An antiX newbie has a few issues.

[Member Waga]

Hello everyone.
Recently I purchased a new laptop for my wife and I am trying to convert her from Windows to *nix.
After trying a few OSes I installed GhostBSD there and was amazed by how I could configure mate desktop in a way that resembles Windows in a way that offers significant familiarity without looking like a copycat. But after a day of tweaking it I realized that I won’t be able to run my ix5800 series printer there. So – back to Linux.
antiX won because it has debian compatibility (This driver is not easy to get on most linuces, compiling it is pain that I went into and gave up. But for there’s a deb that just works on antiX) as well as runit – which I never tried but wanted to. Also, I have some debian experience, “stable desktop” and “lightweight” are tags that fit my needs well here.
But I’m stuck with a few issues….
1. I installed mate desktop and some of its elements cause troubles…
a) I don’t see desktop icons.
b) gvfsd-trash trashes my CPU. strace tells me it has too many opened files and keeps trying to open another in a tight loop. I see that there’s a bug for that case in gnome:
https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gvfs/-/issues/606 and it is related to desktop-icons-ng. I’m not sure if I have it installed, I don’t see it in apt. I surely don’t have it running.
Also, users there are able to grep through logs – I don’t see anything related in my /var/log (I have rsyslog running).
c) If I kill gvfsd-trash, it restarts and until the leak causes it to thrash the CPU again it is not causing troubles….but then brisk menu uses 100% CPU. strace tells me it’s reading the .desktop files over and over. Also, it’s unusable during that period – if I open it, it disappears after a random time, always under a second. Maybe it’s the actual cause of gvfsd-trash issues? I don’t know how to debug it further…

2. I use root on ZFS. I mount my EFI System Partition in /boot, copy the kernel and initrd there and use efibootmgr to instruct EFI to boot it. initramfs-tools are having problems with this setup.
a) They don’t support root on ZFS and force me to use MODULES=most rather than MODULES=dep. Which is annoying, but not very harmful. I would like to resolve that but I don’t have to.
b) They fail to build initramfs on VFAT. I work around this by asking it to build elsewhere and moving the files to /boot manually. This is a fine short term hack but I need a long term solution. Maybe mount EFI System Partition elsewhere and use initramfs-tools hooks to move initramfs there? I’m not tempted to try because it feels hacky and I’m not sure if it would work. Maybe a different initramfs management tool would be better? dracut? But how would it play with antiX tooling? What will happen during system upgrade? I’m unsure here and would be happy to receive some advice….

Also, I see that gvfs-trash has had similar file descriptor leak issues with ZFS:
https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=254024
The advice seem specific to FreeBSD, so I am stuck on this path as well, but mention ZFS as a potential lead….

Any advice please?

• This topic was modified 3 months, 1 week ago by Waga.

[Forum Admin rokytnji]

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Howdy. I’ll start with statement 1.

How did you install Mate and could you post a

inxi -Fxz

readout ?

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

[Moderator BobC]

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Anything is possible, but I’m not understanding why you didn’t try antiX?

If you wanted it to look and feel more like windows there is an FT10 Transformation package that a lot of people use. Its not too hard to install, is efficient on old hardware, leaves the original antiX still usable underneath, and you wouldn’t be trying to build and support a custom distro.

• This reply was modified 3 months, 1 week ago by BobC.

[Member marcelocripe]

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Hello Waga.

Welcome to antiX Linux and the forum.

I don’t know how to write in English and I send my texts translated by the internet translator. I hope you can understand everything, if your native language is not English, please translate my original Brazilian Portuguese text directly into your language with the help of internet translators.

When you can, read my real welcome in this thread Hello.

You don’t need to install a desktop on antiX for you or your wife to have a Windows-like desktop.

@PPC developed a solution that does this with extreme quality and without requiring processing and RAM memory, the solution is called “ft10-transformation”.

Consider doing the following, install antiX again, this way you will have a brand new OS and no MATE remnants. Update antiX, click on antiX Menu, Applications, antiX Updater. After the update is complete, click on antiX Menu, Applications, Preferences, Synaptic Package Manager. In Synaptic’s search (it’s the icon with a magnifying glass), type: “ft10-transformation” (without the quotes), left-click on the “Search” button, right-click on the package ” ft10-transformation”, the options menu will be displayed, click on the “Mark for Installation” option, then click on the “Mark” button, then click on the “Apply” menu (it is the icon with the image of a gear), a summary containing the information of all the packages that will be installed will be displayed, click on the “Apply” button and wait for the installation process to complete.

