AntiX is almost Mepis? Differ on what?

nooby · 03-08-2012, 04:12 AM

There is something about AntiX that I like.
And their forum at http://antix.freeforums.org/is friendly.
They have a link to Mepis too at the wiki
http://antix.mepis.org/index.php?title=Main_Page

I have some kind of brain deficient? I fail to read much text.
It creates some kind of blindness so I fail to grasp it.

May I kindly ask. What is the difference between AntiX and Mepis?

Can I use the initrd for AntiX and boot Mepis with that one?
or are they too different. Obviously I am a noob asking such crazy ...

And how much does Mepis and Debian differ?

I am testing to boot AntiX test 2 iso now and like it.
It is a pre to AntiX 12 which will come when they have enough
feedback on eventual bugs so I guess them need testers.

I test to boot it frugally so would be cool if others also test that.

Here is the code I use for internal HD on NTFS

Quote:

title antiXl-ntfs-sda2
root (hd0,1)
kernel /antiX/vmlinuz bdev=sda2 vga=791 antiX=LMXD persist
initrd /antiX/initrd.gz

One need to place the antiX directory on the hd by extracting it out of the iso.

rich_c · 03-08-2012, 10:16 PM

antiX started out as a lightweight version of Mepis. These days, it's pretty much a separate but somewhat related (Even if only in spirit.) Debian based distro. Both are very closely Debian based, so Mepis is pretty much KDE flavoured Debian stable with added Mepis tweaking. antiX is lightweight DE Debian testing (Last time I checked.) with added antiX tweaking. That's putting it pretty simply. As you say, the antiX forums are very good and very friendly. I have no doubt people there would be able to give you a much better explanation.

nooby · 03-09-2012, 12:05 PM

Thanks. Yes they help me at their forum too.
BitJam and AntiCapitalista has worked on AntiX
so it also can be booted on NTFS in frugal boot
and save to save files which is a huge progress
for Debian varieties. AFAIK only Knoppix can do
that and now AntiX is the second version that can.

Much appreciated.

newbiesforever · 04-03-2012, 06:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rich_c

antiX started out as a lightweight version of Mepis. These days, it's pretty much a separate but somewhat related (Even if only in spirit.) Debian based distro. Both are very closely Debian based, so Mepis is pretty much KDE flavoured Debian stable with added Mepis tweaking. antiX is lightweight DE Debian testing (Last time I checked.) with added antiX tweaking. That's putting it pretty simply. As you say, the antiX forums are very good and very friendly. I have no doubt people there would be able to give you a much better explanation.

You mentioned that antiX is now a distinct Debian-based distro, not a lightweight SimplyMEPIS. I just wanted to observe that since this is true, there currently is no true lightweight version of MEPIS. This is unfortunate.

When MEPIS 11 came out, I didn't want to use KDE 4, so I started looking for a new distro, and since antiX was right there on the MEPIS site (or linked to from it), I tried it. I probably didn't understand at first that it wasn't a lightweight SimplyMEPIS, so I kept it; and after realizing how different it was, I modified it so extensively that it was arguably no longer antiX: I installed KDE Trinity and removed all the antiX-specific software except *Wicd.

You can probably see I never really wanted to dump SimplyMEPIS in the first place; it's only KDE 4 that I wanted to avoid. But since I could do the same thing with SimplyMEPIS--rip out KDE 4 and install Trinity--why don't I? I've tried it, but two problems arise:

Even with KDE 4 gone, the system always seemed a little slower than antiX.

The main reason I kept my modified antiX is an incidental problem. I use Pidgin, and the squeeze stable versions of Pidgin's dependencies have a gstreamer-related bug that prevents Pidgin from running. Installing the Debian testing versions of gstreamer and its library put me in dependency hell and I couldn't find a solution in the Debian backports repository, so I decided to give up and go back to antiX. (I mean, I might as well, since it uses testing anyway.)

*Wicd runs my wireless network as well as Networkmanager, and I figured out that it doesn't use a KDE frontend like Networkmanager does, so using Wicd instead of Networkmanager is the simplest way to manage my network while switching from KDE 4 to Trinity.

snowday · 04-03-2012, 07:22 PM

Last time I used AntiX, I found that /etc/apt/sources.list was very informative and well-commented, with options you can comment/uncomment to use Mepis repos, Debian repos, etc.

I assume this is still the case.

Code:

cat /etc/apt/sources.list

newbiesforever · 04-03-2012, 07:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by snowpine

Last time I used AntiX, I found that /etc/apt/sources.list was very informative and well-commented, with options you can comment/uncomment to use Mepis repos, Debian repos, etc.

I assume this is still the case.

Code:

cat /etc/apt/sources.list

Yes, and I have kept the MEPIS repositories. No problem with that.

rokytnji · 04-03-2012, 07:53 PM

I'm on the new testing release which may be called AntiX 12 maybe. Release is coming soon.

