New User – help with installing apps and webcam

[Member xpthanos]

Hello antiX-forum and community.

I am a new antiX user and very satisfied with my experience so far, even though I have little experience with Linux operating systems.
I came across antiX as I was searching for a lightweight distribution with Live-USB capabilities that could run on my girlfriend’s old laptop which has been having issues recently with its hard drive. Up to this point everything has been going smoothly but I have come across two issues.

So, here is our situation. I have made a live-USB using the tool provided in antiX. I also installed antiX through virtualbox on my computer, so that I could assist my girlfriend remotely in the case that a problem comes up.

Issue #1:
She tried to install the 1-to-1 assistance app through the package installer, but after the installation the checkbox returned to being empty, and the app didn’t appear to be installed. She also tried to install Audacity, but again the same thing happened. (Before I gave her the live-USB, I installed SoftMaker FreeOffice on it successfully) Could it be an issue with the free space in the root persistence folder?

Issue #2:
Her webcam microphone is listed as an audio capture device but is not recognised as a microphone on Firefox. This webcam is external as the internal camera’s microphone did not show up at all in the terminal. Could this be solved by installing a different sound manager ? (I’m not sure what the terminology for that is :P)

Also, I have another question. After booting from the live-USB are the home and root folders loaded onto RAM, is only the root folder loaded, or none of them? If one of them is can I remove the USB stick securely after I have logged in?

Thank you for your help.
Lots of thanks to the developers for maintaining such a useful distribution.

[Member Xecure]

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Hello.

xpthanos wrote:

ssue #1:
She tried to install the 1-to-1 assistance app through the package installer, but after the installation the checkbox returned to being empty, and the app didn’t appear to be installed. She also tried to install Audacity, but again the same thing happened.

Try searching for them in “App Select”. Sometimes the app doesn’t greyout in package installer, but should install anyway.
Make sure the packages are up to date. You can use Apt Notifier if it is installed, synaptic or the terminal.
sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade

xpthanos wrote:

Issue #2:
Her webcam microphone is listed as an audio capture device but is not recognised as a microphone on Firefox. This webcam is external as the internal camera’s microphone did not show up at all in the terminal. Could this be solved by installing a different sound manager ? (I’m not sure what the terminology for that is :P)

It should work if using Firefox-ESR
If you are using the new firefox, maybe you should thing about using apulse (to translate between you “Audio Manager” and the browser or pulseaudio (as a different “Audio manager”). Search the forum, there are many posts about this.

xpthanos wrote:

Also, I have another question. After booting from the live-USB are the home and root folders loaded onto RAM, is only the root folder loaded, or none of them? If one of them is can I remove the USB stick securely after I have logged in?

It depends on what type of persistence you have chosen, the size of rootfs, size of linuxfs and how much RAM your system has.
More info on persistence:
http://download.tuxfamily.org/antix/docs-antiX-19/FAQ/persistence.html

Wellcome to antiX

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

[Forum Admin anticapitalista]

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Welcome!

3. You can use the toram option (F4 if booting legacy grub) and remove the stick once at desktop (give it some time to ‘settle’ though.
When you reboot or halt, you should be prompted to put the stick back in.

How big is the usb device?
How big did you make home and root persistence?
How much RAM do you have on the old laptop?

These will affect how well the liveusb will run using persistence with or without toram

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

antiX with runit - leaner and meaner.

[Member xpthanos]

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Thank you for all your helpful answers!! I have another issue I would like to ask you about.

What can I do if I’m working from a live-usb with persistence and I accidentally unplug it? (In my case, the port and the USB stick are both a little loose and it tends to disconnect with minor movements) The system seems to lose connection to all files and folders and therefore I cannot save my work because the apps cannot write to the file. This issue persists (no pun intended) even if I plug the USB stick back in.

Is there a way to re-mount it correctly so that the system can see it again? I have lost my progress on my files a number of times.

Thank you for your time and your help. Really appreciate the snappiness of my old computer.

[Member Xecure]

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What persistant option are you using? If using static, then you will have to change to a dynamic persistence to load your changes in RAM, and then at the end of your session save them to your USB. If you have enought RAM, you could even load the whole system toram.

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

[Member olsztyn]

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Xecure wrote:

Try searching for them in “App Select”.

Just a quick question on AppSelect: It used to work just fine for me, however nowadays clicking AppSelect menu item (IceWM or Fluxbox) does not do anything. I did not ask before as AppSelect was not that critical for me, but if I can make it work again this would be preferable.
Any tips appreciated…

Live antiX Boot Options (Previously posted by Xecure):
https://antixlinuxfan.miraheze.org/wiki/Table_of_antiX_Boot_Parameters

[Member Xecure]

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olsztyn wrote:

It used to work just fine for me, however nowadays clicking AppSelect menu item (IceWM or Fluxbox) does not do anything

Try launching from terminal
app-select
and paste the errors you get. It is possible it is missing a specific package.

