antiX has brought my old laptop into the 2020’s

[Member crayphish]

Hello everyone,

Just installed antiX-core on my 2007 T61 model ThinkPad with NVIDIA graphics. Most other current distos that I tried wouldn’t even boot their installer. Set up dwm as a window manager but it is extremely sluggish for some reason(glxgears: 16fps). Openbox is amazingly fast(glxgears: 188fps!) though and only uses about 5 more megs of ram. So I’ll probably stick with that.

Applause to everyone that makes antiX possible and keeps it free of systemd!

Attachments:

1. 

   2022-12-03-095245_1680x1050_scrot.jpg
   

[Member banned]

Helpful

Up

0

::

Welcome Crayphish 🙂

crayphish wrote:

Openbox is amazingly fast(glxgears: 188fps!) though and only uses about 5 more megs of ram. So I’ll probably stick with that.

I run mostly with 120 to 170 used RAM AntiX-22 Full LXDE but hope to get down to 80MiB soon.

Good luck

• This reply was modified 5 months ago by banned.

[Forum Admin rokytnji]

Helpful

Up

0

::

Cool Beans. Suprised dwm was sluggish. I am a icewm user myself.

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 crayphish]

Helpful

Up

0

::

banned wrote:

I run mostly with 120 to 170 used RAM AntiX-22 Full LXDE but hope to get down to 80MiB soon.

Htop showed bare Openbox idling at about 118MB RAM with two terminal windows open. Dwm was about 113MB. After adding tint2, etc. to Openbox the RAM usage will probably go up into the range you’re getting with LXDE. Thanks.

[Member crayphish]

Helpful

Up

0

::

rokytnji wrote:

Suprised dwm was sluggish.

I found a post on another forum from someone having the same problem and the solution offered there had something to do with fonts. After getting Openbox fully configured maybe I’ll investigate the problem further.

[Member olsztyn]

Helpful

Up

1

::

crayphish wrote:

Just installed antiX-core on my 2007 T61 model ThinkPad with NVIDIA graphics.

To me it is a relatively powerful machine for antiX. I was running antiX on Thinkpad T60 (much less powerful) until it gave ghost due to screen failure. I am still running antiX Full all day as music center for my wife on Thinkpad Z61P (similar specs machine as yours). From similar specs I also have a few Thinkpad X61 little machines, running antiX. I did not have issues with DWM (using on other Thinkpads, such as T410) but I am curious of your benchmark tool (glxgears). I will try this to benchmark video performance on my laptops…

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

[Member banned]

Helpful

Up

0

::

crayphish wrote:

adding tint2, etc. to Openbox the RAM usage will probably go up into the range you’re getting with LXDE. Thanks.

Yes – running AntiX-22 Full LXDE started out at about 120 then adding video making and video editing with a few other bits seems to have pushed it up to 170MiB

Perhaps will try AntiX-22 core at some point…

[Member banned]

Helpful

Up

0

::

olsztyn wrote:

I was running antiX on Thinkpad T60 (much less powerful)

antiX linux: The best way to revive an old computer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCTaUAP6sSg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vpg9yizPP_g

Perhaps try this excellent pro video on Big Bucks Bunny made by our very own Punranger to see a YT video struggle at about 45min in.. CPU 100% etc…

Then watch the YT HD video itself in another tab of six – then watch both simultaneously with LO writer and other apps open. 🙂
My old HP G60 plays all this and more without any stress or stutter. Surprising ?

[Member crayphish]

Helpful

Up

0

::

olsztyn wrote:

I am curious of your benchmark tool (glxgears).

Just realized the glxgears window in dwm was a little larger than the window in Openbox so it wasn’t a 100% fair comparison. I tested glxgears in the default size window on my Debian Stretch Cinnamon desktop PC and got 10000fps but it went down to 600fps in fullscreen. So the size of the window makes a difference. Anyway, dwm is performing horribly compared to Openbox for some reason. Video quality in mpv is horrible in dwm but fine in Openbox. There’s also a lag of at least 1 second after pressing Mod-p before the dmenu prompt appears.

I don’t think glxgears is officially intended to be used for benchmarking but it’s probably good enough to compare video drivers, etc. If it shows 60fps vblank_mode=0 glxgears will stop it from syncing with your monitor’s vertical refresh rate. If it’s not already installed it’s in the mesa-utils package.

[Member marcelocripe]

Helpful

Up

0

::

Hello crayphish.

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.Regardless of your level of knowledge about GNU/Linux, I recommend you read these excellent tutorials created by @PPC:

What is antiX and how to try it out or install it.
Short essential how-to list for the complete Linux newbie.
How-to install applications – 2020 version.
How to: correctly use antiX forum.

