antiX-26 released

[PPCMember]

Hi.
I just started testing antiX 25 Full, 64bits on my Desktop PC (8Gb of RAM with a dual Core CPU, built in video card, spinning Hard Drive).

First notes:

1- as someone that was born in a non English speaking country – it still saddens me that we have to select our language twice during the boot process. Even for someone that’s computer savvy, it not the expected behavior (but I assume it would be hard to implement a single menu entry for that, since I’ve been voicing that problem for years)

2- antiX 26 boots FAST! I wish my TV box (that keeps crashing as soon as I look at it sideways) would boot that fast

3- I’ve never noticed this – Connman takes a lot of seconds to start displaying both the wifi and the wired hardware – I don’t think that happens in previous antiX versions. ALSO: the window to enter the wifi password does not show the “OK” and “Cancel” buttons. That is, in my opinion, he single biggest problem with antiX usability. A regular user does not expect that we have to maximize a tiny window to see a button that should be there. Damn… I’ve been using antiX for years and years and every time I set up a new version I always think “Where the hell do I click?” (I know it’s a problem with connman’s GUI, that I tried to solve back when I had more free time and failed to do it)

4- The default wallpaper (as usual) is brilliantly good. I’ll do a standing ovation to the folks that created it and selected it as a nice default.

5- The icon set… Sigh. Marcelocripe is right. It’s not the best icon set I’ve seen antiX use, out of the box. Looks to matter, even if they are not essential. We use antiX because it’s fast, not because it looks great. But I, and lots of people, have been trying to make it look better (and easier to use) if that does not imply any extra resource usage. Wallpapers, icon set, window manager configuration… they are just eye candy, I know. But even so… important to make any system a joy to use (most people do not use keyboard driven tiling window managers- I’m middle aged, I like clicking icons, if that saves me to have to memorize a lot of key combos or if that saves me from having to look at the keyboard and type, instead of performing a couple of mouse clicks).

6- One thing that saddens me is that the GUI to manage Conky does not seem to have been included in this version. I’ll not rant about the fact that I think it’s a perfect fit for all Control Centre GUI tools. anticapitalista decides what tools are included, so… moving on…

7- Still on the “Looks” of antiX 26- like I warned during the test versions – the “Store” and “Update system” icons on IceWM toolbar are switched. That’s not a matter of developer choice. It confuses users, without any need for it. A shopping bag is the current universal icon for any app store. kids that don’t know how to read know that they click it to install their games…

Now the really important stuff:

8- Finally, antiX has now a managable number of versions- 64 bits and, still, 32 bits (thank the Gods) and a “Normal” FULL version for the common mortals and “Pro’s-I-know-how-to-compile-everything” version. 4 versions in total – anticapitalista can probably now avoid a complete mental breakdown every time a new version is in the works. Nice for him and nice for users – it avoids user confusion – we no longer have dozens of available versions to choose from! So, thanks everyone that helped create a multi-init version and thanks anti for embracing it and also cutting the (for me, and most people unneeded) extra versions.

9- antiX not only boots fast, but it works fast. After the first launch, Firefox launches in 2 seconds, LibreOffice Write launches in about the same time. That’s the most important BIG apps, launching about just half the speed of a device that costs some 10 times the price this old PC is worth. This makes me love antiX even more.

10- This brings me to how users launch apps- the menu. It seems, to me, the exact same menu. For users with a normal relatively why resolution screen, using the option, available in IceWM CC to display app categories directly in the fist level of the menu, makes apps a little faster to access and also the menu seem like the menu other user interfaces, like KDE, have. The Applications Menu, now showing the short description of the app and the name of the app makes it extremely useful for common mortals that don’t that what a program with a seeming random name like “WinFF” does. Only a few new menu entries do not have a native (in pt-pt, at least) human understandable name: “Crowed menus” (I’ve heard about that in the forum, I’ll check it out next) and “GTK Pipe Viewer”.
PS: I’ve just checked “Crowed menus” – this is a very nice idea! single suggestion – a confirmation window explaining what it does, giving the option to “Continue” or “Cancel”. Of course, the same goes for “Uncrowd menus”.

