Converting antiX to an XFCE4 based Distro (a tutorial & test)

[Member manyroads]

I have just published a tutorial on converting antiX (specifically alpha2 version of antiX19) to an XFCE4 based Distro. You may view it here:

http://eirenicon.org/2019/05/26/converting-antix-to-an-xfce4-based-distro-a-tutorial/

Note: This is a learning tool. Not for ‘production’.

You may copy or use the tutorial, as suits your need(s). As with all my work, no guarantees are expressed or implied. If you break things you get to keep all the pieces. Practice safe computing!

Pax vobiscum,
Mark Rabideau - http://many-roads.com
"For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong." H. L. Mencken
dwm & i3wm ~Reg. Linux User #449130
20 Jan 2021 ~ "End of an Error"

[Member oops]

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Good tuto manyroads.
I did some changes too here for a multi-users ability, but without XFCE, iceWM is nice too.
lightdm , lightdm-gtk-greeter , lightdm-gtk-greeter-settings , ~/.xsessionrc

#!/bin/sh
#
#http://blog.rnstlr.ch/switching-from-slim-to-lightdm.html
#http://blog.rnstlr.ch/setting-up-the-awesome-window-manager-in-ubuntu-1604.html
# sudo apt install awesome
# ~/.xsessionrc
#
case $1 in
awesome)
#    export $(gnome-keyring-daemon -s -c pkcs11,secrets,ssh,gpg)
    ;;
esac
bash /home/$USER/.desktop-session/startup_for_lightdm &

[Member manyroads]

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I also like icewm… but am much more of an xfce person. Plus with all the systemd fear over on MX, I thought this might provide folks with a feeling of security. The platform works very nicely with xfce. I may end up creating three for people to use; xfce, ob (openbox), lxqt (with ob). All should have a nice tight footprint– probably bigger than the traditional antiX footprint but tight by MX and other Debian/*buntu distro standards.

Pax vobiscum,
Mark Rabideau - http://many-roads.com
"For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong." H. L. Mencken
dwm & i3wm ~Reg. Linux User #449130
20 Jan 2021 ~ "End of an Error"

[Member oops]

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… Yes, it’s a nice challenge.

[Member manyroads]

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Hello ‘out there’

I have created & uploaded a copy (installable snapshot) of a draft-alpha version of antiX-xfce4. It is built using the alpha2 version of antiX19. It uses the 5.0.9 antiX 64 bit kernel (not the kernel that ships with the most recent alpha). I changed kernels because this one seems to work better on my version of VirtualBox. (I have no idea why…)

Obviously, this is not a production piece of software. It is simply provided so you may see what I’m building and can use this as a guide to build something much better. (I know you can.)

The install is a bit funky, I must have borked something in the snapshoting process; and, the fix is not obvious to me. It’ll get fixed “down the road”; but, here’s an easy work around.

1. Load the iso image using the provided snaphot link (below).
2. Once you get to the Login screen… use demo/demo as username & password.
3. After you are logged in, you’ll note there is no install icon (my bad). To install the software, simply open a terminal window and enter the following:

sudo minstall

From there everything is normal. Play around, see how things work (or break). As I develop better installs I’ll make them available in the directory below (save the link if you want to see newer stuff, later).

Two screenshots:
https://ibb.co/M1XYSf0
https://ibb.co/wC25dMy

Just in case this little note slipped by, do not use this as production software.

Here’s a link (to the download folder):
http://treemagic.org/MX%20Desktops/antiX-xfce

• This reply was modified 3 years, 11 months ago by manyroads.
• This reply was modified 3 years, 11 months ago by manyroads.

Pax vobiscum,
Mark Rabideau - http://many-roads.com
"For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong." H. L. Mencken
dwm & i3wm ~Reg. Linux User #449130
20 Jan 2021 ~ "End of an Error"

[Moderator caprea]

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I just took a look.
Nice work, I like it, but I couldn’t connect to the net. Neither with ceni nor with wicd. No networks found. Couldn’t find the reason yet, the right drivers are there.

[Anonymous]

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I just downloaded to try out and noticed that the iso image
name that gets downloaded doesn’t match the name in the md5 file.
also is this going to be a strictly 64-bit thing?

Also @caprea: maybe have to try connman as that’s what 19 uses by default
for connections….to use ceni or wicd had to uninstall connman and reboot
on the official 19 alpha.

[Moderator caprea]

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Yep, connman still being installed was the cause for the wifi- problem.

[Anonymous]

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@manyroads,

Very nice example/tutorial on your website link with xfce and the live iso.
I used it as a guideline during my current “mean and lean” build.
It’s a 32-bit net build up with xfce4, 4.19.43 kernel on 17.4.1-stretch repos.
the xfce desktop boots in the 145-150mb range. Even with my stats, weather, net,
battery loaded on the bottom panel.

