How antiX is progressing, and some suggestions for the future

[Member Xunzi_23]

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HI PPC,
I see the fear in a new user quite often, years of windoze do take a toll.
Funny moment is usualy updating, recent with my Welsh friend, he told me update failed on
his new live stick.
MMM, anyway please enter sudo apt update press enter etc. It says nothing to do, thats impossible,

He was used to hours for an update on win despite his crazy fast internet and Ryzen 6 core, not minutes.

But seems he is learning and becoming more and more convinced antiX is good for him and his wife.
It hasnt crashed in three weeks was another funny moment.

On dark mode.
Like about 30 percent of the population I suffer from astigmatism, dark mode is terrible.
Even with corrective glasses I see ragged letter edges. The light mode narrows my pupils and text looks way
sharper
and easier to read.

Offer a choice of dark or light mode on Install or (better on multi user setups) Login.
Yet more usability improvement.

[Forum Admin rokytnji]

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I am on the shop computer PPC. Not sure if you want another upload of the same wallpaper. I am not adept at editing and cutting out symbols.

Since I am on the shop box and you say the red one ails ya.

Here is what Sakasa used to make for us. Image properties is in 600 x 400 range though. Wallpaper setter adjustment is what use to display these on a

$ inxi -G
Graphics:
  Device-1: Intel 82Q35 Express Integrated Graphics driver: i915 v: kernel
  Display: x11 server: X.Org v: 1.20.11 driver: X: loaded: intel
    unloaded: fbdev,modesetting,vesa dri: i915 gpu: i915
    resolution: 1280x1024~60Hz
  API: OpenGL v: 1.4 Mesa 20.3.5 renderer: Mesa DRI Intel Q35

monitor.

https://i.postimg.cc/Nj0pXg0z/0-antix-linux-ama7.jpg

https://i.postimg.cc/6qrYr0FW/699×437-Anti-X-Musical-Dimensions.jpg

Sorry. Best I can do right now.

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 marcelocripe]

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Edit: The multiclick / doubleclick speed is set based on the window manager running; but the gui does not directly reflect this. Should it be set as per window manager based on the currently running one or should it update all of them regardless if running or not?

Dave, honestly, I really liked both possibilities, both being able to apply it to the three window managers (IceWM, JWM and Fluxbox), and applying it only to the running window managers. But if it only works in the running window managers, we already have something very important for users who use the double click.

Is it too much work for you to implement the two possibilities (options) available or is it better to implement only one?

What does the anti-capitalist and others consider to be the most coherent option?

Thank you very much for returning to “ds-mouse”.

– – – – –

Edit: The multiclick / doubleclick speed is set based on the window manager running; but the gui does not directly reflect this. Should it be set as per window manager based on the currently running one or should it update all of them regardless if running or not?

Dave, sinceramente, eu gostei muito das duas possibilidades, tanto de poder aplicar nos três gerenciadores de janelas (IceWM, JWM e Fluxbox), quanto aplicar apenas no gerenciadores de janelas em execução. Mas se funcionar apenas no gerenciadores de janelas em execução já teremos algo muito importante para os usuários que utilizam o duplo clique.

É muito trabalhoso para você implementar as duas possibilidades (opções) disponíveis ou é melhor implementar apenas uma?

O que o anticapitalista e as outras pessoas consideram ser a opção mais coerente?

Muito obrigado por você retornar ao “ds-mouse”.

[Forum Admin Dave]

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It most probably can be done both ways by reading the value from the currently running window manager and displaying that in the gui on the slider, then having a checkbox to write the change to all window managers. Though I am not sure if this adds more clutter to the gui for little benefit. Is there any point to having a separate value in the window managers as they all are represented in milliseconds and presumably you are not changing your hardware/finger?

• This reply was modified 2 months, 1 week ago by Dave.

Computers are like air conditioners. They work fine until you start opening Windows. ~Author Unknown

[Member fladd]

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PPC wrote:

fladd wrote:

I rather trust actual research on this topic

So do I: https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3357251.3357584 . The relevant part:
Our results show that dark mode graphics on OST-HMDs have significant benefits for visual acuity, fatigue, and usability
The research is for Head Mounted Displays, but I see no reason why it would not apply to regular screens… For a less technical report (that includes the link I posted above: https://wppool.dev/is-dark-mode-better-for-your-eyes/

As with everything, what works for you depends of your particular circumstances (not to mention, particular tastes) – if you are in a very bright environment, trying to see something on a screen with a dark background and white letters would be hard because of the bright reflections on the screen. Under “normal circumstances” (i.e. not trying to use your computer screen with very bright sun light/lamps reflecting over it), dark mode usually implies less eye strain. The problem with dark mode is, because it tends to tire eyes less, we abuse it, and spend more time reading from screens, tiring the eyes more (looking at screen for longer periods of time). Info on dark modes implying less blue light don’t matter much- scientists are still not 100% sure if that’s really important- unless you are looking at screens right before you go to sleep…

Edit: And, from the report you linked to:

long-term reading in light mode may be associated with myopia.