Code:

$ cd /etc/apt/sources.list.d
/etc/apt/sources.list.d$ ls
antix.list  debian.list  java.list  mepis.list  various.list

As you can see. /etc/apt/sources.list.d is a directory/folder with other folders in it seperating different source list text files.
my repos that are uncommented are

Code:

~$ inxi -r
Repos:     Active apt sources in file: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/antix.list
           deb http://www.daveserver.info/antiX/debs testing full main
           deb http://debs.slavino.sk testing main non-free
           Active apt sources in file: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian.list
           deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ testing main contrib non-free
           deb http://security.debian.org/ testing/updates main contrib non-free
           Active apt sources in file: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/java.list
           deb ftp://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ sid main non-free

latest kernel I am running plus distro info (a newer kernel 3.3 will probably be in the release maybe)

Code:

$ inxi -z -F
System:    Host: biker Kernel: 3.2.5-antix.1-486-smp i686 (32 bit) Desktop: IceWM 1.3.7 Distro: antiX-full 01 February 2012
Machine:   Mobo: Acer model: Aspire 5534 version: V1.10 Bios: Acer version: V1.10 date: 08/26/2009
CPU:       Dual core AMD Athlon X2 L310 (-MCP-) cache: 1024 KB flags: (lm nx sse sse2 sse3 svm) 
           Clock Speeds: 1: 1196.890 MHz 2: 1196.890 MHz
Graphics:  Card: ATI RS780M/RS780MN [Mobility Radeon HD 3200 Graphics] 
           X.Org: 1.11.3.901 driver: fglrx Resolution: 1366x768@60.0hz 
           GLX Renderer: N/A GLX Version: N/A
Audio:     Card: ATI SBx00 Azalia (Intel HDA) driver: snd_hda_intel Sound: ALSA ver: 1.0.24
Network:   Card-1: Atheros AR928X Wireless Network Adapter (PCI-Express) driver: ath9k 
           IF: wlan0 state: up mac: <filter>
           Card-2: Realtek RTL8111/8168B PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet controller driver: r8169 
           IF: eth0 state: down mac: <filter>
Drives:    HDD Total Size: 266.1GB (-) 1: /dev/sda TOSHIBA_MK2555GS 250.1GB 
           2: USB /dev/sdb Multi 16.0GB 
Partition: ID: / size: 15G used: 3.2G (23%) fs: ext2 
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 50.0C mobo: 0.0C 
           Fan Speeds (in rpm): cpu: N/A 
Info:      Processes: 93 Uptime: 1:20 Memory: 288.4/3545.8MB Client: Shell inxi: 1.7.31

running off of a external 16 gig SD flash drive for now on this laptop. Just posting for info.

rokytnji · 04-03-2012, 07:54 PM

OOps. sorry. Double post.

Might as well use the space I guess. Much has changed however with AntiX, Iceweasel replaced Iceape. Lots of new tools in Menu>Applications>Prefernces like add key,add desktop,change JWM theme, heck, just try the new release when it comes out to find out.

snowday · 04-03-2012, 08:12 PM

Thanks for the info, sounds like the new release is shaping up nicely!

newbiesforever · 04-03-2012, 08:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rokytnji

OOps. sorry. Double post.

Iceweasel replaced Iceape.

I didn't mention this because it wasn't relevant; but I also removed Iceape from my antiX and installed Firefox (which, since I kept the MEPIS repositories, was available). Firefox works for me, and I don't care about browser branding.

In fact, I think the only antiX-specific software I am very interested in is the remastering script that Anticapitalista said was in the latest testing version. I've meant to find out whether I can download the script by itself.

anticapitalista · 04-04-2012, 05:00 AM

newbiesforever,

Instead of kde3 from Trinity, have you tried razor-qt?

http://antix.freeforums.org/post2361...or%20qt#p23619

newbiesforever · 04-04-2012, 12:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by anticapitalista

newbiesforever,

Instead of kde3 from Trinity, have you tried razor-qt?

http://antix.freeforums.org/post2361...or%20qt#p23619

Ill try it, but from the screenshots, it doesn't appear similar to KDE at all. Looks like IceWM. I kept KDE because I'm not interested in changing. When I couldn't use KDE 3.5 anymore, Trinity was the most similar desktop.

craigevil · 04-04-2012, 12:22 PM

- http://www.daveserver.info/antiX/Notes

Quote:

antiX is now built from scratch using debootstrap (ie it is no longer a remaster of MEPIS).
The .debs included build antiX-$version.
core/base/full must be kept separate otherwise weird things will happen.
main is for all versions.

antiX sources look something like this (for base):

# antiX
deb http://xxxxxxxxxxx/debian/ main/
deb http://xxxxxxxxxxx/ base/
#deb http://xxxxxxxxxxx/debian/ core/
#deb http://xxxxxxxxxxx/debian/ full/
#deb-src http://xxxxxxxxxxx/debian/ source/

This is how I have been making the .debs.

http://users.telenet.be/mydotcom/how...ux/package.htm

Hope this helps.

anticapitalista