AntiX now has its own rolling-release repository based on Debian testing, rather than being a Mepis respin. I tested the full version, which took just 2.5GB of HD space.

The CD boots to give you the options of installing, reading help, or configuring the live session in various ways. The installer is still the excellent Mepis one, with lots of help available. There’s no opportunity to encrypt /home.

Three window managers are installed and selectable at log-in: Ice (the default), Fluxbox, and the weird wmii. Software includes LibreOffce, Iceweasel, Claws-mail, Pidgin, Mtpaint, Gnome-mplayer, and, for very small systems, the Ted wordprocessor and Dillo web-browser. All ran from the CLI without warnings, although LibreOffice complained about not having Java. All media codecs and the Flash plug-in were pre-installed. Media files played perfectly, even my “mp4 from hell”. A useful control centre has been added to make configuring a simple window manger a little easier. Unlike many Debian derivatives (e.g. Ubuntu), I could select my USB speakers without having to write scripts.

My only problem was that Flash turned out to be the version that doesn’t work with Pentiums I-III or 32-bit AMD chips: not very handy for older computers.

AntiX runs perfectly in 128MB, and with care you could get by in 64MB. The obvious competitor is Swift, and the main difference is that AntiX has a rather better installer.