Change your desktop, click antiX Menu, Desktop, Switch Desktops, zzz-IceWM.

To activate “ft10-transformation”, click on antiX Menu, Applications, Preferences, FT10 – Activate. In the window that appears, choose the model on the right. In the options window, uncheck the option “disable the volumeicon” and check only the option “install and configure the recycle bin in zzzFM”.

The topic antiX transformation pack – antiX FT 10 has detailed information about the “ft10-transformation”.

marcelocripe
(Original text in Brazilian Portuguese language)

– – – – –

Olá Waga.

Seja bem-vindo(a) ao antiX Linux e ao fórum.

Eu não sei escrever em idioma Inglês e envio os meus textos traduzidos pelo tradutor da internet. Eu espero que você consiga compreender tudo, caso o seu idioma nativo não seja o Inglês, por favor, traduza o meu texto original em idioma Português do Brasil diretamente para o seu idioma com a ajuda dos tradutores da internet.

Quando você puder, leia a minha verdadeira boas-vindas neste tópico Hello.

Você não precisa instalar um ambiente de trabalho no antiX para você ou a sua esposa ter uma área de trabalho semelhante ao Windows.

O @PPC desenvolveu uma solução que faz isso com extrema qualidade e sem exigir processamento e memória RAM, a solução se chama “ft10-transformation”.

Considere fazer o seguinte, instale novamente o antiX, assim você terá um sistema operacional totalmente novo e sem nenhum resquício do MATE. Atualize o antiX, clique no Menu do antiX, Aplicativos, Atualizador do antiX. Após a conclusão da atualização, clique no Menu do antiX, Aplicativos, Preferências, Gerenciador de Pacotes Synaptic. Na pesquisa do Synaptic (é o ícone que possui a imagem de uma lupa), digite: “ft10-transformation” (sem as aspas), clique com o botão esquerdo no botão “Pesquisar”, clique com o botão direito sobre o pacote “ft10-transformation”, o menu de opções será exibido, clique na opção “Marcar para Instalação”, em seguida clique no botão “Marcar”, depois clique no menu “Aplicar” (é o ícone que possui a imagem de uma engrenagem), será exibido um resumo contendo as informações de todos os pacotes que serão instalados, clique no botão “Aplicar” e aguarde a conclusão do processo de instalação.

Altere a sua área de trabalho, clique no Menu do antiX, Área de Trabalho, Alternar entre as Áreas de Trabalho, zzz-IceWM.

Para ativar o “ft10-transformation”, clique no Menu do antiX, Aplicativos, Preferências, FT10 – Ativar. Na janela que surge, escolha o modelo da direita. Na janela de opções, desmarque a opção “desativar o volumeicon” e marque apenas a opção “instalar e configurar a lixeira no zzzFM”.

O tópico antiX transformation pack – antiX FT 10 possui informações detalhadas sobre o “ft10-transformation”.

marcelocripe
(Original text in Brazilian Portuguese language)

[Member PPC]

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Hi Waga – antiX is mostly used because how light it is- it runs acceptably even in computers that are 20+ years old.
this OS is so light because is does not use systemD and does not use Desktop Environments.
You selected actiX because it’s compatibility – that’s also one of it’s features…but you want a more Windows like experience and tried installing an unsupported D.E.- hence your problems…

As suggested before, antiX has it’s own solution for users that want a more Windows10 or 11 interface- the package ft10-transformation.
You can even search here how to install themes in Icewm, and install one that gives the same exact window decorations as Windows 10. You can even install Edge Browser, if you really want some of the cons of a default Windows installation… and you end up with a system that looks like, and is almost as feature rich as the latest versions of Windows.

So I can’t help you solving your problems, but my advice avoids those problems – ps: ft10 provides a Trash Can in zzzFile Manager- future antiX version seem that will also feature this…

P.

