How to use antiX on computers with a motherboard with SIS or VIA chipset

[Member imsoenthused]

Helpful

Up

0

::

It’s working, although still no sis driver for X, and if I install the sisimedia driver it will not load to the desktop. So far, other than the fact that it’s loading the desktop up with fbdev by default, rather than vesa, I’m not really noticing any difference between it and the newest standard install.

[Member marcelocripe]

Helpful

Up

0

::

Imsoenthused,

I thank you for posting the result of the $ inxi -Fnz command with the ISO “antiX-19-legacy-bet2_386-base.iso” on your computer, this data can be very useful for other people. I imagine that you have booted with the normal video mode, if you try to boot the ISO “antiX-19-legacy-bet2_386-base.iso” in Safe Video Mode, you can check with the command $ inxi -Fnz whether the vesa video driver has been loaded or not. For some motherboards I installed with this ISO, it only worked perfectly when I performed the installation process in Safe Video Mode. Normal video mode is the first option in the ISO boot menu (booloader).

marcelocripe
(Original text in Brazilian Portuguese)

Translated with http://www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

———-

Imsoenthused,

Eu agradeço por postar o resultado do comando $ inxi -Fnz com a ISO “antiX-19-legacy-bet2_386-base.iso” no seu computador, estes dados podem ser muito úteis para outras pessoas. Eu imagino que você tenha iniciado com o modo de vídeo normal, se você tentar iniciar a ISO “antiX-19-legacy-bet2_386-base.iso” no Modo de Vídeo Seguro, você poderá verificar com o comando $ inxi -Fnz se o controlador de vídeo vesa foi carregado ou não. Para algumas placas-mães que instalei com esta ISO, somente funcionou perfeitamente quando eu realizei o processo de instalação no Modo de Vídeo Seguro. O modo de vídeo normal é primeira opção do menu de inicialização da ISO (booloader).

marcelocripe
(Texto original em Português do Brasil)

[Member Xecure]

Helpful

Up

0

::

I have built a new legacy ISO, based on antiX 19.4 FULL packages, for both 32 and 64 bits.

Changes:
* kernel 4.4.0-264 (thanks to anticapitalista’s efforts).
* Fixed the “invalid EXPRESSIG” error by updating the antiX signatures package.
* Aprox 1.3 GBs ISO. Now it is MUCH bigger to include almost the exact same packages as antiX 19.4 Full (includes seamonkey, libreoffice, etc.).
* Renamed the project to “pseudo-antiX” to not dirty the antiX name, as this is a very inferior product compared to the current antiX 19.4 release.
* This release DOES NOT include the improved live system changes (as it is based on the antiX 19 iso-template-antix_19.18 initdr and boot)
* Included a sis xorg driver that comes from the antiX 15-16 (jessie) repos. Hopefully this will make it possible to use real SIS xorg driver, and better results than vesa.
* Up to date packages.

i386 ISO: pseudo-antix-19 legacy bet3 (32 bits) (md5sum)
amd64 ISO: pseudo-antix-19 legacy bet3 (64 bits) (md5sum)

• This reply was modified 1 year, 10 months ago by Xecure. Reason: fixed links

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

[Member imsoenthused]

Helpful

Up

0

::

@Xecure Thank you, downloading now(slowly on my rural DSL) I’ll test it as soon as it finishes.

[Member marcelocripe]

Helpful

Up

0

::

Hi Xecure,

I will download each of the ISOs, test the installation process on hard disk and will post the results here.

Thank you very much for donating your time, knowledge and volunteer work in building these modified versions of antiX 19.4 Full with kernel 4.4.0-264. I am sure they will be of great use here in Brazil so that more and more people can use antiX on the many computers with Via and SIS video cards around the country.

marcelocripe

———-

Olá Xecure,

Eu vou baixar cada uma das ISOs, testarei o processo de instalação em disco rígido e irei postar os resultados aqui.

Muito obrigado por doar o seu tempo, conhecimento e trabalho voluntário na construção destas versões modificadas do antiX 19.4 Full com kernel 4.4.0-264. Eu tenho certeza que serão de grande utilidade aqui no Brasil para que mais e mais pessoas possam utilizar o antiX nos diversos computadores com placa de vídeo Via e SIS espalhadas pelo país.

marcelocripe

[Member mckaygerhard]

Helpful

Up

0

::

you said that uses the sis MODULE from jessie, so you said that the ABI is working ? the only change is the kernel and the sis module?

