New Member From US

[Member astronut]

Hello all! I am a new member from Louisiana/USA and glad to be admitted to the forum! I am really enjoying Antix and have it installed in 3 of my laptops and 1 netbook in some form of DE or another. I really like the low resource and ease of use it allows me! Anyway, thanks for letting me join up!

AntiX, Lilidog, PCLinuxOS, Mabox, SparkyLinux, Bodhi

[Moderator Brian Masinick]

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@astronut: Welcome to antiX. As for me, I’m a “transported” Yankee, born in Detroit, Michigan, raised in a small northeastern suburb of Detroit called “Fraser, Michigan”, studied Computer Science at Michigan Technological University in Houghton, Michigan – Western Upper Peninsula, about 560 miles from my home to the university.

While at Michigan Tech I got an extremely brief “peek” at a UNIX system running on a PDP-11/45, but it didn’t have any networking active and I got no good sense on how it worked. Just a couple of years into my professional career, however, I had the opportunity to join a small group charged with product research – personal computers and departmental computing, two things that hadn’t yet become prevalent in large corporations.

We really ended up liking UNIX and we got a bunch of NCR Tower systems. They ran well, but they had one early design flaw: they had an under-performing network card. What would happen is that we could establish one major interconnection to a mainframe service, but if we connected to two or more of the services at the same time, the network modules would disconnect one or both of the networks.

The network engineer from NCR told me that he had designed the network and he chose an inexpensive network card to use in his prototype; unfortunately it got implemented in their UNIX network server. Ultimately these issues were resolved, PLUS we found some SunOS servers that could get the job done.

This work, coupled with some assignments with the network telephony organization at General Motors led me to my first job change, taking me to Digital Equipment Corporation in Merrimack, NH. The group I joined was a marketing and engineering partnership with telephony companies, such as AT&T, MCI, Sprint, and the local Telco companies that were split from AT&T in the 1984 split. Most of these companies were already using UNIX systems for their engineering, but they, like everyone else, were starting to use Email and “desktop automation”.

Some companies started to move to personal computers, as they became more functional, but in the eighties, large companies still used large server computers running mainframe software for payroll and business intelligence, UNIX systems for their engineering services, and a variety of things for everything else.

All of this pre-dated Linux systems by 5-8 years, though when Linux emerged, I tracked it closely and predicted that it would be low priced Linux, with the flexibility of UNIX with much lower cost – entirely free for downloaded versions, and relatively modest prices for commercial support.

True desktop Linux has never really arrived – except in the guise of “Chromebooks”, which DO use Linux kernels. Overwhelmingly phones and tablets use Linux (Android contains Linux kernels), iOS uses a modified Carnegie Mellon MACH micro-kernel with FreeBSD POSIX API’s – https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7289983 tells a more accurate and complete story; suffice to say that iOS and Android have different approaches, yet pretty similar roots.

So between UNIX, Linux, Apple’s proprietary systems, and even “some” of Microsoft’s stuff today, they all utilize at least some of the ideas from the AT&T Bell System Laboratories work and the XEROX Park work that dates back to the 1960s. Needless to say, in my opinion the overall industry is overdue for a complete paradigm shift, but that could still take years; the stuff we have today is mature, well entrenched, and until someone demonstrates features, capabilities and a compelling reason to move on, the pendulum for change will be slow.

Fortunately, we can “trail” the cutting edge stuff with a really small, fast, efficient system called antiX. While it can use OLD equipment, it’s close to cutting edge with effective use of inexpensive devices, such as cheap removable USB disks and SSD technology. I use antiX on a current generation Acer laptop and a bunch of older, “cast-away” machines that other people were ready to dump.

All of this stuff happened during the course of my career; I’m recently retired to Greenville, SC, so I gave up “Yankee” status to enjoy the pleasures of one of the original 13 colonies, South Carolina. Ironically enough, I lived in a community in Michigan called “The Colonies” and my street was “South Carolina Drive”. Little did we know at the time that we’d move to South Carolina. My wife has 2-3 relatives who moved here, leading us to visit; we liked it and chose South Carolina as our retirement choice.

Louisiana is one of a half dozen to dozen of the states I’ve never actually set foot in; I’ve been to Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Arizona, and Texas among the southern states, plus California and Washington on the West Coast, and ALL of the Atlantic Coast states.

Now that you know some of my geographical sites and a summary of my computer and professional history, I hope we can have some enjoyable exchanges as we discuss antiX software.

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Brian Masinick

[Member calciumsodium]

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Hello,
Welcome.
@Brian, it is very cool that you are very open to sharing your life story.

I myself grew up in New Orleans, Louisiana when my family came here to the States seeking better opportunities.

• This reply was modified 8 months, 1 week ago by calciumsodium.

