just don’t try to multi-task much….

P.

[Moderator caprea]

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This is also possible to boot antiX from usb. Burn a dvd or cd with antix21.Then create a live-usb with also antiX21 with the same kernel.
Start with booting from cd, your usb-stick is already plugged in.On the bootscreen as bootparameter you have to type from=usb
The boot will start from cd but automagically will then turn into a boot from live usb.
This worked for me even on my oldest not usb boot capable laptops and is much too little known.

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