[Member ydek]

Helpful

Up

0

::

@Xecure
Congratulations on creating an Iso for old computers and notebooks with SiS and Via Chipsets, it will help many users who have these computers.

I have a computer with Chipset SiS 661/741/760 and as soon as I can I will test antiX 19.4 Pseudo-antiX

Thanks!

• This reply was modified 1 year, 10 months ago by ydek.

[Member marcelocripe]

Helpful

Up

0

::

Hello @ydek,

Welcome to antiX Linux and the forum.

I thank you for participating in this thread.

marcelocripe

———-

Olá @ydek,

Seja bem-vindo ao antiX Linux e ao fórum.

Eu agradeço por você participar deste tópico.

marcelocripe

[Member ydek]

Helpful

Up

0

::

@Marcelo

Thank you.
And congratulations also to you for your dedication.

———-

Eu que agradeço.
E parabéns também a você pela dedicação.

• This reply was modified 1 year, 10 months ago by ydek.
• This reply was modified 1 year, 10 months ago by ydek.

[Member Xecure]

Helpful

Up

1

::

mckaygerhard wrote:

you said that uses the sis MODULE from jessie

Yes. Though it really is a module (module sisimedia), xorg calls it “display driver” (that is why I called it driver).
It was packaged in antiX 15-16 and can be found in the antiX repos.

mckaygerhard wrote:

so you said that the ABI is working ?

I don’t know what ABI means, so I cannot say.

mckaygerhard wrote:

the only change is the kernel and the sis module?

Yes (more or less). I am not a real maintainer, and am only building it by what others tell me.
I have also included the updates for all packages (be it Debian or antiX), and included a similar list of applications included in antiX 19.4 full. And I have also built a 64 bits ISO.
I forgot to include the xserver-xorg-video-geode package to the i386 ISO to support the geode graphic chips that you mentioned before, mckaygerhard. Sorry. I had it written down but forgot when preparing the final ISO. I have included it in the instructions for the next release. If possible, could you recommend other xorg drivers that I could include in future releases? I don’t really have any machine to test, and I was only building the ISO based on marcelocripe and a few others’ input.

I was asked by marcelocripe to upload a new ISO for x64 so I also re-did the i386 ISO without adding anything else. Again, sorry.

MANUALLY SELECT THE XORG DRIVER
There are two ways to select the xorg driver if it doesn’t select itself automatically:

1) At boot, using the boot parameter xorg=.
Example:
xorg=sisimedia
for SIS graphic chipsets

xorg=openchrome
for VIA graphic chipsets.
Alternatively, for loading generic drivers, you can also use:
xorg=safe

Sometimes, an initdr module needed for the kernel to detect some hardware is not automatically loaded. If you know the corresponding module name, use the boot parameter:
load=<list>
If you don’t know the specific module needed, you could try loading ALL initdr modules (not the best recommendation, but useful for troubleshooting):
load=all
Normally you don’t need to worry about this.

2) In a persistence live device or in an installed system, manually create a xorg.conf file with the correct configuration.
2A) Create a generic xorg.conf file using the command
sudo make-xorg-conf <module> -o /etc/X11/xorg.conf
where <module> is the name of the xorg video driver. Example for openchrome (VIA driver):
sudo make-xorg-conf openchrome -o /etc/X11/xorg.conf

2B) Or create it manually (the file /etc/X11/xorg.conf) based on one you found on the internet or one that already worked for the testing machine (on a different distro or same distro but different version). Example for sisimedia:

#----------------------------------------------------------------------
# xorg.conf file
#
# Generated by make-xorg-conf sometime around Thu Mar 26 08:53:16 GMT 2015
#
# If you want to save customizations, delete the line above or this
# file will get automatically deleted on the next live boot.
#----------------------------------------------------------------------

Section"Monitor"
    Identifier"Monitor0"
    Option"DPMS""true"
EndSection

Section"Device"
    Identifier"Device0"
    Driver    "sisimedia"
EndSection

Section"Screen"
    Identifier"Screen0"
    Monitor"Monitor0"
    Device "Device0"
    SubSection"Display"
        Modes "1280x1024""1333x768""1024x768""800x600"
    EndSubSection
EndSection

Taken from a post by SamK.