[Member astronut]

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Hello Brian and calciumsodium, thanks for the welcomes! Brian, thanks for such an interesting story! I have lived all of my life in Louisiana but have visited Dayton, Ohio, Texas, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, and Oahu, Hawaii. I am now retired but in my lifetime I have done construction work (ironworker), welding, electrical, medical, agricultural and various other types of work.

AntiX, Lilidog, PCLinuxOS, Mabox, SparkyLinux, Bodhi

[Moderator Brian Masinick]

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Yeah, I hope that I don’t bore too many people with those stories, but nobody HAS to read any of them. Glad you find them interesting.

I’ve never been to New Orleans, my spouse has been there in the past, and she’s also a record holding para-olympian. Chances are her records will hold, because 1) when they did carry the sports, most of them were male/female categories, and 2) from what I understand, the events have changed.
She competed in Seuol South Korea and Atlanta, Georgia, in addition to local and regional events in Michigan. She’s a retired teacher with specialties in speech, language, and counseling. As a teacher-educator, her peers used to tease her for relatively limited skills – until they moved from Windows to Chromebooks; ever since, she’s been good at it. In our retirement community, there are a modest number of people who are good at technology, though as the number of residents born in the fifties increases, the number of technically capable people increase.

On committees, she’s the computer expert; her ability as a counselor to listen and take notes, coupled with reasonable computer skills make her highly sought out. Meanwhile I’m not active in committees, but the word has gotten out that I’m a retired computer professional; it’s like I walk on water to some of the people; I’ve fixed problems on Mac computers and tablets, and several Windows users. I continually ask people what they use their computers for. In 100% of the cases they could easily use either antiX or a Chromebook, but there have been few takers. I recommended a Chromebook to one person; they bought some expensive Apple product, only to admit less than a month later that the Chromebook would have been easier and far less expensive.

I’ve found Apple Safari and their word processor to be over the heads of every single person who has asked for help.

Similarly the people who use Microsoft Word and Microsoft Edge would be better off with Google Chrome and a Chromebook, though if I could convince anyone with an older computer to let me do it, I could “custom configure” an antiX setup with a browser and desktop icons to get them to exactly what they use, nothing more, nothing less. Years ago I set up antiX on a Dell D600 series laptop that was running out of juice; I asked my mom at the time what she needed and set it up perfectly; later I did the same for a neighbor and it worked for both of them!

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Brian Masinick

[Moderator Brian Masinick]

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I am interested in what we’ve done. Some of the most interesting things on the job were the stories told, particularly from people who have had vastly different experiences than me.

Our collective stories are, to some people, more interesting than our computer “woes”!

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Brian Masinick

[Member astronut]

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Naw, you did not bore me. I started off with Ubuntu about 12 years ago, then went to LinuxMint, and have been distro hopping ever since. Tried Manjaro, Fedora, and MXLinux for awhile but have been set on Bodhi, Antix, LXLE, and EndeavourOS(I managed to avoid the grub screw up on it) multibooted on my laptops for quite some time. My 2 laptops are Lenovo Thinkpads and the netbook is an Acer AspireOne. One Thinkpad has EndeavourOS with Mate DE, and the rest has it with Enlightenment. Bodhi of course has Enlightenment/Moksha, LXLE has LXDE, and I have AntiX running Icewm with Rox and it “flies” on all of them! For what I need and do, I do not need or have a want for a “full blown” DE. Of course I did remove a few things from AntiX that I did not need and added some of my personal favorites such as radiotray, Caja, pcmanfm, lxtask, and warpinator. What I really did like was the ability to “build” it on one laptop and create the Iso to be installed on the rest of them. That saved me a lot of time on installs! I also keep an up to date build of it on a USB stick in case I need to reinstall it to one of them. I have recently been playing around with Exlight (Enlightenment DE) lately but I am not too sure about it yet.

Screenshot of my netbook running Antix.

• This reply was modified 8 months, 1 week ago by astronut. Reason: add pic

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AntiX, Lilidog, PCLinuxOS, Mabox, SparkyLinux, Bodhi

[Moderator Brian Masinick]

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That’s cool.

I’ve been a mega distribution hopper in the past and I also had a few short stints as a freelance tech writer.

My software development skills are inferior to my professional peers but my systems engineering and testing skills along with writing and technology support give me a broad skill set.

It’s funny how some people look for rock stars with a specific feature but once that feature dims such people have to find the next hot thing.

I’m done with all of that. I do what I enjoy instead. These kind of discussions are interesting to me.

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Brian Masinick

[Member marcelocripe]

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Hello astronut.

Welcome to antiX Linux and the forum.

I don’t know how to write in English and I send my texts translated by the internet translator. I hope you can understand everything, if your native language is not English, please translate my original Brazilian Portuguese text directly into your language with the help of internet translators.

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

What is antiX and how to try it out or install it.
Short essential how-to list for the complete Linux newbie.
How-to install applications – 2020 version.
How to: correctly use antiX forum.

