Disappearing icons on menu panel.

[Member starnutter]

I am new to antiX 19.4 i386 base iso.

I managed to install this ok onto a low spec Pentium MMX, 128MB ram, 6GB HDD machine.

But, upon the first login I get a “No Pinboard” error message.

Also, the icons on the menu panel disappear on hovering the mouse pointer over them. The icons return again after closing and re-opening the menu panel.

Please help me to resolve these two highly annoying errors.

Btw, I do know that the Pentium MMX cpu lacks the SSE and SSE2 instruction sets required by most modern software, but surely this can’t be the issue since the antiX 19.4 i386 iso would be incorrectly named otherwise.

[Member marcelocripe]

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Hello Starnutter,

Welcome to antiX Linux and the forum.

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

Short essential how-to list for the complete Linux newbie and How-to install applications – 2020 version.

I can’t write in English and I send you my texts translated by the internet translator, I hope you can understand everything.

When you start any topic or participate with any 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 inbox whenever there are replies to the topic in question.

Please go to Menu, Terminal, type the command: inxi -Fnz and press Enter key. Copy the entire result and show it to us, so we can help you.

marcelocripe
(Original text in Brazilian Portuguese)

———-

Olá Starnutter,

Seja bem-vindo ao antiX Linux e ao fórum.

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

Short essential how-to list for the complete Linux newbie e How-to install applications – 2020 version.

Eu não sei escrever em inglês e te envio os meus textos traduzidos pelo tradutor da internet, eu espero que você consiga compreender tudo.

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.

Por favor, acesse o Menu, Terminal, digite o comando: inxi -Fnz e pressione tecla Enter. Copie todo o resultado e nos mostre, assim poderemos te ajudar.

marcelocripe
(Texto original em Português do Brasil)

[Member Xecure]

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It sound similar to this:

Anonymous wrote:

When I run xorg in 16 bit depth from the xorg.conf file it has the
menu icons disappearing problem, but when I run in 24 bit depth the
menu works fine on the vesa driver.

If you are also running the vesa driver (can be checked with)
inxi -Gxxx
Then edit the /etc/X11/xorg.conf to include these lines:

Section "Screen"
    Identifier  "Screen0"
    DefaultDepth   24
    Monitor     "Monitor0"
    Device      "Device0"
EndSection

If the file doesn’t exist (and you are also using vesa driver), you could create it with the xorg file shared by linuxdaddy
https://www.antixforum.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/xorg.txt

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

[Forum Admin anticapitalista]

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Since you have a very old (and slow) machine, you will need to increase the time that the desktop sets the rox pinboard.

To do so, edit this file ~/.desktop-session/desktop-session.conf

Change STARTUP_DELAY=”2″ to something like STARTUP_DELAY=”5″ (or more).

Alternatively, use one of the the minimal-* options to save precious RAM since you have very little (128MB).

BTW – what do you mean by ‘but surely this can’t be the issue since the antiX 19.4 i386 iso would be incorrectly named otherwise.’?

Philosophers have interpreted the world in many ways; the point is to change it.

antiX with runit - leaner and meaner.

[Member starnutter]

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Xecure wrote:

It sound similar to this:

linuxdaddy wrote:

When I run xorg in 16 bit depth from the xorg.conf file it has the
menu icons disappearing problem, but when I run in 24 bit depth the
menu works fine on the vesa driver.

If you are also running the vesa driver (can be checked with)
inxi -Gxxx
…
…

The output from that is:

Graphics:
Device-1: Neomagic NM2200 [MagicGraph 256AV]
vendor: Toshiba America Info Systems driver: N/A bus ID: 00:04.0
chip ID: 10c8:0005
Display: x11 server: X.org 1.20.4 driver: neomagic
unloaded: fbdev, modesetting, vesa resolution: 800×600~60Hz
OpenGL: renderer: llvmpipe (LLVM 7.0 128 bits) v: 3.3 Mesa 18.3.6
compat-v: 3.1 direct render: Yes

Unfortunately, this sent me down a bit of a rabbit hole regarding other peoples’ experiences of the linux neomagic driver. Apparently, in 24-bit colour mode, there is no hardware acceleration, meaning that scrolling and screen refreshes will be painfully slow.

The disappearing icons issues only affects the IceWM variants of desktop window managers so I will skirt this issue just by using a different window manager.

[Member starnutter]

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anticapitalista wrote:

Since you have a very old (and slow) machine, you will need to increase the time that the desktop sets the rox pinboard.

To do so, edit this file ~/.desktop-session/desktop-session.conf

Change STARTUP_DELAY=”2″ to something like STARTUP_DELAY=”5″ (or more).

Alternatively, use one of the the minimal-* options to save precious RAM since you have very little (128MB).

BTW – what do you mean by ‘but surely this can’t be the issue since the antiX 19.4 i386 iso would be incorrectly named otherwise.’?

This old Toshiba laptop will work well for what I need it to do: to create/print postage labels and invoices, check emails and to play the ocassional mp3 tune.

Back in the day, I ran a HP Omnibook 600CT 75MHz 486DX4 12MB ram and Windows 3.1.1 laptop for similar purposes – obviously, without the internet part.

Your suggestion worked:

sudo leafpad ~/.desktop-session/desktop-session.conf

I amended the line STARTUP_DELAY=”2″ to STARTUP_DELAY=”7″

As far as I know the AntiX distro iso “i386” designates compatibility with i386 processors and above.

The operating system is compatible but a linux newbie like myself would expect the bundled software and the software in the repositories to be compatible too.

However, this is not the case. Bundled software like seamonkey web browser, libreoffice and video players all utilize SSE2 code so will not work properly on an i386 or my Pentium MMX (i586) processor.

SSE was introduced in the Pentium III (i686), SSE2 in the Pentium 4 (i786?).

[Moderator christophe]

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My understanding is that in Debian, the i386 is shorthand for 586-and-up. But I’ve noticed some things can’t run on some of my “586-compatible” computers. It’s a Debian thing, not antiX.

We just have to be more “creative,” with our software choices, when it comes to the oldest/oddest of our old computers…

confirmed antiX frugaler, since 2019

[Member ModdIt]

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starnutter wrote:
The operating system is compatible but a linux newbie like myself would expect the bundled software and the software in the repositories to be compatible too.

Some up to date software will run on early non sse processors, to have everyting compatibel complaints would inevitably come that included software or software in repos is hopelessly out of date. antiX or any other linux for that matter is about comprimise and choice. Very old software may be the open door to attacks but you are free to install
packets or complete old and unsupported distro versions of your choice.

Machines such as the one you have have been abandoned by MS years ago. many way more modern ones will be with windoze 11. Support for 32 bit is being dropped by many
linux distros too. Sad as much of the 3rd world and asia depends on it.

As christophe notes you will need to make choices to keep old hardware productive or useful, if it has no internet connection you can also install older software versions without any security worry. You may then run into dependancy issues though.

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