When I first started using antiX, I read the tutorials that PPC created, these readings saved me a lot of time and I think it saves time for any new antiX user. Your time will not be wasted with these readings, everything will seem to be much easier than you could imagine. You won’t waste your time searching the internet or even creating new topics, on the contrary, you will gain a lot of time with these readings.I recommend you try out desktops that have “zzz” in their name. I usually use zzz-IceWM or zzz-JWM or zzz-Fluxbox (each of these desktops has its own characteristics and consumes more or less resources), zzzFM will be the default file manager for your desktop, it it is very similar to the other file managers of other GNU/Linux distributions and Windows XP. To access other antiX workspaces, click on Menu, Desktop, Other Desktops and click on the workspace name, instantly the workspace will be loaded.

Whenever you need to ask for help or technical support in this forum, please explain in detail what is happening, don’t mince words, be thorough when writing, tell your computer characteristics such as make and model. If possible, post the result of the command $ inxi -Fxz from the terminal, copy and paste here in the message of the topic that you are going to create in this forum.

When you start a topic or participate with a post, remember to check the option “Notify me of follow-up replies via email”, by checking this option, you will receive a message in your email box whenever there are replies from topic in question.

You could test the options of working environments available in antiX in the full ISO and compare with your build.

marcelocripe
(Original text in Brazilian Portuguese language)

– – – – –

Olá crayphish.

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.Independentemente do seu nível de conhecimento sobre GNU/Linux, eu recomendo você ler estes excelentes tutoriais criados pelo @PPC:

What is antiX and how to try it out or install it.
Short essential how-to list for the complete Linux newbie.
How-to install applications – 2020 version.
How to: correctly use antiX forum.

Quando eu comecei a utilizar o antiX, eu li os tutoriais que o PPC criou, estas leituras me pouparam muito do meu tempo e acho que poupa o tempo de qualquer novo usuário do antiX. O seu tempo não será perdido com estas leituras, tudo parecerá ser muito mais fácil do que você poderia imaginar. Você não perderá o seu tempo com pesquisas na internet ou até mesmo em criar novos tópicos, ao contrário, você ganhará muito tempo com estas leituras.Eu recomendo você experimentar as áreas de trabalho que possuem “zzz” em seu nome. Eu costumo utilizar o zzz-IceWM ou zzz-JWM ou zzz-Fluxbox (cada uma destas áreas de trabalho possuem características próprias e consomem mais ou menos recursos), o zzzFM será o gerenciador de arquivos padrão da sua área de trabalho, ele é muito semelhante aos outros gerenciadores de arquivos das outras distribuições GNU/Linux e do Windows XP. Para acessar as outras áreas de trabalho do antiX, clique no Menu, Área de Trabalho, Alternar Entre as Áreas de Trabalho e clique sobre o nome da área de trabalho, instantaneamente a área de trabalho será carregada.

Sempre que você precisar solicitar ajuda ou suporte técnico neste fórum, explique com detalhes o que está acontecendo, não economize as palavras, seja minucioso ao escrever, informe as características do seu computador, como a marca e o modelo. Se for possível, poste o resultado do comando $ inxi -Fxz do terminal, copie e cole aqui na mensagem do tópico que você for criar neste fórum.

Quando você iniciar algum tópico ou participar com alguma postagem, lembre-se de marcar a opção “Notify me of follow-up replies via email”, marcando esta opção, você receberá uma mensagem na sua caixa de e-mail sempre que houver respostas do tópico em questão.

Você poderia testar as opções dos ambientes de trabalhos disponibilizados no antiX na ISO full e comparar com a sua construção.

marcelocripe
(Texto original em idioma Português do Brasil)

[Member olsztyn]

Helpful

Up

0

::

crayphish wrote:

Video quality in mpv is horrible in dwm but fine in Openbox. There’s also a lag of at least 1 second after pressing Mod-p before the dmenu prompt appears.

This makes me wonder. This 1 second lag would be an indication to me that there is something wrong with your DWM instance but not necessarily DWM in general. I do not experience such lag in my DWM. However this is just a conjecture on my side. I will try to do some testing between DWM and my JWM, perhaps installing openbox as well.

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

[Member crayphish]

Helpful

Up

0

::

olsztyn wrote:

This 1 second lag would be an indication to me that there is something wrong with your DWM instance but not necessarily DWM in general.

Agreed, the problem is probably with something I’m doing & not with DWM. The core installer doesn’t have a disk encryption option so I used ecryptfs after installing. Maybe that is slowing everything down & just affecting DWM more than Openbox for some reason. Hoping to get an SSD this Christmas so I’m going to have to reinstall anyway. Until then I’ll keep experimenting to find the ideal setup.
Thank you for your interest & input.

[Member banned]

Helpful

Up

0

::

crayphish wrote:

Hoping to get an SSD this Christmas

Good choice – I did that back in August 21 rather than buy RAM as I have never been in Swap or near it – even video editing 🙂 Though I could afford to buy better – I considered this to be exceptional value at about £20…

https://www.teamgroupinc.com/en/product/gx1

https://www.teamgroupinc.com/en/products/ssd/2.5-ssd/

… cheaper than RAM too 🙂 Thought 4 x faster was good enough for me? 🙂

crayphish wrote:

I’ll keep experimenting to find the ideal setup.

Good Luck

Attachments:

1. 

   SAM_1251.jpg
   

[Author]

Posts