- This topic has 4 replies, 5 voices, and was last updated Mar 19-10:13 pm by PDP-8.
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PPC
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.
calciumsodium
Thank you for the laughs and funny moments. You are a good writer.
I can identify with some of the growing pains of learning how to use antiX.
From my experience, I agree that sound quality is much better using pulseaudio with antiX21.
ModdIt
Hi PPC, nice REVIEW, not the kind mostly hacked together in 3 minutes. Regarding installer, I feel same way
when multiple partitions are involved and some must be preserved it is a little testing. When the device
belongs to another person I sweat..My EEPC has a very slow processor, AMD E450 snail speed in windoze, running antiX 21 it becomes, as you point
out plenty fast enough for everyday usage. Interestingly running live is pretty much same as from an internal
SSD which replaced the clockwork powered factory fitted drive, I also have the huge amount of 3,45 GB Ram, seems
it is unable to fully utilize the sticks from a broken thinkpad.@calciumsodium Pulseaudio is a layer on top of alsa, there is no way it can improve sound quality.
Actualy on a very good sound system pulse audibly detracts sound quality. That on same hardware with an audigy card serving.
Amp Alchemist Kraken with one power transformer per Channel. Big KEF Floorstanding speakers. Among others Bell accoustics
and inacoustik Audiophile CD originals , drive is an absolute gem from Liteon.
blur13
haha great write-up PPC! Quite the coincidence that today I decided to purge my old spare VAIO laptop from 2014 of antiX 19 and install the latest and greatest antiX 21. Totally agree with you about the partition viewer, what a mess. I gave up and installed “on the whole drive”. Amazingly, a swap partition was created matching the system RAM. Next task, copy some dot files from another laptop using a USB drive. Format using the antiX tool. Copy. Insert. Nothing. Format using ext4. Copy. Insert. Files. That are completely empty. Zero bytes. Try copy from new antiX 21 and using the “eject” button. That worked. I dont know, but I always found USB support a bit flakey. But I’m probably doing something wrong. And files copied from USB are always “executable”, ie 755, when originally 644. I obviously have some reading up to do.
PDP-8
After all that updating / upgrading, don’t forget to cleanup afterwards with the usual debian apt utils. clean / autoclean / autoremove etc.
Once you get everything the way you like it, perhaps let AntiX do a remaster to an iso so that you can conveniently reinstall in case something goes wrong with all your previous additions kept intact.
Ah, the beauty of AntiX ! Especially when running in ram on lower-spec boxes. Hard to tell right?
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