[Member Waga]

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Thanks for all the suggestions. I will try the ft10-transformation in a VM now and if I like it I will move it to the real hardware. I will report back.

[Member seaken64]

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Hi @Waga, welcome to antiX.

I’m not sure but Mate may be a more difficult path on antiX than you are willing to follow. On the other hand you may end up being successful and can help others who may want to run that DE. In my own experience (and I do not have a solid background in *nix such as BSD, etc.) the antiX paradigm does not really support full on Desktop Environments very well. It is only supported in that there are some packages that can be added through the Package Installer and they can be used by experienced users for building “spins” of antiX. But antiX itself uses Windows Managers like IceWM, Fluxbox, and JWM. Since these Windows Managers are the focus you won’t get as much help with DE’s like Mate or Cinnamon, Gnome, etc.

If you are using some older hardware it is certainly a good choice to start with antiX. AntiX will run on some pretty old machines. But “spinning” it into a full DE system may end up requiring more resources anyway. If you want to stay with Debian but can’t quite achieve what you want for the DE with antiX you should also look at Q4OS. Like antiX, it also can run on some pretty old equipment. But unlike antiX it supports the standard Debian systemd and uses older and newer versions of the KDE system. One of it’s nicer features is the ability to make the system look exactly like Windows 10. I don’t mean to suggest that you shouldn’t use antiX. As already stated there are some user contributions and other spins of antiX that also focus on being a Windows “look alike”. That may end up suiting your needs. I just mentioned Q4OS because I know that a lot of systems require the use of systemd, and that is not supported in antiX.

Seaken64

• This reply was modified 3 months, 1 week ago by seaken64.

[Member Waga]

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I’m back after some trials.

@seaken64 thanks for the background info as well as suggestions. Q4OS is not an option for me because I intend to stay free from systemd.
The laptop is used but with Skylake and upgraded to 16 GB RAM. My wife is a firefox user who has hundreds of open tabs so she will probably OOM this system eventually anyway. 😉
But while I value lean software, 100 MB give or take are not going to affect user experience – while a different UI will.

I tried ft10-transformation in a VM. It was better than I expected. Surely good enough. A bit overloaded and unpolished though. I have a feeling that mate would serve my wife better.
So I did another thing – in another VM I installed mate from scratch on antix-net image by mostly following an online guide. I liked the result even better than what I did initially (install antix full and mate on top of it) – because the system now has only gnome apps which gives it much more uniform look.

Then I transferred both systems to my ZFS pool and added UEFI options to boot them.

ft10-transformed antix boots and works just fine. I was surprised to see 550 MB memory use at startup though. If I continue this road I will look into it, seems more than I would expect.
The mate-from-net required some fight….I fixed a few issues but it still doesn’t work. Now I need to fix some libinput troubles. I need to spend some more time on it later.

So to sum up – going the recommended way went quite smooth but I feel there is something to be gained by working more on a mate variant. I have mixed feelings whether to do it because I spent too much time on this laptop already…but I probably will because I want her first *nix experience to be perfect. And I already witnessed (in Ghost BSD) something better than I have now.

[Member marcelocripe]

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I tried ft10-transformation in a VM. It was better than I expected. Surely good enough. A bit overloaded and unpolished though. I have a feeling that mate would serve my wife better.

Waga, FT10 allows you to change the color, size or length, height or width, add or remove or move icons on the toolbar and in the JGMenu menu. All you have to do is explore FT10 by clicking with the left or right button on each of the options on the toolbar or on the JGMenu menu. The FT10 can be fully modified.
About MATE, I wish you good luck, I don’t want that for myself, because MATE “kills” (“mata” in Brazilian Portuguese) the computer making everything very slow. The word MATE is very similar to the word “kill” (“matar”) in my language and the pun only works because both words have very similar spelling. In English the pun does not work.

– – – – –

I tried ft10-transformation in a VM. It was better than I expected. Surely good enough. A bit overloaded and unpolished though. I have a feeling that mate would serve my wife better.