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

[Member olsztyn]

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Xecure wrote:

and paste the errors you get. It is possible it is missing a specific package.

Executed from terminal gets me:

demo@antix1:~
$ app-select
Traceback (most recent call last):
File “/usr/local/bin/app-select”, line 292, in <module>
win = mainWindow()
File “/usr/local/bin/app-select”, line 242, in __init__
self.make_list()
File “/usr/local/bin/app-select”, line 158, in make_list
self.add_item(store, filename, ”)
File “/usr/local/bin/app-select”, line 131, in add_item
icon = icon_info.get_filename()
AttributeError: ‘NoneType’ object has no attribute ‘get_filename’
demo@antix1:~

Thanks and Regards…

Live antiX Boot Options (Previously posted by Xecure):
https://antixlinuxfan.miraheze.org/wiki/Table_of_antiX_Boot_Parameters

[Member Xecure]

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Ì suspect it has something to do with the icon theme. It may sound stupid, but when I was testing different core installations I realized that using Adwaita as the icon theme made it impossible for app-select to launch. Changing back to default papirus-antix theme worked.
I forgot all about this, as I was too concentrated testing Mate. The issue slipped my mind but came back while reading your post, olsztyn.

Hopefully we can test a bit more. I will open an issue for app-select in antiX-Dave’s gitlab page for app-select-antix tomorrow with more info once I have time to test things.

Edit: Opened an issue report in antiX-Dave gitlab page for app-select-antix. I think this should fix the problem.

• This reply was modified 2 years, 9 months ago by Xecure. Reason: Info about issue report for app-select

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

[Member olsztyn]

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Xecure wrote:

Ì suspect it has something to do with the icon theme.

This is it. Confirmed in my case. Adwaita it is. I did not have a chance to test other icon themes though…
Thanks and Regards…

Live antiX Boot Options (Previously posted by Xecure):
https://antixlinuxfan.miraheze.org/wiki/Table_of_antiX_Boot_Parameters

[Member xpthanos]

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Xecure wrote:

What persistant option are you using? If using static, then you will have to change to a dynamic persistence to load your changes in RAM, and then at the end of your session save them to your USB. If you have enought RAM, you could even load the whole system toram.

Hmm, then how would I go about doing this with the dynamic persistence? My system has limited RAM, so the “toram” option is out of consideration. After the USB has been momentarily unplugged I’m even unable to access the shutdown menu.

• This reply was modified 2 years, 8 months ago by xpthanos.

[Member Xecure]

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Xecure wrote:

What persistant option are you using?

Let me know and I will test out the different persistent options (starting with yours) and see if I can find a static persistent option that works for you. I will do this when you answer and when I have time.

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

[Member olsztyn]

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Xecure wrote:

Ì suspect it has something to do with the icon theme. It may sound stupid, but when I was testing different core installations I realized that using Adwaita as the icon theme made it impossible for app-select to launch. Changing back to default papirus-antix theme worked.
I forgot all about this, as I was too concentrated testing Mate. The issue slipped my mind but came back while reading your post, olsztyn.

Hopefully we can test a bit more. I will open an issue for app-select in antiX-Dave’s gitlab page for app-select-antix tomorrow with more info once I have time to test things.

Edit: Opened an issue report in antiX-Dave gitlab page for app-select-antix. I think this should fix the problem.

Not critical at all and low priority, but just to keep track of issue:
AppSelect still not working after update of IceWM to most recent…
Thanks again and Best Regards…

• This reply was modified 2 years, 7 months ago by olsztyn.

Live antiX Boot Options (Previously posted by Xecure):
https://antixlinuxfan.miraheze.org/wiki/Table_of_antiX_Boot_Parameters

[Member ModdIt]

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@xpthanos. Not the direct answer. having experienced many problems we went a different way.Now use wire messenger on phone whenever possible for remote assistance, it just works
without effort.

• This reply was modified 2 years, 7 months ago by ModdIt.

[Anonymous]

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Try launching from terminal
app-select
and paste the errors you get. It is possible it is missing a specific package.

as tested in virtualbox, using a fully updated antiX 17 full:
(I didn’t switch away from the as-shipped default gtk theme nor icon theme)

apt policy app-select-antix
Installed: 0.1.2
Candidate: 0.1.2

When attempting to launch from terminal…

$ app-select
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/local/bin/app-select", line 292, in <module>
    win = mainWindow()
  File "/usr/local/bin/app-select", line 242, in __init__
    self.make_list()
  File "/usr/local/bin/app-select", line 158, in make_list
    self.add_item(store, filename, '')
  File "/usr/local/bin/app-select", line 130, in add_item
    icon_info = icon_theme.lookup_icon(missing_icon, icon_size, 0)
UnboundLocalError: local variable 'icon_theme' referenced before assignment

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