antiX transformation pack – antiX FT 10

[Member PPC]

Hi everyone.

Some weeks ago I began experimenting with tint2 toolbar- it’s a feature rich toolbar, also very nice looking and with small resources footprint – I use it to have fluxbox use even less idle RAM, while having all the resources I need:
– the toolbar has “quick launch” icons, very easy to manage- so, I do not need to have desktop icons
– the toolbar is configured to display RAM and CPU usage, so I do not need to run Conky
– the toolbar includes a simple “volume manager” GUI, so I do not need volume-icon running.

It’s configured to have many resources available in the Windows 10 toolbar, and even some more…

I do not think, for now, this merits a spin, but, using Skidoo’s advice, maybe a “transformation pack”.
You can safely install it into bare metal, but I would advise to try it first on a live system or virtual machine.
The install script downloads and installs tint2, rofi and skippy-xd (only the first package is essential), configures the tint2 toolbar, makes spacefm the default file manager, sets min-fluxbox to be the default desktop. and edits some configurations on fluxbox init file. Back that file up before running the script or, if after running the script, simply delete the last lines appended to the init file to get back your default fluxbox toolbar.
To get back to your default desktop log off and press F1 until you see the desired desktop name (ex: the default is rox-icewm), enter your password, and you’re back to good old default antiX)

Edit#
Script’s requirements: – antix 19.X “full” – internet connection Inserted on request from PPC

How to download the “transformation pack”:
for now it’s available here:
# http://gofile.io/d/rA8FR6 Edit: requested by PPC
Click the “download” button and you’re set.

The script is also mirrored here:
http://www.dropbox.com/sh/g3njbppcma87fwp/AADEXZ7RxETYwmIrr0rxCczCa?dl=0

How to install the transformation pack”:
-Menu > Applications > System > SpaceFM
-Navigate to where you downloaded the file mentioned above. Right click to select it > Proprieties > permitions > Check the first box next to “execute” or “executable” (there’s no harm if you check all 3 boxes on that column) > click “ok”
-Now right click that file again and choose “execute”
– A GUI that looks just like antiX updater will check for updates. when it’s finished, click “ok” on the window that pops up. Wait a few seconds (depending on your internet connection speed- on mine the entire process takes less than a minute).
-If all goes well, you’ll get a new toolbar, very similar to the Windows 10 one.

How to use the toolbar:
The first 4 icons on the left are:
– “Start menu” – left clicking it summons the fluxbox menu, right click it summons tint2’s “proprieties” window – be careful with that: I would advise to use only the “launcher” tab – to add/remove icons to the toolbar launcher section
– “Find” -left clicking it summons the incredibly fast rofi locate script; right clicking it summons app-select. Middle clicking it summon the very fast rofi app starter – begin typing your app’s name or description, click it from the list…
– “Window switcher” – left click summons a very nice looking live preview of all non minimized windows (skippy-xd), right click minimizes all open windows (so you can see the desktop)
– “File Manager” (spacefm)

Then there’s a list of “launcher” icons you can manage from tint2’s “properties” window

Then icons of the running applications. Hover over them to get the window name and preview. Left click the icon to change to that window, middle click to toggle that window’s size, right click closes that window…

To the right is:
-percentual indication of CPU usage
– RAM usage, in Mb
– Internet (wi-fi) icon – clicking it summons connman’s cmst, – click the “wireless” tab to manage wi-fi networks
– Volume (left click the icon to get the volume applet, right click it to close the volume applet)
– Weather app ( Wttr.in)
– system tray (by default is should display nothing – because the volume and network icons are embebed on the toolbar bar, not displayed in the system tray)
– Clock and date (left click it summons the calendar GUI)
– Exit button (launches the “exit session” window)

Note: I do not expect this to be very heavily used because folks that need it the most, windows refugees will find it hard to perform the necessary steps to install this 🙂

My goal is to reduce to the minimum the need to use menus, everything is available from the toolbar…

P.

• This topic was modified 2 years, 11 months ago by ModdIt.
• This topic was modified 2 years, 11 months ago by ModdIt.
• This topic was modified 2 years, 11 months ago by christophe. Reason: added alternate download location with PPC's auth

[Member fatmac]

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Sounds interesting, I nearly always install ‘base’, but only use Fluxbox with the right click menu – maybe it should be released as a ‘minimal base’. 😀

Linux (& BSD) since 1999
Ultra Small Form Factor & thin client computers

[Member olsztyn]

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PPC wrote:

-Now right click that file again and choose “execute”
– A GUI that looks just like antiX updater will check for updates. when it’s finished, click “ok” on the window that pops up.

For me executing this file results in:
– Window appears asking for administrative password
– Nothing happens. No gui appears.

Doing this all I am starting from min-Fluxbox. Should this be done from another WM to work?
Thanks and Regards…

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

[Anonymous]

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For the benefit of future readers, should probably mention:

gofile.io
“uploads remain accessible indefinitely as long as they are regularly downloaded.
After 10 days of inactivity, an upload can be deleted to free up space on the servers.“

[Anonymous]

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( nitpicking here, but I admire the script’s concept )

The script should probably check to ensure it is running on an antiX19 system.
(the “nc” command, for instance, is not preinstalled on my antiX17 system…)

Does the (often seen) end-of-line “logical and” provide any value here?
tint2 & sleep 2 && pkill tint2 &&
If anything, it seems detrimental. What is the outcome if that commandline (somehow) fails?
(subsequent lines wind up skipped, but the script does not recognize/handle conditional error)

Numix
Offhand, I cannot recall whether it is preinstalled in “base” edition. Even if it is, prior to “piping to fluxbox/init” the script should probably ensure the numix* (didn’t lookup exact name) pkg is, in fact, installed.

cd ~
[..]
...tint2/main/vol && chmod u+x ~/vol &&

Does tint2 really poop files directly into top level of user home directory and expect them to reside there? If so, these are not even .dottedfilename “hidden” files and may likely be regarded as a nuisance.

