Brian Masinick
@AA BB: I am TOTALLY in agreement with you. I have been a longtime Debian Linux user (dating back to 2001). Before that, I used Mandrake and Red Hat (as far back as 1998), and Slackware, (all the way back to November 1995, when I purchased my first home computer). Prior to that, I did use personal computers and workstations, occasionally bringing them home, and I have been using computers at school and work since 1973 (when I had a very nice introduction to computers through a high school Algebra-Trigonometry class – the teacher took us on a field trip to the General Motors Research Laboratories at the Tech. Center in Warren, Michigan, and I instantly figured out what technology center I wanted to work in – computers and software – which I DID from June 1979 until January 2018, a nice career.
As far as systems go, when the first test releases of MEPIS came out in 2003, I was there, and I followed Simply MEPIS and the other releases too, continuing with MX Linux once Warren Woodford abandoned MEPIS for some great jobs (I think it was working with legal and intellectual property, very good professions, no wonder he moved on!) Paul, a.k.a. anticapitalista, appeared about two years after the early MEPIS came around – I’m not sure if our history is out there or not, but anti can confirm the exact time and date. Anyway, my hardware was always a bit older than the latest and greatest stuff. The desktop I had back then, a Dell Dimension 4100, was a good model when new, and it provided me with a very usable lifespan very close to a decade long – ending up being STOLEN just before I was moving – the thieves were local and had a pretty good idea when I was coming and going.
So Debian, MEPIS, MX Linux, and antiX have been a big part of my computing. I used them next with a Gateway 2000 and a Lenovo 3000, both laptops. These were quite a few years old when I finally disposed of them. Like the Dell Dimension, all of them still worked well, but antiX was among the few that still supported their aging 32-bit hardware.
Now I have a nicely aging Dell Inspiron 5558, 64-bit, 8 GB memory, 8 TB disk drive, 4-CPU Intel processors and again it runs antiX and MX Linux, along with Debian very well. As before, the more the unit ages, the more I stick with minimal configurations of one of these three distributions. Note that I definitely support this community – it’s my favorite of all, but I am able to run the SystemD stuff on Debian too, so I exercise BOTH of these choices from time to time, but I spend the majority of my time in either MX Linux or one of TWO instances of antiX (a Full Edition and a runit edition). Yesterday I spent the majority of my time on MX. Today I spent some time with a distro I reinstalled after a few years away, Mageia 7 (former Mandrake/Mandriva derivative). I still have a “soft spot” for it because it was one of the early “friendly” distributions, but I can also tell you that the quality and the repo download speeds can’t begin to compare to what we have – it’s on my TODO list to find FASTER repos, otherwise Mageia won’t last very long for me! Once I killed the software changes, I rebooted to my two antiX instances and I’ve been on them since – using antiX 19.2.1 “runit” now.
Why do I like it? 1) Debian-based packaging; this packaging style has been my favorite since 2001. 2) Tools: both MX Linux and antiX have some of the best tools for installing, configuring, and maintaining systems. They are both effective and efficient, a GREAT combination! 3) Flexibility: not only is this family of software effective to use and maintain, it is EASY to modify appearance, window managers, desktop environments, applications and utilities. 4) Speed: I’ve seen some comparisons on the Phoronix site over the years comparing various distributions. Though it has been a while since I checked them out, I’ve seen Debian-derived systems, even including Ubuntu, beating out the supposedly FAST Arch Linux in certain workloads. I suspect, based on my own informal usage (and some empirical tests (that means “unofficial timings” and visual feel of response) that antiX easily beats Arch Linux, plus it is FAR easier to install. Arch Linux is actually a COOL project, so I don’t want to discourage anyone who is interested in it or totally loves it; all I am saying is that in my experience, to end up with a system that didn’t perform noticeably faster than the other systems I used, yet took considerable time to build unless you grabbed someone’s pre-configured derivative, it just didn’t match my interests – though I WILL say that both Arch Linux and Linux From Scratch are VERY COOL projects if your aim is deep learning of Linux skills. (I learn PLENTY using what we have here, just the same).
Oh yeah, while mentioning learning, I want to thank macondo again for some of his recent sharing, and after this “discourse” I am going to try out a few of the latest ideas recently shared by macondo. Who says that learning stops at a certain age (or after retirement)? Not here; antiX is still a great hobby for me and I still tweak this or that from time to time.
Enjoy! Plenty to learn, try, and use here! 🙂
- This reply was modified 6 years, 2 months ago by Brian Masinick.
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Brian Masinick
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