PPC
hi!
The only cons I found on antiX 19 a1 and a2 were this:
1- I only use it via live USB, no persistence. A1 did not suspend on my intel atom netbook (antix 16.x intalled, does), A2 did suspend, but when I first rebooted it presented me with a terminal only, even if I choose secure video mode. I had to try several options ( I belive f7 and then pressing space on choosing the video mode did the trick).
2- Maybe because of using connman (???) antiX 19 takes some 2-3 mb more of idle ram (no big deal).
3- I previously commented on the great looking, more modern icon style used. Papirus (I use it in MX) is now available out of the box? Great! But there are some very cryptic or poorly choosen icons in the control centre, once again I offer my help on a couple of icons (like the changing video resolution or one of the keyboard language options that I consider would be more understandable if if looked like a keyboard). Also the previous printer icon looked more like a printer than the current one. It looks like MX’s scanner icon… If you don’t want to spend the effort changing this, it’s literally no big deal.
4- I’m one of the loners that use fluxbox… Yeah, the icons look a bit low res, as I understand it, it’s a FB problem with round icons- not a deal breaker for me, but still, a bit of a eye sore for people that are picky with icons…
5- when I turn on the firewall it blocks my net connection, even when I tick off the block incomming traffic… Is this only on my machine or a general problem? I believe I tested the firewall in a1 and it turned on, but I can’t recall if I tested net traffic after doing that…
Now the good parts:
1- I have no idea why Libreoffice 6.X starts in some 2-3 seconds (after the first time), even in the installed version antiX 16.X (and 17.X live usb) took some 3-4 times that! A newer version that starts faster even without the quick start menu? Great! Maybe antiX now caches LO info in a better way?
2- once again I have no idea why, SMYoutube player open 360 or 480 video streams almost instantly, takes some 2-3 seconds to start viewing the video. Used to take some 10 seconds or more, even in the installed version, in the same or better hardware! Streaming videos with reasonable resolution, with no adds? Better than youtube red 🙂
3- the antiX team after polishing antiX internal machine decided to polish a little more the exterior… First new sweet log off icons, ubuntu fonts, now new icon themes. Wise choice, in my humble opinion. I’ve been runnig antiX for about 2 years now. Only during the last half of that time I’ve been tinkering with it’s appearance. It runs fast out of the box, now it also looks a lot better!
4- The default desktop image and, even better the darker “back” image, are some of the best I’ve seen in any distro. Don’t “brand” it, it’s perfect the way it is!!! (It’s just my personal taste, I admit)
Suggestions:
1- if the antiX team is polishing the UI why not considering a bit of eye candy with skippy-xd? It’s a great task switcher- does not take any idle ram (or so I believe) and it’s a 2XX kb deb file… I even run it direclty without having installed it! No dependencies on antiX/MX
2- I’ve been paying some attention to Manyroad’s efforts regarding the antiX UI. Making jgmenu available out of the box could be nice- the only thing that convinced me trying it out was finding out it has a in-built application search. Open in, start typing and it only shows the apps that are in the search term. Just like whisker menu in MX. It takes some 4-5mb od RAM but you can configure it to not stay on ram if not being used. In my very old machines, when configured that way and running from live usb it has a very small lag ( Fluxbox menu is really instant). The lag is about the same as I have in my MX box when pressing the “windows” key, less than a second…
Folks, it’s a great release, so good and stable that I want to install it on my netbook to replace antiX 16.X, even being just a alpha!
If you have a spare usb stick and can boot from it, try it, you won’t regret it!
P.
Edit 24/5/2019:
The live usb “boot to terminal only” situation happened again in: I had to choose the first boot option and f7- space to be able to boot to my Desktop. One thing was messed up when it booted: My “Live” folder was missing… I found it in a folder like “/boot/live*”. Very strange, made it hard to apply my customizations, the paths were all wrong)
Once booted to my desktop, it’s still rock solid and fast (using SM Youtube player is a pleasure now it opens the videos almost instantly)
Another Suggestion: Ungoogled chromium (http://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium) runs very light and fast in my A2 live USB (via Appimage). I mean, in antiX Fluxbox, without desktop icons, I have this full fledged Internet browser up and running in way less than 300 Mb (a nice option for folks with less than 1 Gig of RAM). Someone already commented this browser was good on another thread. I agree- but, it also seems to be a on man only project, so, there’s no certainty of upgrades. In my limited experience it runs as light as a chromium based browser can run, and in much less ram than Firefox, or Firefox-ESR. Can this be added to the package installer, so the “regular” anti users can try it out?
- This reply was modified 7 years, 4 months ago by PPC.