[Member PPC]

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Thanks for the feedback…

For personal reasons, I’m putting this on hold.

If anyone wants to try this script, please feel free- I’ll read anything on this thread for when I come back to this matter…

P.

[Moderator christophe]

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Yes. I agree: I think the “transformation pack” idea is a good one.

confirmed antiX frugaler, since 2019

[Member PPC]

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It’s what I get for scripting until I’m so tired I make stupid copy and past errors…
Fixed version available here:
http://gofile.io/d/rA8FR6

The script is mirrored here:
http://www.dropbox.com/sh/g3njbppcma87fwp/AADEXZ7RxETYwmIrr0rxCczCa?dl=0

@olsztyn – the part of the script asking for your user password (the first part of my script” was being called correctly – just enter your password!
-The script now correctly performs a sudo update in a GUI, then opens a terminal window (as it should have done) and installs and configures everything…

P.

• This reply was modified 2 years, 11 months ago by christophe.

[Member PPC]

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@skidoo – thanks for the suggestions… Now that I solved the script simple but annoying bug that stopped it from working, when I have the time (and also the will power, I’m still quite depleted on what concerns scripting) I’ll implement gradually the necessary checks and error corrections
Tint2 has no blame in “pooping” files to the home folder, it’s all my fault, I do that so I can easily edit the scripts- future versions will “put” every necessary file in tint2’s hidden config folder… thanks for reminding me to do that… anyway those files are not essentials, they are the scripts used to display cpu and ram usage (and a script used to have an interactive volume icon, off by default – I use a static one to save system resources)

– and I should have placed this in the Original Post (I would appreciate if a Moderator could do that for me, also replacing the link to http://gofile.io/d/rA8FR6
The script is also mirrored here:
http://www.dropbox.com/sh/g3njbppcma87fwp/AADEXZ7RxETYwmIrr0rxCczCa?dl=0

Script's requirements:
- antix 19.X "full"
- internet connection

EDIT:
@skidoo : Why does the script have this line?
tint2 & sleep 2 && pkill tint2 &&
because without starting tint2 for the first time (and then closing it) any rewrite I did to tint2’s config file would be overriden by tint2’2 first run- this was the only way I could think to go around that… Not pretty, but effectivw 🙁

P.

• This reply was modified 2 years, 11 months ago by PPC.
• This reply was modified 2 years, 11 months ago by christophe.

[Member ModdIt]

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@ PPC edited as you requested. rgds

[Member PPC]

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@Moddit – Thanks!

Now I have to solve some localization problems (Tint2’s config file shows tooltips ans Wttr.in localized in PT… That does not hinder the toolbar’s use- tooltips are not really necessary- but can be annoying to non portuguese speaking users)

[Member ModdIt]

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If you wish send me a copy of what needs working on, you know where to look,
we can figure out german trans through english and check back to portugese.

Good practice for more difficult tasks.

[Moderator christophe]

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Nice working script. Tested out on a fresh antiX 19.3 frugal install. It’s a fun cosmetic change. 🙂

confirmed antiX frugaler, since 2019

[Member PPC]

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Thanks for the comments

@christophe – thank you very much for hosting the scrip on dropbox!

I’ve been thinking about what else “Windows refugees” would want to have readily available…
Marceloripe gave me the idea of including, in this transformation pack, google chrome/chromium – but I do not any idea how to call package installer to perform that, from the script… Can anyone here provide help about what does package installed do to install Chromium/chrome, so I can insert that into the script?

I’ll also have to make a config file with the tooltips/wttr.in in english…

@Moddit – the localization of tint2’s tooltips is in tint2rc config file – it’s all managed from there- it can be edited using a text editor- I’ll eventually send a config file in English, so you can localize it to German, if you want to. At the very least it would be a nice “eye candy” to show your kids, with some nice functionality to boot…

I’m thinking of also adding “Herbe” with a costume “notify-send” script available from it’s github to provide notification capability to antiX FT 10… But that would imply that I first have to follow Skiddo’s suggestions for improving the code, and also check if a notifier is installed before messing with the user’s notify-send command…

I don’t currently have much drive to improve this customization any further because I made it for myself and I don’t expect that there will be many others using this as their daily driver (I’m been using it for many weeks now, only moving back to IceWM to test T.I.M.)

If anyone here also likes to do even more some customization to their antiX fluxbox, I suggest using my very own costume fluxbox menu (available in my tint2 thread), that, for me is basically what Windows10 menu should have been (well, my menu lacks some features, but is, in my opinion the easiest possible menu for a windows refugee, new to Linux, to use to perform all basic tasks)

P.

[Member ModdIt]

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Hi PPC, why not ungoogled chromium, or chromium, many of the refugees are looking for as much privacy as possible, it is a major theme here in Germany.
One of my arguments for moving which gets plenty of attention.
Maybe awareness not so much the case in Brazil but still a valid argument.

# tint2’s tooltips localize to German, if you want to. Had I not considered it worthwhile i would not have mentioned the subject. .-)

At the very least it would be a nice “eye candy” to show your kids, with some nice functionality to boot…

NO, not just, eye candy for kids youtube too.
Same goes for the work Bobc is doing.

ALL Much too good to hide and antiX exclusive, up to now anyway.

Let us get some localisation done, make sure the setup is understandable and then start looking for ways to present and promote the goodness.

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