Or a more recent one by linuxdaddy (in this thread) for vesa generic video driver:

#-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
# xorg.conf file
#
# A vesa xorg.conf file for old video cards to get full resolution
#-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Section "Monitor"
    Identifier "Monitor0"
    Option "DPMS" "true"
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier "Device0"
    Driver     "vesa"
EndSection

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

Section "DRI"
	Mode 0666
EndSection

Section "Extensions"
	Option		"Composite"	"Enable"
EndSection

If on live-USB, save persistence changes.
Reboot to see if the xorg driver loads properly. If it doesn’t, remove the xorg.conf file from terminal if needed and reboot.
sudo rm /etc/X11/xorg.conf

As stated previously (close to beginning of this topic), the legacy ISOs are built using the build-iso technology created by the antiX team. I used the most recent version for antiX-19 available in gitlab, added the necessary changes (iso folder and initrd folder), added some extra files to Template/COMMON/ (mainly the debian-jessie.list source list and the slim.conf file for auto-login, and some other small things), edited the package.list files in various of the Template folders, including one to add and remove packages for jessie repos, and added minor changes in the build-iso code. I tried to keep things as close as the original build-iso configuration, so that it can still be a used as a tool to build general antiX based ISOs and not only the legacy ISO.

For anyone interested in building their own system, I am uploading to gitlab the entire build-iso folder with all necessary things for directly building a working bootable ISO without having to do much at all. It is already configured for the pseudo-antix-legacy ISO build, so you can see what I have done and change whatever you think needs changing (for example, remove or add packages you are interested in).
You will need a good internet connection and at least 8 GBs of free space.

The distro information can be found in Input/defaults-local, where the project name, kernel, live username, local mirror (for downloading the packages to create the ISO), etc. can be configured.
The build-iso script is the one that needs to be run to produce the ISO. Here you can see the small changes I have included in the script to install and hold the xorg jessie packages.
Files in Template are the ones used to configure packages to be installed, in COMMON you can see files to be added or changed, sources, etc. The jessie sources can be found in Template/COMMON/squashfs/etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian-jessie.list
Packages to be installed from jessie repos can be found in Template/base-AND-full/jessie.list (if building for 64 bits, replace contents with jessie.list.64, as the geode package is not available for x64 architecture and will make the build iso to fail).

I understand, @mckaygerhard, that you are already busy maintains a venenux, so any advise, as small as it may be, will help a lot. I want to keep the antiX desktop (though some apps may be going away if not needed/don’t work on older machines), and was aiming at improving hardware detection and support for older devices.

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

[Member imsoenthused]

Helpful

Up

0

::

It’s alive! Running full screen youtube smoothly on a Pentium III computer from ~2003 is pretty impressive. Is there an automated way to install any missing packages from the full install of antix(that aren’t being held back)? I am unable to get the tint2 transformation script to run properly on this new install, but honestly an uglier install with decent video performance is better than a prettier one without it.

