- This topic has 14 replies, 6 voices, and was last updated Mar 20-4:55 am by Egzoset.
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Egzoset
Salutations,
It’s been quite some long while since i searched for a pleasant install for my particular machine (Insignia Flex 11.6), the added requirements for a French-friendly user-interface right from boot time plus an intuitive-enough install procedure made it seem like i’d have to wait forever hoping none of the involved parties fail before it can actually happen: e.g. the laptop getting too old, and/or Linux support or me…
M’well, Slax sure went over a decade old, as i recall, and its little brother Porteus even worse rather than better. Can’t use more patience anymore, so besides of other lightweights as FossaPup-64 i thought my hopes for a solid video playback or TV would prove elusive forever!
Not so, finally antiX complied without the usual/typical fuss, except for a few minor difficulties that could be resolved anyway. I’m still not too confident an 80-yr old grandma would deal with it fine but maybe with a little guidance even her might manage successfully.
The GrUB menu offering correct language support worked great, please don’t do a Linux will often do, which is to fix-often then break-many… E.G. don’t fix what’s not broken.
Core v4.9 firmware completes without user intervention so far, maybe the v5 ones will improve later. Finger crossed as the touchscreen remains an issue, but the rest seems OKay.
Overall i got impressed more than deceived and so it was worth subscribing just to at least add this present testimony, although that’s not a lot of contribution, but i simply felt like saying Thank You!
;->
PPC
Welcome Egzoset
One of the points that antiX developers tried the focus is good localization- I can say that, at least in Portuguese, it’s very well localized (only some minor points are missing, like having the fully localized .desktop files, already provided by voluntaries, officially integrated in antiX, and some extra localizations for some applications, like Searchmonkey)
About the not suited to “an 80-yr old grandma “- you can install (and enable) the ft10-transformation package, that’s fully localized to French and makes antiX about as intuitive to use as any recent Windows version, or Linux Mint, etc…In my experience there are only 2 areas that antiX is a bit hit or miss – audio (because it does not include, out of the box, pulseaudio, to save system resources, but implies some extra work to have audio working in several apps, like Firefox, non esr version) and bluetooth (when I tried to, I was not able to make it work in antiX 19, never had to try in antiX 21). If this 2 areas are not problematic for you, I can say that antiX will probably be the almost perfect system for you! (If they are, it still is, but you may need some support, that the forum is happy to provide)
P.
rokytnji
Made me look.
https://www.insigniaproducts.com/pdp/NS-P11W7100/5255800
Reading the reviews. It looks like it was like Windows 10 ran like a sloth on it.
I am not real hip on these modern atom computers.
I own the older clam shell n270 atom cpu touchscreen netbooks that had XP on them.
When I installed XP on them. It ran fast and OK when newly installed.
antiX runs better on them though.Howdy and Welcome.
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 problemsrokytnji
This one is a little harder on resources.
But run OK on my clam shell also. I installed the open box version.
https://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=slackel
Salix Fluxbox edition ran OK also. But not as light as antiX.
https://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=salix
Slitaz was kinda weird for me.
https://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=slitaz
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 problemsEgzoset
Hello,
Well i remember vaguely about having to edit text in desktop objects that didn’t come with an icon at times. Long long ago, **elsewhere**!
The reason i tag Linux as “Fix once Break many” is because such work got rendered useless with a next update…
But the creator(s) or ‘GrUB2’ gave us all the tools we need and YOUR antiX 21 release gave it some fair justice, as far as i’m concerned the potential has been demonstrated beautifully.
Thanks for the tip about the ‘ft10-transformation’ package for my native language, you’re quite right to mention Linux Mint actually, but its life was short although its responsiveness felt seriously improved in comparison to Windows 10 – which is the end of the road on my CherryTrail tablet anyway…
Linuxium looked promissing until an automatic update killed it, too bad GrUB installs prove so fragile!
Other OSes gave me trouble even locking me out of my own stuff, etc. This tablet ain’t going back to Windows in any case, i’m quite willing to flush Microsoft before it flushes my Intel i3 machine this next summer.
