Robin
Well, let me add some thoughts here. I feel developers of antiX do really a great job. It’s about “performing the splits” (this is a German metaphor standing for the attempt of satisfying two completely contrary requirements, like the legs getting stretched to the utmost opposite direction) between low resource consumption on the on hand and high degree of convenience for the user experience on the other. And all this summed up under the proposition of efficiency and highly sophisticated workflow design, garnished with a dressy design and a high grade of flexibility. This is something you will scarcely find combined all together in other operating systems. antiX provides the ability to max out so called outdated hardware, rendering it to a well functioning and reliable everyday working tool again, expanding its lifecycle and providing evidence there is something we can stand against throwaway society.
The ubiquitously pretended need for more and again more speed, memory, cores, bus width, to put it in a nutshell: pressure to incessantly increased computing power is a mere phantom, driven by unreflected usage of ressources. We have it, well, so let’s throw it out of the window, waste it as if there was no tomorrow. I well remember the days when programmers were able to drive the very utmost out of limited hardware by means of low-level optimising, getting very close to physical hardware, even writing parts of it in assembler to speed up processing and squeezing functions into really small ammounts of memory. I’ve seen things on merely 486dx or 386/87 generation of processors, like rendering of virtual, realistic images from CAD construction drawings, raytracing etc. Even playing high fidelity music files, wysiwyg creating scores and reading them while transfering to midi and playing simultaneously, using so called dedicated programmable soundcards, and judder free watching and processing movie files was state of the art. When looking at “modern” Computers, I don’t see literally nothing really new, which could legitimate in any way the recent amount of system requirements other operating systems exempt from antiX (and very few others) claim to be necessary for convenient user experience.
There is nothing special about trimming an operating system to minimum resource consumption by means of spartan features, but when it comes to offering a contemporary user interface and a comfortable user experience at the same time, this antiX is way ahead.
Well, there ARE legitimate use cases where very powerful hardware is essential, especially when it comes to professional special applications. Also computer games often push even modern hardware to its performance limits. But the everyday user, writing some letters on his/her hardware, playing music and movies, chatting, surfing, doing whatever you want, even producing music, really doesn’t need this power, it is simply wasted.
You may call this personal opinion, but my opinion is based on long term experience, covering any kind of OS’, from Microsoft systems, MacOS to different Unix/Linux flavours. You might think, this kind of “performing the splits” is something you can get from any Linux flavour, but indeed you can’t. OK, yes, you could in theory. But practically I wasn’t able to install a recent Ubuntu or whatever _usable_ on the very systems, which do run on antiX flawlessly on a per everyday usage basis, providing powerful computing experience still, even with hardware being 20 years old. Admitted, this needs some aditional fine tuning, but isn’t it worth the trouble when you could save some fully functioning hardware from getting scrapped for a mere phantom modern society blindly follows?
Do the long-time antiX users necessarily have to feel uneasy by addition of less purist features? I don’t think so.
Simply since both the purist concept and the maxing out of resources for user convenience are based on the same foundation: A higly efficient system base, covered by slightly different styled surfaces only. This is a proof of flexibility antiX provides.
Windows is like a submarine. Open a window and serious problems will start.