11- Localization: it Pt-pt, it’s nearly perfect- some stuff is in English (the LibreOffice configuration menu- not our fault) and right clicking the volume icon showing (the first option “Open Mixer”

12- Bugs – I’ll have to check – I can reproduce the problem that hiding the Personal menu from ICeWM CC comments every single menu entry. That can potentially by a Bomb in antiX reputation. That’s why I test and test everything before I present the “Final” version. Like in real life, bugs creep in when we are not looking. I’ve not yet found any other bug, but then again, I’ve just started testing antiX 26.

Current opinion: antiX 26, under the hood, is a brilliant new OS. Fast to boot. Nice wallpaper. Runs fast. Has a menu that most humans many not like, but it allows easy access to apps. The icons, not that good… The fact that checking out the GUI that changes the User Interface nukes the menu… that’s a big no-no. Specially because I was the one that originally created that tool…

Important Info: most probable cause for the above mentioned bug: in /usr/local/bin/icewm-manager-gui ‘s Function “show_personal_submenu()” (from line 800 on) looks for icon name used to identify the “Personal menu” entry. That icon changed… so probably the function is misbehaving and commenting everything in the menu configuration file. I’ll try to redo it…

My bad, sorry… 🙁

P.

• This reply was modified 6 months ago by PPC.

[olsztynMember]

PPC wrote:

3- I’ve never noticed this – Connman takes a lot of seconds to start displaying both the wifi and the wired hardware – I don’t think that happens in previous antiX versions. ALSO: the window to enter the wifi password does not show the “OK” and “Cancel” buttons. That is, in my opinion, he single biggest problem with antiX usability. A regular user does not expect that we have to maximize a tiny window to see a button that should be there. Damn… I’ve been using antiX for years and years and every time I set up a new version I always think “Where the hell do I click?” (I know it’s a problem with connman’s GUI, that I tried to solve back when I had more free time and failed to do it)

Yes, this is a noticeable behavior. Detection of networks does take a long time and the need to maximize CMST window just to see the ‘OK’ button to click in some cases.
Although these annoyances can be easily fixed by switching to Network Manager, along with Connman’s failure to detect some usb network dongles, such as based on RTL8188. However I do keep Connman/CMST setup in a panelless implementation of antiX 26, such as pure Openbox, driven by right-click menus for the ultimate in memory footprint and performance…

• This reply was modified 5 months, 4 weeks ago by olsztyn.

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

[anticapitalistaForum Admin]

@PPC
1 – it is not hard but impossible otherwise we would have implemented it years ago.
5 – Give me a png based icon set and we can try that. I asked before but didn’t get any satisfactory answers.
6- Let’s say we agree to disagree. My personal view is not to include conky at all.

icewm-manager-gui has been fixed and is waiting in the repos.

Thanks for your feedback.

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

antiX with runit - leaner and meaner.

[Brian MasinickModerator]

PPC wrote:

1- as someone that was born in a non English speaking country – it still saddens me that we have to select our language twice during the boot process. Even for someone that’s computer savvy, it not the expected behavior (but I assume it would be hard to implement a single menu entry for that, since I’ve been voicing that problem for years)

@PPC I’m sympathetic to you, but I also understand and appreciate what @anticapitalista has said: “1 – it is not hard but impossible otherwise we would have implemented it years ago.”

I don’t know what the specific challenges are, but being a former UNIX systems engineer, I believe that our system, though capable of handling even more languages than the many that we support in our small distribution today; it still had the same issue: in other words, ALL of our installations at least STARTED out using the C locale, meaning that all words, menus, and phrases were in English. To the best of my knowledge, even the carefully engineered Japanese implementation we had (and there were full-time Japanese engineers working on the OS) still had to face the same issue as far as I can remember.

It would take a complete rewrite and/or multiple implementations of the tools to even think about doing this, so as stated, from a practical perspective it’s impossible as well as impractical.