Waga, o FT10 permite alterar a cor, o tamanho ou comprimento, a altura ou largura, adicionar ou remover ou mover os ícones da barra de ferramentas e no menu do JGMenu. Basta você explorar o FT10 clicando com o botão esquerdo ou direito sobre cada uma das opções da barra de ferramentas ou no menu do JGMenu. O FT10 pode ser totalmente modificado.
Sobre o MATE, eu te desejo boa sorte, eu não quero isso para mim, porque o MATE “mata” o computador tornando tudo muito lento. A palavra MATE é muito semelhante a palavra “matar” em meu idioma e o trocadilho só funciona por que ambas as palavras possuem a escrita muito parecidas. Em inglês o trocadilho não funciona.

[Moderator BobC]

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I also run a I7 skylake laptop with 16 gb, and have no performance problems with Netscape with over 100 tabs open, as well as another browser with over 100 tabs open. But I run a light antiX desktop (Icewm without other fluff) and use the zzzfm file manager tweaked like FT10 has it.

[Member PPC]

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Waga wrote:

I tried ft10-transformation in a VM.[…] A bit overloaded and unpolished though

You broke my heart… “Unpolished” how dare you sir!!! – just kidding.- It’s not meant to create a Windows clone, just provide a similar User eXperience – it’s meant to be used by people that only computer experience is with Windows 10/11. It joins together tint2 toolbar, jgmenu, configures them to look the way they do, and also provides lots of GUIs to increase those programs (and antiX in general) usability.
They have limits- you can’t (from the menu) drag and drop apps to pin them in the menu/toolbar/desktop or drag the menu to change it’s size – the base programs that I use do not support that, but I do provide easy GUI’s to manage the Apps pinned to the start of the menu (and, in an extremely basic way, the “Tiles”) and the toolbar. A newer, beta version is available on ft10-transforantion’s thread, that solves a bug that does not allow to correctly pin apps to the menu.
But antiX + Ft10 has some features that only recently got added to Windows 11 – like being able to drag and drop a file the icon of a running window; a nice tabbed File Manager, etc.
If the end user is used to Windows 11, see on ft10’s thread how to disable the “Tiles”- the menu will be simpler, much like Windows 11, without all it’s problems (you can access, at the same time the pinned apps and, after them, all the apps).
You can also install “compton” and enable visual effects, from FT10’s menu. Select nice windows decorations, a nice gtk theme, and it will look a bit better than just default antiX with ft10 enabled on top. You can right click the “+/-” toolbar icon to set the toolbar to look the way you want it, via GUI (the ft10 beta has more options, available).

Ft10 is almost a one man show, made in my spare time – I created, from scratch, many scripts it uses- the calendar (that you can use to schedule events) was created by me, etc.

There are better Window’s look-a-likes out there. But FT10 is not intended for that. It’s intended to give antiX a more default interface, changing it as little as possible.
By the way – on my 8gb of RAM computer, after booting, antiX 22, full, 64 bits, uses way less than 200mb of RAM (and about 200mb if you have nvidia drivers).

P.

• This reply was modified 3 months, 1 week ago by PPC.
• This reply was modified 3 months, 1 week ago by PPC.

[Moderator Brian Masinick]

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@Waga: If you are not insistent on using MATE as your desktop environment, I’d highly recommend MX Linux for a solid, stable environment that is very likely to work, has good support, and is well regarded in DistroWatch reviews and in annual downloads. It’s always been a good distribution, and a few of the contributors to MX Linux are also familiar with antiX, and our two distributions share a few of our tools and common expertise. For a newer system, it’s one of the best distros around.

AntiX can also be adapted to work on newer hardware. I’m using it on a 2021 vintage HP-14 laptop, but it took a great deal of manual work on my part because antiX is better suited to old devices. What I had to do was multi-boot my system, find a distribution that had the library modules and a kernel capable of fully supporting my system, then I had to carefully copy the necessary pieces into place. Not a job for the faint of heart, but it did ultimately lead to a great system too.

Where our antiX is terrific is on systems that are five to twenty years old. These often run very slowly on the latest system images, and don’t work at all on some of them, but they’re perfectly suited for antiX.

If you have a system that’s 3 or more years old, I highly recommend either antiX or MX Linux; the former is one of the best at being really conservative with system resources. The latter is great at providing consistent, stable software that runs well and looks good. We can make both systems look good; in fact, with antiX, you CAN run anything that you run on MX Linux, but you may have to tinker with it, because our design caters to lean and efficient resource management and support for aging hardware.