Since most people tend to spend some hours per day staring at screens… draw your own conclusions about that’s better for your eye’s health…

P.

Hi PPC,

I think you misinterpreted a few things. Just to clarify:

1. The article you link is about optical see-through displays, not normal displays.
2. The potential link with myopia you cite is after long-term reading (e.g. books), but we are here talking about navigating through a user interface, not long-term text reading.

Our arguments are not at opposition to each other. Light-mode appears to provide better performance for the general user interface, while it is still advised to offer a dark-mode (optional) in specific programmes that present text for long-term reading (ebook/pdf readers, web browsers, code editors etc.).

[Member PPC]

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marcelocripe wrote:

What does the anti-capitalist and others consider to be the most coherent option?

I usually like that window managers options are set only for that window manager – because if something goes wrong with one window manager, I can simply start from another Window manager, using it’s default settings (and, if needed, work my way to “fix” the other window manager).

P.

rokytnji wrote:

Sorry. Best I can do right now.

thanks for the pictures. I enjoyed the first one on those links, but I like your original “offer” 🙂

Xunzi_23 wrote:

please enter sudo apt update press enter etc. It says nothing to do, thats impossible,

That’s just precious. Lol. I really do think that windows refugees will like the new “automatic update” button in antiX-Updater – it’s as simple as it gets (not counting the option to get automatic updates, but, like in the refereed OS, they currently can render computers useless for long periods of time, or even for a short while, but when the users needs to use it the most). I do like the “Update when you feel like it, but remember to update once in a while” antiX policy. For lazy users, the FT10 option to, after a week, remeber users to check for updates, once a day, is almost the ideal middle ground between not bothering users and making sure their system is up to date.

fladd wrote:

Our arguments are not at opposition to each other.

I agree. Like I said, users should stick with what works best for them and for their particular case. I just wanted to let folks here know that usually (unless I clearly state it) I don’t publish unfounded opinions. I try to keep up to date with science news, and I also have data about my own eyes. And just to let you know I’m full of contradictions, I’m writing this using Firefox in Icewm- the window manager theme is my own FTX-dark (the menu is in several tones of dark grey and white letters), firefox is on dark mode, but… the forum is using some 90% of the screen- in blinding white background and black letters…

P.

[Moderator Brian Masinick]

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The idea that PPC has of setting window manager configurations one window manager at a time has great merit and follows “best practice” principles and that is to change one thing at a time, and then assess the impact and functionality. After one change is verified, then others can be tested, also “one at a time”. Yes, it might be nice, and tempting to script up a whole bunch of changes. When you build an OS image, yeah, you might put everything together, create a build and test it again, but even there, it is much safer to test each individual component before building a set of components. Not everyone does this; the ones who DON’T follow these practices are often the ones who have the most unstable, defect laden collections of software and the ones who DO rigorous testing of each component before building a set have MUCH better success!

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Brian Masinick

[Member boy]

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“Edit: The multiclick / doubleclick speed is set based on the window manager running; but the gui does not directly reflect this. Should it be set as per window manager based on the currently running one or should it update all of them regardless if running or not”
I’ve had experiences with several mice from various manufacturers and of poor quality. The double click is very bad, the time interval between the first click and the second click had to be very fast, making the finger hurt after a short time of use. The program that PPC made solved this problem, my finger doesn’t suffer anymore.

I thank you for including the PPC program in the antiX mouse driver.

“Edit: The multiclick / doubleclick speed is set based on the window manager running; but the gui does not directly reflect this. Should it be set as per window manager based on the currently running one or should it update all of them regardless if running or not”
Eu tive experiências com diversos mouses de vários fabricantes e de péssima qualidade. O clique dublo é muito ruim, o intervalo do tempo entre o primeiro clique e o segundo clique tinha que ser muito rápido fazendo com que o dedo fique doendo após pouco tempo de uso. O programa que o PPC fez resolveu este problema, o meudedo não sofre mais.

Eu agradeço por você incluir o programa do PPC no controlador do mouse do antiX.