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[Brian MasinickModerator]

olsztyn wrote:

Yes, this is a noticeable behavior. Detection of networks does take a long time and the need to maximize CMST window just to see the ‘OK’ button to click in some cases.
Although these annoyances can be easily fixed by switching to Network Manager, along with Connman’s failure to detect some usb network dongles, such as based on RTL8188. However I do keep Connman/CMST setup in a panelless implementation of antiX 26, such as pure Openbox, driven by right-click menus for the ultimate in memory footprint and performance

While I’ve seen some intermittent problems with Connman in the past, since the implementation of antiX 26 and some incremental Connman package changes, the typical action is to make a connection by the time the desktop or window manager appear, roughly in the same amount of time it takes Network Manager, when I’m running MX Linux, to connect to the same network service, so from my perspective, the overall behavior with Connman has improved. I used to frequently toggle between Ceni and Connman to achieve the desired behavior; that is rarely necessary any more.

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[WallonMember]

Brian Masinick wrote:

While I’ve seen some intermittent problems with Connman in the past, since the implementation of antiX 26 and some incremental Connman package changes, the typical action is to make a connection by the time the desktop or window manager appear, roughly in the same amount of time it takes Network Manager, when I’m running MX Linux, to connect to the same network service, so from my perspective, the overall behavior with Connman has improved. I used to frequently toggle between Ceni and Connman to achieve the desired behavior; that is rarely necessary any more.

For me, the Connman window doesn’t appear on my PC on a brand-new installation that doesn’t have a wired connection and only uses Wi-Fi to connect to the modem.

• This reply was modified 5 months, 4 weeks ago by Wallon.

[GalneryusMember]

This message just to say thank you so much to all developers for this wonderful antiX 26 .

Attachments:

1. 

   antix26.jpg
   

[Brian MasinickModerator]

Wallon wrote:

Brian Masinick wrote:

While I’ve seen some intermittent problems with Connman in the past, since the implementation of antiX 26 and some incremental Connman package changes, the typical action is to make a connection by the time the desktop or window manager appear, roughly in the same amount of time it takes Network Manager, when I’m running MX Linux, to connect to the same network service, so from my perspective, the overall behavior with Connman has improved. I used to frequently toggle between Ceni and Connman to achieve the desired behavior; that is rarely necessary any more.

For me, the Connman window doesn’t appear on my PC on a brand-new installation that doesn’t have a wired connection and only uses Wi-Fi to connect to the modem.

Thank you for sharing this @Wallon. This definitely indicates that there remain inconsistencies in this approach.
I believe that in the past year @anticapitalista has produced a version of Network Manager that does not REQUIRE systemD code; if that is correct, perhaps those who are having issues with Connman could switch to Network Manager, and if not, then Ceni.

I’ve always found Ceni to work, but for wireless connections it takes a pretty long time to set up (1-2 minutes for me), which is why I have opted for Connman except in scenarios where it wasn’t working. For me, it’s better, for you and a few others it isn’t better, and it sounds like it may be worse in these other scenarios. Given that, IF Network Manager can indeed be acquired and installed without bringing in other undesirable software, perhaps that is now a viable alternative.

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[vanceMember]

Is it true as it has been in the past, that antiX26RC1 that has been updated has all the functionality of the now released antiX26?
Thanks!!!

[Brian MasinickModerator]

vance wrote:

Is it true as it has been in the past, that antiX26RC1 that has been updated has all the functionality of the now released antiX26?
Thanks!!!

As far as I know, yes. I’m running right now on a setup that WAS antiX 26 RC 1; then I continued to update it. Sure looks like antiX 26 to me; I have another 26 setup and it is almost identical to this one.

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[Brian MasinickModerator]

vance wrote:

Is it true as it has been in the past, that antiX26RC1 that has been updated has all the functionality of the now released antiX26?
Thanks!!!

As far as I know, yes. I’m running right now on a setup that WAS antiX 26 RC 1; then I continued to update it. Sure looks like antiX 26 to me; I have another 26 setup and it is almost identical to this one.