When I first started using antiX, I read the tutorials that PPC created, these readings saved me a lot of time and I think it saves time for any new antiX user. Your time will not be wasted with these readings, everything will seem to be much easier than you could imagine. You won’t waste your time searching the internet or even creating new topics, on the contrary, you will gain a lot of time with these readings.

I recommend you try out desktops that have “zzz” in their name. I usually use zzz-IceWM or zzz-JWM or zzz-Fluxbox (each of these desktops has its own characteristics and consumes more or less resources), zzzFM will be the default file manager for your desktop, it it is very similar to the other file managers of other GNU/Linux distributions and Windows XP. To access other antiX workspaces, click on Menu, Desktop, Other Desktops and click on the workspace name, instantly the workspace will be loaded.

Whenever you need to ask for help or technical support in this forum, please explain in detail what is happening, don’t mince words, be thorough when writing, tell your computer characteristics such as make and model. If possible, post the result of the command $ inxi -Fxz from the terminal, copy and paste here in the message of the topic that you are going to create in this forum.

When you start a topic or participate with a 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 box whenever there are replies from topic in question.

marcelocripe
(Original text in Brazilian Portuguese language)

– – – – –

Olá astronut.

Seja bem-vindo(a) ao antiX Linux e ao fórum.

Eu não sei escrever em idioma Inglês e envio os meus textos traduzidos pelo tradutor da internet. Eu espero que você consiga compreender tudo, caso o seu idioma nativo não seja o Inglês, por favor, traduza o meu texto original em idioma Português do Brasil diretamente para o seu idioma com a ajuda dos tradutores da internet.

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

What is antiX and how to try it out or install it.
Short essential how-to list for the complete Linux newbie.
How-to install applications – 2020 version.
How to: correctly use antiX forum.

Quando eu comecei a utilizar o antiX, eu li os tutoriais que o PPC criou, estas leituras me pouparam muito do meu tempo e acho que poupa o tempo de qualquer novo usuário do antiX. O seu tempo não será perdido com estas leituras, tudo parecerá ser muito mais fácil do que você poderia imaginar. Você não perderá o seu tempo com pesquisas na internet ou até mesmo em criar novos tópicos, ao contrário, você ganhará muito tempo com estas leituras.

Eu recomendo você experimentar as áreas de trabalho que possuem “zzz” em seu nome. Eu costumo utilizar o zzz-IceWM ou zzz-JWM ou zzz-Fluxbox (cada uma destas áreas de trabalho possuem características próprias e consomem mais ou menos recursos), o zzzFM será o gerenciador de arquivos padrão da sua área de trabalho, ele é muito semelhante aos outros gerenciadores de arquivos das outras distribuições GNU/Linux e do Windows XP. Para acessar as outras áreas de trabalho do antiX, clique no Menu, Área de Trabalho, Alternar Entre as Áreas de Trabalho e clique sobre o nome da área de trabalho, instantaneamente a área de trabalho será carregada.

Sempre que você precisar solicitar ajuda ou suporte técnico neste fórum, explique com detalhes o que está acontecendo, não economize as palavras, seja minucioso ao escrever, informe as características do seu computador, como a marca e o modelo. Se for possível, poste o resultado do comando $ inxi -Fxz do terminal, copie e cole aqui na mensagem do tópico que você for criar neste fórum.

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.

marcelocripe
(Texto original em idioma Português do Brasil)

[Member astronut]

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Thankyou Marcelo Cripe for the links and the suggestions!

AntiX, Lilidog, PCLinuxOS, Mabox, SparkyLinux, Bodhi

[Moderator Brian Masinick]

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@astronut: Just to let you know, not too long ago, Marcelo Cripe was one of our new users.
These days, he is a huge advocate for our distribution, as you can see.
Even speaking Brazilian Portuguese, he uses Google Translate to communicate with English speaking members.
Among the Brazilian Portuguese in particular, but also in our community in general, because of his kindness, dedication to learning, and effective use of the resources that have been created, he’s become a great leader among us.

Bravo Marcelo! To the many other recent members who have joined the antiX Forum, what Marcelo says is important. Another member, PPC, spent a lot of time and effort, with the feedback from others, and created some great documentation that can spare the newest users extra time and effort, PROVIDED they take his advice and read the great stuff that community member PPC (with the help of others) has graciously put together. RECOMMENDED reading, without a doubt; even people who already know Linux, but are new to antiX, can benefit from the threads and discussions, tips, and tutorials that have been written, discussed, shared, and updated.

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Brian Masinick

[Member astronut]

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Yes, his, your, and many other member’s tips and tricks that I have been reading over have helped me greatly so far!

AntiX, Lilidog, PCLinuxOS, Mabox, SparkyLinux, Bodhi

[Member techore]

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@astronut, welcome to antiX! 😀

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