[Member PPC]

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@boy – I think Dave is including the same functionality my script offered, but using it’s own programming…

0As I see it, antiX is not meant to attract large masses of users. anticapitalista, in a stance that I praise, includes some of his bookmarks in the default browser – either take it or leave it. He does not bend to the will of you-tube reviewers, etc- for him everything is political, including software, and he makes that known, without rubbing it in…

Ease of use– antiX was (needlessly) too hard to use, years ago- it relied on the terminal and editing config files to achieve even some of the most basic configurations… That slowly began changing- now if users don’t want to interact with the Terminal, they are not forced to (with some small exceptions). Ease of use – like I said- each version of antiX provides more GUI’s for some basic, and not so basic tasks

Theming– I think that some of the window manager themes are just horrendous- that, of course is my personal opinion. IceWM has some nice themes, and it was BobC’s efforts to provide modern looking themes that eventually got me to produce some themes – one was modern looking – too modern- it mimicked too much Windows 10’s window decorations, so I went back and created (well, adapted, really) 2 themes, one dark and one light, both versions of the same theme- it’s literally like having a light or dark mode- everything is the same, except the background and foreground colors (and some icons, had to be changed for better contrast). I use my FT-dark theme, and made it available here in the forum, but the Dev team won’t probably include it in the ISO.

Backgrounds/ Wallpapers – antiX always had one or two great looking backgrounds. Now it has even more. If you install all the wallpaper backgrounds available for antiX, you’ll probably get one of the most beautiful backgrounds available for any OS.

Hardware requirements– since I began using antix, in version 16.X, hardware requirements have stayed about the same, with marginal increase on RAM usage. But hey, antiX 22, 32bits, runs great on a 32bits, single core laptop, with 1Gb of RAM, that’s about 20 years old… 1Gb is not enough even to boot most existing OSes… And that device allows me to surf the web, stream video, write in a modern text processor… all with the ease of use similar to a middle to low range modern computer ten times younger.
It seems that antiX 23, when using kernel 6.1 uses some 20Mb more than a 5.X kernel… – not much, but if you have a computer with 1Gb or RAM or less, probably it’s more efficient using older Kernels. antiX provides both older and newer kernels, literally available from a boot menu- how easy is that?

Localization– antiX has improved a lot. Remember when Package Installer was available only in English? I sure do! There are only small things to improve, regarding this subject. By the way, last time I tried Ubuntu, the welcome screen was just partly localized to Portuguese- and they have a Corporation, paying the Dev team!!! How about that?

• This reply was modified 2 months ago by PPC.

[Moderator Brian Masinick]

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What I like about all of this is the choice between ultra lean and basic or effective and accessible.

It doesn’t have to be huge and cumbersome to be efficient, though the command line interface is something that is also worth learning and using.

My own usage is a blend between commands and tools. I do use both and I make regular use of command alias definitions.
With aliases I can string several commands together with one, two or three alias definitions. For example when I want to update my system, there is the apt-get update command, which updates the “cache” of available packages, apt-get dist-upgrade, which updates the installed packages, apt-get install, followed by a list of packages to install, and update-grub, which updates the system boot loader, are all commands that run with system privileges, so they can be run as root or with the sudo prefix.

anticapitalista has already included a few packaging alias definitions with the root account, at least on several of the releases I have used over the years. Once in a while I use his definitions, particularly if I have logged in or switched to the root account with su, but generally I use my own aliases.

Some of the alias definitions and shell functions I use I have carried with me from UNIX systems from long ago. I’ve written fairly portable scripts, many of which work with the original Bourne and Korn shells, as well as the Bash shell commonly used with Linux systems. They may even work with the zsh shell but I have not experimented much with that.

I don’t claim 100% of the shell configuration to work unchanged because I typically include the “she bang” preamble in my scripts but I can literally copy well over 90% of my shell code between shells and most of the functions were written in the nineties and used with sh, ksh, and bash.

Since I have used Linux systems almost exclusively for between 10 and 20 years, longer than that at home, even when I switched computer systems and have multiple computers, one of the first things I do when I change systems is to copy my tools and make very minor changes, occasionally adding a new alias or another function and pare down a little bit of what I rarely or never used, though I have kept a few things just for historical sentiment.

A few of the functions aren’t even my work; I believe I have a few written by a guy who worked in the mathematical library team at Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC). His stuff works on Digital ULTRIX, Digital UNIX, and Linux. I can’t remember if I ever brought them into assignments where I worked with Sun Solaris or AT&T UNIX System V, but I am convinced that his functions and mine would work there. I have one or two other functions that other friends wrote that have come in handy too. They are either portable or I adapted them to make them portable and that’s how to get a LOT of mileage out of shell scripts and alias definitions.

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Brian Masinick

[Member marcelocripe]

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On dark mode.
Like about 30 percent of the population I suffer from astigmatism, dark mode is terrible.
Even with corrective glasses I see ragged letter edges. The light mode narrows my pupils and text looks way
sharper and easier to read.

Xunzi_23, it doesn’t matter what antiX 23’s default theme will be, you can change the theme at any time with just a few clicks.
Click on the antiX menu, Settings, Themes, scroll through the submenus with the cursor (the arrow) over the name of the theme, the arrow indicates that it has some options with the names of the themes, click on the name of the theme that will instantly be loaded.