[Anonymous]

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Finally got to installing here. Bare metal. Reporting here because this thread was the one that helped me most.

–Installed to USB stick first. The default passwords aren’t obviously posted? (demo/demo)

–Ran the minstall, with no grub, and did a grub-update from another partition (MX). All good.

–Got stopped by no wireless. Checked whisker menu for “network” apps–was offered Ceni and wicd.
Ceni just errored out with some noise about the size of my screen being too small, wtf.
Wicd launched but couldn’t see any networks, even when ‘turning wireless on’.

I remembered a thread about a problem like that (this one, it turns out). Based on what I found, I looked in whisker for conman. It was there and it connected flawlessly.

I am tempted to rip out Ceni and wicd, but not yet.

Connection established, I had 64 updates. They’re pulling down now. I’ll post again if I run into any showstoppers.
But things are looking good so far and I’m appreciative of the work!

Edit: Update and reboot okay, with two small annoyances …

1: My habit is to logout first, and then reboot or shutdown. But from the login screen (lightdm?), all the options for that are greyed out. I have to log back in and then reboot directly.

2) Although I set conman to auto-connect to my wireless, it did not. In fact, it reverted to turning off wireless altogether. So for now that’s a bunch of extra clicks just to get online at boot … also haven’t found any way yet to put a ‘network’ icon on the panel.

[Member Xecure]

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Anonymous wrote:

Finally got to installing here. Bare metal. Reporting here because this thread was the one that helped me most.

Well done! Did you install manyroads xfce respin or followed his guide? Know that he built his respin on an alpha, antiX19a2 (I think), but his very detailed instructions should work on building your own Xfce antiX based distro for any of the new antiX versions!

Anonymous wrote:

–Installed to USB stick first. The default passwords aren’t obviously posted? (demo/demo)

https://antixlinux.com/quick-tips/

On live system, username login as demo, username password = demo.
For root access, password = root.

Anonymous wrote:

2) Although I set conman to auto-connect to my wireless, it did not. In fact, it reverted to turning off wireless altogether. So for now that’s a bunch of extra clicks just to get online at boot …

Uninstall ceni. If this doesn’t work, maybe you need to add a command to restart connman service in the startup file.

For other problems related to xfce, probably manyroads is a much better expert to help you out.

Good luck!

• This reply was modified 3 years, 10 months ago by Xecure.

antiX Live system enthusiast.
General Live Boot Parameters for antiX.

[Anonymous]

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Thanks Xecure. Yes, I probably chose this topic for the wrong reasons–mine was just a straight up .iso download and burn-to-stick. There was a time when I built up an AntiX Xfce system all the way up from the late lamented core-libre (40 MB or something crazy small like that). Followed dolphinoracle’s series on the subject. But I’m a lot lazier now.

So for some reason, after a couple of boots, conman is connecting by itself just fine. I don’t actually want it to, for production. But until I get a handle on an interface for it, this’ll do. And then I’ll get rid of Ceni and probably a lot more besides, stripping down before I built back up. It’s nice to be back in the game.

[Member littleloyal]

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Ive been working on an AntiX xfce version also. I work at a school so I am developing this both to test and then have students try to learn to build. My status now is beta 3 that I added mostly web apps, educational tools and installed libre-office 6.3. Everything runs ok except trying to get root powers in thunar. This is my first time so I am a rookie to build things yet have used linux since 1999 back when coral did a version. Yes just used what others made for too long. I did take out what I considered duplicate software or for me unnecessary. Only has icewm and xfce. Any suggestions from your expereince???

[Member manyroads]

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Almost all of my ideas, pointers, rambles, etc may be found on my site… probably the best start point is the following page:
https://eirenicon.org/knowledge-base/

I hope it helps.

Pax vobiscum,
Mark Rabideau - http://many-roads.com
"For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong." H. L. Mencken
dwm & i3wm ~Reg. Linux User #449130
20 Jan 2021 ~ "End of an Error"

[Member ghostwalker]

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(Sorry for double posting but i thought it would be better here with this ongoing dialog rather than the post with the download link on 10-12-2019)
Just downloaded your respin after trying to xfce 17.4.1 myself. After a lot of trial and error, finally figured out how to re-create the installer icon.
Open a text editor and type:

[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Type=Application
Exec=sudo -E minstall
Icon=msystem
Name=Installer
Comment=Install Linux
Terminal=false
NoDisplay=true

Save as: minstall.desktop
I have moved it, saved it and hid it for future use!

• This reply was modified 3 years, 6 months ago by ghostwalker.

~Awareness is everything

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