user@PseudoantiXNetVistaX40i:~
$ inxi -Fnz
System:
  Host: PseudoantiXNetVistaX40i Kernel: 4.4.0-264-antix.1-486-smp i686 
  bits: 32 Desktop: IceWM 2.4.0 
  Distro: pseudo-antiX-19-legacy-bet3_386 Lazarus 27 junio 2021 
Machine:
  Type: Desktop System: IBM product: 664322U v: 123456890 serial: <filter> 
  Mobo: MITAC model: LUXOR v: R01 serial: <filter> BIOS: American Megatrends 
  v: PRKT56AUS date: 03/15/01 
CPU:
  Topology: Single Core model: Pentium III (Coppermine) bits: 32 type: MCP 
  L2 cache: 256 KiB 
  Speed: 997 MHz min/max: N/A Core speed (MHz): 1: 997 
Graphics:
  Device-1: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] 630/730 PCI/AGP VGA Display 
  Adapter 
  driver: N/A 
  Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.16.4 driver: sisimedia 
  resolution: 1024x768~60Hz 
  OpenGL: renderer: llvmpipe (LLVM 7.0 128 bits) v: 3.1 Mesa 18.3.6 
Audio:
  Device-1: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] SiS PCI Audio Accelerator 
  driver: snd_trident 
  Sound Server: ALSA v: k4.4.0-264-antix.1-486-smp 
Network:
  Device-1: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] SiS900 PCI Fast Ethernet 
  driver: sis900 
  IF: eth0 state: down mac: <filter> 
  Device-2: Intel 82557/8/9/0/1 Ethernet Pro 100 driver: e100 
  IF: eth1 state: up speed: 100 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter> 
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 65.72 GiB used: 5.04 GiB (7.7%) 
  ID-1: /dev/sda model: FC-1307 SD to CF Adapter V1.4 size: 58.24 GiB 
  ID-2: /dev/sdb type: USB vendor: SanDisk model: Gaming Xbox 360 
  size: 7.48 GiB 
Partition:
  ID-1: / size: 11.25 GiB used: 3.73 GiB (33.1%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda1 
  ID-2: /home size: 44.99 GiB used: 78.8 MiB (0.2%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda3 
  ID-3: swap-1 size: 768.0 MiB used: 27.3 MiB (3.6%) fs: swap dev: /dev/sda2 
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 79.0 C mobo: 42.0 C 
  Fan Speeds (RPM): cpu: 2700 fan-2: 0 
Info:
  Processes: 133 Uptime: 27m Memory: 433.1 MiB used: 89.2 MiB (20.6%) 
  Shell: bash inxi: 3.0.36 

[Member Xecure]

Helpful

Up

0

::

imsoenthused wrote:

It’s alive! Running full screen youtube smoothly on a Pentium III computer from ~2003 is pretty impressive.

Thanks for the feedback. It is good to know that the sisimedia video driver is working properly. It is good to know that the change has improved the experience of at least one computer.

Let us hope it can also work for other SIS graphical chipsets.

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

[Member mckaygerhard]

Helpful

Up

0

::

well seems is pretty unusefull, i noted that ok can run but have cabeats and cons:

1. why is not automatically configured? i tested the debian jessie normal iso and at least the openchrome module is autoconfigured

2. the module for matrox, sis and via, sometimes said that have pretty low memory for, so must be passed iomem=relaxed to the kernel parameters, without that is only usefull for writting txt archives.. due is pretty slow

3. the module sis and via in toshiva 2008 laptops must need acpi_enforce_resources = lax to the kernel parameters, without that canot handle dpmi and management of the temp and performance of the x motion compenssation, this are not happened if you just used a normal debian wheeze iso (that have available backported packages for venenux)

4. pretty slow, very very slow, i can use for some pages.. with slimjet, but rendering is pretty slow with firefox or chrome in youtube for 720p videos, normal videos with 700kbps can be run but pufff like a robot

I guess is better backported package to a debian older iso (wheeze and jessie, those are the lasted working kernels and xorg subsistem ABI working for older hardware)

xorg and kernel infrastructure was removed for those hardware so unless we used older kernels (<= 4.0) sand older XORG we just have a frankenstein

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AX-MH_Y4wM

• This reply was modified 1 year, 10 months ago by mckaygerhard.

[Member Xecure]

Helpful

Up

1

::

@mckaygerhard

Thanks for all the advice. It will help for future releases and also for anyone experiencing slowness on the devices you mention (thanks for mentioning the kernel parameters that help for these devices).

You are right that this is a frankenstein system (which will always be betas), and that mixing packages from different Debian releases will not yield the most stable results. I wont be putting as much time on this project as you are for venenux, so it will never be the best solution available.

Anyone who cannot get their system to work smoothly with any of the antiX releases and has extremely old hardware should take a look at the venenux releases instead.

I will keep making small changes for whatever other users who already use this legacy iso ask and need.

Thanks.

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

[Member calciumsodium]

Helpful

Up

0

::

Xecure wrote:

Thanks, i’m sorry.

Hi @Xecure,
I don’t use any of the legacy iso that you created. But I want to say that you work very hard and are very caring of others that you put so much time and effort into helping others.

I think that you should never say you are sorry.

I think that others should thank you more for your work and efforts.

Thank you.

[Author]

Posts