– – – – –

On dark mode.
Like about 30 percent of the population I suffer from astigmatism, dark mode is terrible.
Even with corrective glasses I see ragged letter edges. The light mode narrows my pupils and text looks way
sharper and easier to read.

Xunzi_23, não importa qual será o tema padrão do antiX 23, você poderá alterar o tema a qualquer momento com poucos cliques.
Clique no menu do antiX, Configurações, Temas, percorra os submenus com o cursor (a seta) sobre o nome do tema, a seta indica que possui algumas opções com nomes dos tema, clique sobre o nome do tema que instantaneamente será carregado.

[Member PPC]

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Since I know next to zero about the inner workings of Linux, what I try to contribute here is some GUI scripts that ease the life of the less tech minded folks here, and waste a bit of time theming, too…

I already made available here in the forum my GUI script to easily connect to samba2 shared folder- I edited the script and it’s .desktop file so, if it’s included in antiX, there’s no conflict with the FT10 package… My point:

@anticapitalista – is there any interest in included in antiX any of my extra packages, that I include in FT10? The most important one, I think it’s the Shared folder one, but there are some little useful scripts, specially meant to use on-line services without forcing the users to use the Web browser (that’s particulary useful for extremely old devices). If so, just let me know, if not, any interested users can just install FT10…

Note: From what I’ve seen of it, I really do feel that MX’s deb-installer probably is less helpful to antiX users than FT10’s deb-installer, but including MX’s version, at least spares users from asking “how do I install the xyz.deb file?”, and that is a very welcomed feature!

P.

[Member PPC]

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I’m pretty pleased to notice that the latest update made the IceWM themes FX-dark and FX-light available to all – I think they will please both users that like dark themes and everyone else.

(P.S.- this reveals something I love in anticapitalista – he does not waste time talking, he’s a man of action. When he thinks something is worthy of being in antiX, he simply adds it to the repo 🙂 ).

MX’s Deb-installer also got installed in my system, although it seems that it’s not working well, at least not in antiX 22 runit…

I’ve said time and time again, that probably the lack of a GUI way to install off-line .deb packages was the biggest “con” side of using antiX. How that seems to be ready to be turned into a “pro” side. A light system where the user can configure everything from the terminal or from a GUI is really the best of both worlds!

P.

[Moderator Brian Masinick]

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@PPC: said, “A light system where the user can configure everything from the terminal or from a GUI is really the best of both worlds!”

I think that is a key feature and a very important choice here. Long time antiX users definitely use the command line interface (CLI), though many also use a graphical user interface (GUI).

Users who are new to Linux systems and have only used commercial software in the past are almost certain to know the GUI, but those who are new and have an immediate attraction to the CLI are rare indeed. The classical problem with the GUI is that it has been associated with overhead. There certainly is SOME overhead, but any computer built in the 21st century can handle at least a lightweight GUI, and that’s where we are at the present time.

My very first personal computer, which I bought in the Fall of 1995 could handle a GUI, but the GUI at that time was extremely light, just like we’re doing. Even Windows in that era was much smaller and lighter than it has become, and those systems, which we’d consider antiques now, were actually fun to use. It didn’t take long for things to grow, and the hardware grew. That left the old systems and the old software behind until more easy to use, yet efficient systems finally evolved. It was one or the other for quite a while. Systems like Slackware could do the job, but they were too difficult for the novice unless that novice was very determined; such people were rare at that time; the majority of those even venturing into the free software space were scientists and engineers, or at the very least, educators with degrees and access to expensive tools.

My first computer, along with books to learn and read, set me back nearly $3000 American dollars, though a few years later, a laptop cost under $2000, but BOTH of those numbers are well beyond what any of us wants to spend these days! I had between 10-15 years of professional experience before I made my own personal investment because a home and family carried much more importance (as it does today; the difference is that today things are much more affordable!)

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Brian Masinick

[Member seaken64]

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I just want to say that I really appreciate ALL the contributors to antiX and low-resource Linux, especially 32-bit software. My only hope is that antiX continues to be usable on old computers. I don’t personally care about themes and GUIs for configuration. But I don’t object to making antiX easier for those folks who object to non-GUI and an “ugly” user interface. Heck, that is VERY subjective, after all.

(I personally object to an updater that does not scroll to a terminal screen – but most people are happier when it is obscured by a pretty little graphic and maybe a blue or green line progressing from left to right, and maybe a little movie showing a penguin using some tools. Fortunately antiX does not take away my ability to use the terminal even when they add some GUI feature).

I would like to suggest that there needs to be care to preserve usability for 32-bit limited RAM systems. Whatever is done should be removable for those who do not have 64-bit and 4GB of RAM at their disposal.

Thank you all for your very valuable contributions and helping the community keep old computers useful.

Seaken64

[Author]

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