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[andfreeMember]

vance wrote:

Is it true as it has been in the past, that antiX26RC1 that has been updated has all the functionality of the now released antiX26?

anticapitalista wrote:

Upgrading rc1 to final should work with a dist-upgrade.
Users also need to install gtk-pipe-viewer and pipe-viewer.
Frugal/live users need to make changes to the live/boot folder and use a newer initrd.gz

antiX utilities for processing PDF files (posted by ChPol)

[marcelocripeMember]

@anticapitalista, thank you very much for using the latest Transifex translations in the antiX 26 ISO. For example, the “Live USB Maker” program now has its graphical interface fully translated for the first time, as well as other programs whose translations were available on Transifex but had never reached the antiX ISOs.

Thank you very much for all your effort and dedication to antiX Linux.

[Brian MasinickModerator]

Brian Masinick wrote:

vance wrote:

Is it true as it has been in the past, that antiX26RC1 that has been updated has all the functionality of the now released antiX26?
Thanks!!!

As far as I know, yes. I’m running right now on a setup that WAS antiX 26 RC 1; then I continued to update it. Sure looks like antiX 26 to me; I have another 26 setup and it is almost identical to this one.

A few weeks later, I ran my antiX 26 RC 1 image from USB, updated it, and posted the output on my “What are you here with today?” page and briefly scanning the output, it was virtually identical to the installed antiX 26 image I have on this same system except for the fact that I was running from the Live USB, so I reaffirmed it.

In the official announcement @anticapitalista did indicate just a couple of packages that were added to the final released antiX 26 image that differ from RC 1 unless these are added and/or manually updated; frankly while they do represent “differences”, for my personal use cases they don’t make any practical difference to me, and I verified that when I updated and ran the live image again.

Casual users who want the “true” antiX 26 experience should take the time to install the released antiX 26 image, then there are zero questions or concerns.

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[PPCMember]

Hi, folks!

I’m still around, checking out the forum almost every day, but either to busy or to tired to type… I posted, a while back my opinion about antiX 26 on my desktop… Get ready for how it handles my netbook with this fine Specs: 1 gig of shared RAM, 1,660 MHz single core and the slowest hard drive in recorded history and a tiny netbook screen!

1- This netbook has only run antiX live for some months because it’s drive has been quietly failing (or not so quietly because it nuked my antiX installation already 2 or 3 times). My last attempt to install antiX complained that it always failed to install GRUB. I liked my old Windows 7 pro install I had on the original partition because it has a very old MS version that I could use, if I really had to… but I lost my patient with it and finally made that device my only non dual boot one- I installed to the entire hard drive…
2- The install succeeded! I ended up with a fully working, very slow booting system. Wow… I’ll have to make the best use possible of that device before the hard drive dies on me
3- I enabled zram on the fine GUI in Control Center – it made the system a bit more usable.
4- Now I tried browsing the Web – for a single tab, FF ESR worked, but it’s a bit slow. antiX Viewer loads much faster, loads pages faster and handles much faster (downside: some pages don’t work well). I tried Min browser – it’s a bit slow. I tried a couple more browser and then ungoogled Chrome – it handles well – I can even watch YouTube with low resolution… I tried to go one step further and try to watch HBO on it. No DRM… So, it was almost perfect for normal web browsing but not for DRM services… I tried Brave Broser and wow – it installed DRM and allowed me to watch HBO – in low res and the image is a bit jumpy at times, but perfectly viewable! Much better than using my phone… Better yet because my tv has a monitor cable that I use to use it as as external monitor!
5- Office work – Libreoffice, on this veryyyy slow drive takes almost 30 seconds to load. Once loaded, it works normal. I use this netbook to type away my book no one ever reads 🙂
6- Audio works perfectly – this tiny speakers sound so loud with pipewire that I don’t even have to use the external columns.
7- The system suspends and restores almost instantly.

So thanks to antiX 26 I now have a device that was low end when it can out some 15 years ago (with Windows 7 pro and a Portuguese non dead linux distro) working perfectly with the modern web and allowing my to work- it is slow starting huge apps like Libreoffice or Brave, but, once that’s done, it works quiet well!

Problem – this device was always plagued by very low brightness. I developed a yad GUI that allows me to manage backlight brightness, that I’ll test a bit more and publish on the forum…

As always, thanks anticapitalista and the rest of the team!

P.

• This reply was modified 5 months, 1 week ago by PPC.

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