Relatively to PulseAudio, all Linux i tried always make me install ‘PApRefs’ because its a main function of the computer in here: display TV and manage wireless (BT) headphones that may come in pairs, especially with “open ear” types like the bone-conduction units. Any Linux i choose has to meet these requirements as a minimum, so i salute your sense of fairness while the margin gained remains an asset.
IMO antiX 21 compared nicely to Fossa Puppy Linux v9.5 and i like having tools around as Synaptic, etc., not to mention although Slackware 15.0 is freshly released some antiX respin of it would be of no help, ’cause Slackware officially announced a defavorable position toward hybrid 32-64 boot-loaders exactly.
Debian 11.2.0 does indeed come with a ready-made binary called ‘bootia32.efi’ and distros as Linuxium started to include it in their 64-bits .ISOs for the purpose of compatibility exactly, and it turned out i DIDN’T need to worry about such patch-work just to enjoy a GrUB boot menu from antiX 21, so i gave it some time.
But…
My appologies, the news are bad this morning. The thing is both display monitors went blank and hence i started downloading alternatives again, so i’m back to the slow process of creating a new USB thumbdrive only to erase it. SparkyLinux seemed slightly more agile than Linuxium, while FossaPuppy simply won’t complete booting, perhaps in reason of some driver for eMMC storage – FAT32 partition & frugal mode still failed.
Not to mention the 128 GB uSD flash drive doesn’t exist at boot time, unfortunately.
I did have an Atom N270 around too but it died last year, on another hand my HP-48 calculator stays on my desk since late ’93 when i bought it…
One been replaced almost naturally, the other will leave an immense void when its turn comes. Which by the way reminds me i’ll want to run an HP-48 emulator someday, sooner than later hopefully! …
Thanks for the additional suggestion. Slitaz being Slackware-based, as i recall, it won’t be possible to patch it with ‘bootia32.efi’ unless i compile it myself – and that’s a No-No! Maybe later, much much later when there’s nothing else to do.
There’s a grandma machine that could benefit from what i’ll find eventually. In the meantime here’s what i can contribute with as a newbie on planet antiX:
Monitor resolution can get wrong and direct right-click desktop access would help a bunch, instead of going through multiple menu items until the obscure ‘ARandR’ utility pops up, ’cause i garantee grandma wouldn’t have known, so my guess is a short descriptive word besides “ARandR” might be a good start. Or mention it on the GrUB splash screen? …
Please take no offence if my intervention seems like a hit ‘n run, i don’t know myself what’s next except many more thumbdrive swaps at the moment. Fingers crossed!
Who knows, next time i may relay a 2nd expression of gratitude, in the name of a grandma dropped like rotten cabage by Microsoft Windows XP…
Good day, have fun!!
- This reply was modified 1 year, 2 months ago by Egzoset.
- This reply was modified 1 year, 2 months ago by Egzoset.
- This reply was modified 1 year, 2 months ago by Egzoset.
anticapitalista
Monitor resolution can get wrong and direct right-click desktop access would help a bunch, instead of goind through multiple menu items until the obscure ‘ARandR’ utility pops up, ’cause i garantee grandma wouldn’t have known, so my guess is a short descriptive word besides “ARandR” might be a good start. Or mention it on the GrUB splash screen? …
In the control centre under Session, it is called Set Screen Resolution (ARandR)
Philosophers have interpreted the world in many ways; the point is to change it.
antiX with runit - leaner and meaner.
Egzoset
Ah yes, that must be correct of course. It’s effectively in the menu, just not the 1st layer and starting with tiny size-10 characters makes that real hard to search… Next time i’ll have to check for sure if it can be launched by typing some short CLi string somewhere. When time allows i may find parameters to add in the grub.cfg file.
Wish me luck…
- This reply was modified 1 year, 2 months ago by Egzoset. Reason: Read-Proofing
Egzoset
- Update:
No luck. It got the entire eMMC resources (~31 GB) and yet i ended up deciding to try something else, and of course no luck there neither…
One install has the stable diapo/(BT-)audio/video i seek but session launching can only happen conveniently with another system, which ain’t close to a feel of stability, then there’s the gestures and visuals. Hard to remember which does what! Etc., etc.
Oh well, it shall eventually become a thing of the past, chasing for ghosts and all i mean.
