antiX M7.2 "Vetevendosje": Mepis/Debian Linux At The Speed Of Light

FIRSTLY, I'd like to explain that unusual nickname, "Vetevendosje".
It's an Albanian word which means "self-determination" and has been adopted by Kosovans who oppose the administration of their region by the United Nations, and who vigorously campaign for full independence.
So, never let it be said that Linux developers have a limited world view!
In broad terms, antiX M7.2 is a community-driven project to combine a Mepis 7.2 base (kernel is 2.6.22-1-mepis-smp) with the vast Debian package repositories and the Fluxbox and IceWM window managers.
AntiX is designed for older PCs, hence those lightweight window managers; in fact, it's claimed it can be run on just 64MB of RAM which, if it's true, is quite remarkable.
For this review I ran antiX as a live CD and as a full hard drive installation on a 10-year-old Dell Inspiron 8000 laptop.
The Inspiron only has a 900Mhz processor and a 10GB hard drive - although it does have a respectable 512MB of RAM - so it falls within the antiX remit.
I'll come back to that HD install later; firstly, what about antiX as a live CD?
Well, it's certainly one of the fastest live CDs I've ever used but there's a downside to its small download size (359MB) and it's in the number of applications included (full list is here).
Unlike some live CDs – and I'm thinking primarily of Knoppix – antiX comes with a fairly small software selection: The basics are well covered with applications like Iceweasel (browser), Claws (email), Abiword (word processor), Gnumeric (spreadsheets, Leafpad (text editor) Xmms (music player), gxine (DVD player) and gmplayer (videos).
So, there's certainly enough to keep you productive in a live CD environment, but not much in the way of system administration tools, thereby limiting antiX's use as a system recovery disk (unless, of course, you're up to remastering it yourself).
All in all I was feeling mightily impressed by antiX, so it was time to dive right in with a full install on the Inspiron 8000.
The laptop is well over 10 years old and has been home to many a Linux distribution in that time, but most have struggled to set up its eye-watering 1400x1050 display: Not so antiX.
In live CD mode it got the resolution right first time, and my Linksys PCMCIA ethernet network card was automagically configured, so I felt more than happy to dive straight into the full install.
AntiX comes with the Mepis installer – it's a beauty and gets the job done in 5 or 10 minutes with a minimum of fuss.
It's when you reboot for your first run that you realise the beauty of having a stripped-down base with Fluxbox as your window manager – Fluxbox loads instantaneously, and I really mean instantaneously.
I'm not that experienced with Fluxbox (there's also the option to use IceWM, which I'm afraid I really don't like – too Windows 95-like for my taste), so I spent a day or two just getting my head 'round the way this super-quick, super-light window manager works.
I was helped along the way by a handy user guide which loads in the lightweight web browser, Dillo, plus Iceweasel comes pre-loaded with bookmarks to the antiX website and forum, plus the Mepis forum and wiki – very useful and very thoughtful.
There's also some good advice on how to go about installing proprietary Nvidia and ATI drivers should you need to go down that route.
Moving onto software installation, antiX comes set up to access the vast Debian repositories: You have Debian stable, testing, multimedia, VirtualBox and extras all set up for you and, by simply uncommendting the entry in your apt/sources.list, access to the Mepis repository as well (that's where the proprietary graphics drivers can be found).
System configuration in antiX is done by selecting either the user or system configuration options in the main menu, which launches a small panel where you select the option you wish to configure.It's a simple, well-organised way of working once you get used to not being able to see all the config options at one go, and I really grew to like it.
Fluxbox comes with a large choice of themes, but I really liked the dark, moody default antiX theme so stuck with that throughout, although I did edit the Conky configuration file for some extra colour.
I have a routine once I've logged into a new installation which goes something like this:
Fire up the package manager and check for updates (there were 137 available);
Tweak my web browser's configuration to increase its speed;
Pop in a USB memory stick to check mounting (worked fine, though no desktop icon);
Install something from the repository to check if menu entries are OK (I got GIMP, and they were);Surf to the Apple movie trailer website to see if the Mplayer browser plugin is loaded (it was);
Surf to the BBC Radio 5 Live site to check live streaming (worked fine);
Play a music CD (Mezzanine, by Massive Attack, played fine in Xmms);
So, all the usual things done/working successfully – time to get down and dirty with some more serious challenges: Wi-fi, editing Conky to show battery levels, getting my head 'round the bizarre behaviour of the Rox-filer file manager.
Firstly, Wi-fi.
The Dell doesn't have built-in wireless networking so I've always had to rely on dongles: In this test, I was using a Netgear WG511 PCMCIA adaptor and a Sitecom WL113 USB dongle.
The Netgear (it uses the common Intersil/Prism chipset) has always been a problem – there are two versions of the WG511 and mine is the one made in China which has never worked well with Linux (apart from dear old Libranet 3.0 way, way back), so I wasn't expecting much success.
I was right not to – antiX failed to detect its presence at all.
I could have tried with the included ndiswrapper and the card's Windows drivers, but I was anxious to try the other card first.
Thankfully, I had far more instant success with the Sitecom, which runs on a zd1211 chipset.
I noticed while scanning the repositories that there was a firmware update available for the dongle, so I downloaded it and rebooted with the device in the Dell's USB slot.
I ought to mention here that there are three utilities included in antiX for dealing with networking: Mnetwork (launched from the terminal), ceni (ditto) and wicd, a distinctly old-school looking but effective utility available through the Fluxbox menu.
To my delight the Sitecom only need the ESSID and WEP key inputting and I was up and surfing wirelessly – a major result for the old girl!
However, the more I used antiX, the more unstable this wi-fi setup seemed to become: I had to reconfigure the Sitecom connection (eth1) at least three or four times over subsequent days.
Given that antiX is aimed at older machines, and that such older machines are unlikely to have built-in wi-fi, this is quite an important issue though, to be fair, your success may vary depending on which wi-fi card you're using.
Moving on now to that Conky issue, I had already edited the configuration file to change a few settings but the one I really wanted to include was some form of power management monitor so I could keep an eye on my laptop battery life (there's no graphical applet in Fluxbox, at least not one I could find).
I found the solution on the antiX forum and had it running in a few minutes.If only using Rox-filer was as easy. I've tried with it, I really have, but I just don't like it.
Specifically, I don't like the way the size of the file manager changes according to the number of files contained in whatever directory you're using.
I know that by right-clicking on the title bar it's possible to fix a window's dimensions and position, but it only works for that particular window and not subsequent ones you open from it.
Finally, after a few days I decided I'd had enough so I uninstalled Rox-filer and downloaded Thunar from the repositories.
Oh dear, Thunar appeared to break something. Seriously.
In fact, I was totally unable to get Fluxbox to run again – the graphical login had disappeared completely and no matter what I tried from the commandline I was unable to get X and Fluxbox up and running again. I couldn't even get IceWM to launch.
Oh well, off I go re-installing!
I'm now a few days into my second HD install and I have to report I'm totally loving antiX.
The speed is amazing, breathing new life back into a tired old machine, and once I get my head 'round Rox-filer I'm sure it will turn out to be perfectly useable.
I've reverted to using the Linksys wired ethernet connection until I find a USB wi-fi dongle that works more reliably with antiX, and I'm thoroughly enjoying learning my way around the Fluxbox environment.
Would I recommend antiX?
Yes, but only for experienced Lxers: It's simply not suitable for Linux newbies, given the slightly esoteric nature of the WMs and the pared-down desktops (newbies do like their icons!).
If you've been around the Linux block a few times and are looking for a project, possibly using an old piece of hardware, then antiX is a marvellous choice.