I don’t want to discourage you from using either of them; both are great. I merely want to let you know what is the most appropriate use for each of these fine distributions, because each of them is one of the best in their specific areas of greatest strength.

Best wishes; I hope this is helpful.

--
Brian Masinick

[Moderator Brian Masinick]

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As far as PPC’s tool is concerned, it’s something he’s contributed, bit by bit in his spare time. It’s not intended to be perfect, it’s simply a usability tool intended to conserve resources yet provide a few alternative ways to easily access the system.

Yesterday I went through each item in the menu and checked each item that can be toggled or modified. As far as the things I checked, everything worked and a lot more is available in this simple tool than the first version that was envisioned several months ago. It’s a great optional tool that can be enabled or disabled easily. When enabled, the additional overhead is nominal; when disabled, all it consumes is the disk space for the tool, which is inconsequential. Any system that is not consuming over 90% of it’s available disk space can easily handle the addition of FT10. While it may not be a tool for everyone, I applaud both the idea and the implementation, and I’ve been personally cheering on as PPC continues to share his time, ideas, and expertise with our community, for which I’m personally thankful.

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Brian Masinick

[Member Xunzi_23]

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@PPC, if a person wants Mate = old gnome based and polished over years by Mint why worry, its his computer
and we all have personal preferences.

The work you have done is highly appreciated and I assure you does ease the transition from windozeland
to antiX. Definitely Polished and Efficient enough for me to reccomend it to anyone uneasy with the standard
lightweight antiX setup. Performance on older hardware is excellent.

But Skylake and 16 GB RAM setup should perform well even with doze 11 or heavyweight linux.

[Member Waga]

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@PPC, I think I made you feel bad because I did not express myself clearly enough. I’m sorry for that. Please let me fix it.
After having several forum members one by one repeat the same advice to me I thought there had to be something to it. My expectations were high but nevertheless cautious; I thought that the tool would take what is in antiX and reconfigure it to resemble windows. I had no idea how much configurability was there to exploit but the base is very unlike Windows…and I knew that wife liked eye candy. antiX doesn’t offer it as stock and I didn’t expect FT10 to change it.
The start menu has exceeded my expectations by a lot. The overall effect has exceeded it as well. On the other hand, now that I know that I speak with the author I can give you some constructive feedback…For background, it seems that my goals align with yours well in that I am not looking for something that looks perfectly like version X of Windows but rather for something that looks and behaves in a way similar enough to make learning it easy. Attempt to look exactly like windows…wouldn’t actually please me.
To the actual feedback:
I am not happy about the theme – plain black and white icons are not the kind of eye candy that I want for my wife. That is the actual reason why I like mate more. I assume I can fix it to some extent but at this time I am not inclined to put the necessary effort. I am also unable to gauge how much work would it be…but I expect that more than I would like to spend now.
I don’t like the four square icon used for the menu. I don’t feel it will make my wife feel better with the system and I know it makes me feel worse. I am sure I can replace it and I may do it later.
Some bundled software is…nerdy. The weather app? It put a smile on my face. I know that my wife’s face will show a different expression once she sees it. Style-wise it stands out from the rest of the system and looks out of place.

So it’s not like I didn’t like your job, quite the opposite. Knowing that my wife like eye candy I didn’t expect the result to be good enough…and it is. But mate just looks better, especially when I care to select software on the base of matching the desktop and accept them being heavier.

@Brian Masinick
I am aware of MX Linux….actually this is the first *nix that I tried. I don’t have anything strong against it but there was no chemistry between us. Also, it’s take on the init system is unclear to me and I wonder if it’s drifting away from the nosystemd world…which makes me less willing to commit to it. But thank you for the suggestion.
BTW, I am surprised to read that antiX is not so good for newer hardware…after all, the main page of of the project states that:

antiX offers users the “antiX Magic” in an environment suitable for old and new computers.

But anyway, I don’t seem to have any significant hardware issues with it. I’m glad about it. 😉 (Though there is one error in dmesg that I may investigate at some point….but I’ve seen it in void with 6.1 kernel as well.)

• This reply was modified 3 months, 1 week ago by Waga.

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