Live long & prosper!!
- This reply was modified 1 year, 2 months ago by Egzoset.
- This reply was modified 1 year, 2 months ago by Egzoset.
ModdIt
Hallo Egzoset,
OT but: unfortunately the device you have is difficult to setup and very slow
running under any operating system with a graphical desktop or frontend.On to the question on aranr tool:
sudo arandr will open the tool directly
It is well worthwhile taking a look in /usr/bin where you can find many of the scripts and
binarys for tools included in antiX.The control center is a convenience for users who are uncomfortable on the command line.
For Familiarising/playing/experimenting with changes to the scripts please use a copy of your
system, it is easy to break the functionality.Unable to Match the 80 year old Granny, oldest user here at presentage 72+, still managing installs
and setups, sometimes needs a little help depending on devices others bring along or dump dived.
(found or given for free).Egzoset
Hi there,
IMO what’s more difficult is to keep AND MAINTAIN every working element together as i’ve seen this hardware perform reasonably well before, typically with a variety of trade-offs to choose from. For that exact reason i’m collecting HardInfo outputs obtained from those installed OSes, once they’ve been updated and made ready to serve. antiX gave me a special impression compared to others tried previously but i’d need to re-read my hand-written notes to explain why it didn’t stay afterwards; all i can do to testify about it is just to repeat my initial output, basically. Having downloaded this many .ISOs it was evident all Linuxes ain’t made equal relatively to user-friendly convenience, i’ve even seen automatic monitor scrren selection that didn’t force me to perform a change of glasses, to look at the size-10 characters, as i pointed out. Which is NOT my doing nor a result of the material.
Right now i’m preparing to evaluate LXLE as i noticed it’s at least featured with the same HardInfo utility which i already used with success in many different instances, etc.
But we agree it’s all free and even open-source. The thing is no grandma ever contemplated toying with source-code i think and that’s quite fine with me who doesn’t miss the CLI or else i’d be advocating for 100 % machine (hand-written, manually optimized…) assembly code – as when computer were 8 bits and awafully limited, like the Timex/Sinclair which had a couple 3rd-party books just for that and yet i don’t know where i put mine somehow. To be honest i also enjoyed text-only posting using only two 360 KB disquettes for telnet & ftp but most strangely i don’t miss that neither and it’s OKay.
The tools exist in GrUB so we can select a proper graphic resolution in case of troubles, unfortunately it mabe take a while before i revisit because life is short and i’d need to clone myself to meet everyone’s expectations. Pardon me if i must respectfully admit a lack of patience of resource forcing me to give up…
rokytnji
Curious if you tried Sparky Linux yet. Since you Like LXDE.
Back when I was doing core installs and building up. I was under whelmed with LXDE ram usage.
For me. It was self teach exercise using AntiX core and building up from that.
Went back and looked at that link I posted and quad core processors and Windows 10 preinstalled.
Surely. Something show fly on that. See no problem even installing antiX full iso on it except for the freaky bios/cpu setup.
Soldered in MMC should not be a issue. Those have been around now for a while.
Because we run on Windows XP single core atom processors just fine. Not fast. Just fine.
The drives are not even msata drives in those old netbooks.
At least on mine. They are not.Long time ago. I learned I needed to think like a Linux dude when buying hardware anymore.
That was why when my wife decided to buy a christmas present by getting me a new chromebook.
So I mentioned I’d really like the 14 incher HP 360x Flip touchscreen chromebook.I made sure when chromeos reaches eol. I can turn it into a antiX chromebook. Just like my Acer C 710 chromebook. Which chromeos does not support anymore.
Been wishing you good luck in my mind every time you try something different. So here it is out loud. Good Luck.
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 problemsrokytnji
Forgot to mention. Back when I was running like a live run on these small screen netbooks. When it got to the resolution pick screen.
I learned waiting for the defaults. Touching or inputing nothing like a screen resolution. Because if you wait like 60 seconds boot then continue. Would give me a good 1024×600 resolution and that alt+left click was my friend when it came to moving open apps around so I could get to the buttons.Anyways. Thought I would mention it.
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 problemsEgzoset
Curious if you tried Sparky Linux yet. Since you Like LXDE.
Actually i still don’t know if i like LXDE just yet as i’ve seen it in LIVE mode only…
Apparently i’ve downloaded SparkyLinux v6.0 because of it’s duality supporting both the i686 and x86_64 material, hoping to find ‘bootia32.efi’ in case a crude patch might prove necessary, besides also copying some /i386-efi/ resources as i vaguely reecall. Somewhere it mentioned LxQt, no big deal. FossaPup95 might have worked wonders if it could have completed its “frugal” installation, which inspired my a desire to install Ventoy on the eMMC and simply swap .ISOs around instead of enduring the whole patience-challenging process. My notes say i had to pass 4 menu levels before accessing the display settings with SparkyLinux, by the way…
Right now i wish i could better explain issues that made me move further with even more testing but this i ain’t getting any younger myself. These things can become exhausting when failures pile up and there’s no reward joys to compensate… Zorin felt promissing at 1st, still didn’t stick neither. Etc., etc.
Does some unexpected “HCi0” timeout error matter? Also, more input: how about including GrUB-Customizer as pre-installed!
Mint and Fedora too slow, Bodhi’s ‘ubi-console-setup’ utility crashed. Ubuntu Mate v20.04.3 (LTS Focal) installed fine, well enough to auto-selectect the proper screen anyway, but i removed it a couple days ago once tired of blank/black displays then BlueTooth problems. Another Lubuntu tweak is AntiVirusLiveCD v39.0 of February 20, still on the to-list so far.
Not to mention the “Extra Luxury Edition” in LXDE wasn’t exactly feeling like an invitation – i’m reading notes at random and there’s 4 ~ 5 times more to remind myself and it’s now diner time…
Salix, ZenWalk, Absolute… LibreElec, Debian Live! … Slakware v15.0 itself, etc.
Appologies again, thanks for sharing feedback while expressing enthousiasm and moral support. The guy’s energy (mine…) may just prove somewhat depleeted after having the initial climax from hope. Long ago Windows was the same and DOS before it, in any case each day needs a fair dose of victory to save our sanity.
Good day, have fun!!
PDP-8
Ah, don’t leave this one out of your list, especially if you are looking for a desktop for Grandma – the PC/MAC version of the raspberry pi desktop.
https://www.raspberrypi.com/software/raspberry-pi-desktop/
Essentially Debian with a custom / simplified LXDE. They put a LOT of work into a custom LXDE that is actually very pleasant for many and the dev is to be commended for tweaking lxde. Not sure if Grandma will care about systemd. 🙂
I’ll have to look, but I *think* one can even pick up that customized lxde that they use from the debian repos.
Egzoset
Hi, RaspBerry Pi must be 32-bits only or i’d have tried it already, and i do recall about a version for PCs somewhat.
There’s a dozen HardInfo reports i still need to compare so i can decide what’s next, but right now the late Linux Mint Xfce release seems fine, so far. Its LXDE alternative didn’t “stick” and i was disapointed myself. The same happen with Debian’s LXDE as well and i wanted something different from Xfce, with memory limitations in mind, in hope the numbers will tell an interesting story later, eventually.
The challege gets complicated by the USB flash tools multiplying. Sometimes Rufus won’t work in either of its two mode: ISO vs DD. YUMi-UEFi started giving me hope lately, then i discovered Ventoy then Balena Etcher… I verified my HardInfo list of reports and antiX made it at least this far, and it’s not a long list when accounting for the other exceptions. Chances are antiX may be ready in a few revisions the same as Mint which ended up requiring a replacement after it’s initial install in 2018, followed by Linuxium that damaged the ESP (FAT32) boot-loader partition, as i recall.
If it were for a 3rd-party there now should need to be a collection of USB cards, not knowing for sure if the regular (not UEFi-ia32) system can sucessfully reboot and load once it installed in “Live” mode.
I’m one who likes to keep a Plan-B around anyway, maybe sooner than i may suspect; so que sera sera!
😉
- This reply was modified 1 year, 1 month ago by Egzoset.
- This reply was modified 1 year, 1 month ago by Egzoset.
- This reply was modified 1 year, 1 month ago by Egzoset.
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