AntiX Live System

[KGIII]

The kind of migraines I get start with a zigzag line of colors in front of one of my eyes and vision in that eye is pretty much done for.

I'm not a medical professional but I do know there are shots, including Botox (which uses the botulism virus), that are supposed to work well at preventing migraines. I'd never give out medical advice, however.

Just trying it now, and it's working very well.

I find that it 'breaks' fewer sites. Some sites will refuse to render legibly with dark modes enabled. This one seems to do so less often. Sadly, it may go away on the Chrome side because of some changes they're making to how browser extensions work. uBlock Origin is also in the same category, an extension that may go away.

 

[PuppyHome]

Little Off Topic as well but if one would have a minimalist and lightweight dark themed distro give PeppermintOS a shot.

I;ve been tinkering with AntiX a lot when it comes to ease the old eyes but never quite got it all dark. Firefox yes with darkreader and a black theme. The latter adds a little bit of 'weight' to it overall but not that much and performance is pretty much the same. IceWM does the trick to some extent .

Still a fantastic 'little' OS.

 

[Alexzee]

Little Off Topic as well but if one would have a minimalist and lightweight dark themed distro give PeppermintOS a shot.

I;ve been tinkering with AntiX a lot when it comes to ease the old eyes but never quite got it all dark. Firefox yes with darkreader and a black theme. The latter adds a little bit of 'weight' to it overall but not that much and performance is pretty much the same. IceWM does the trick to some extent .

Still a fantastic 'little' OS.

Tried Peppermint OS in the past ran great!
Not sure if the 12-13 year old Sony Vaio can handle it. MX Linux has already starting to lag behind in many areas.

 

[Alexzee]

Thanks for all the help and thank you @hacktheworld for starting this thread.
Good info. I can use.

 

[wizardfromoz]

Running it live on the old lappy is going well.

So Alex, do you still need further input, or do you have it under control?

Cheers

 

[Alexzee]

So Alex, do you still need further input, or do you have it under control?

Cheers

More input is needed brother.
Can this Anti-X be installed to the HDD?

Could you boot up your Anti-X and look under IceWM and see if under Themes> Customize Look & Feel> the option is there like the pic I posted in post #17?

 

[heretical_1]

am trying antix out as a replacement for the zorin that runs too slowly for my old computer, and it seems to work great from the usb stick so far, but am having issues getting it to install onto the puter.

 

[KGIII]

am trying antix out as a replacement for the zorin that runs too slowly for my old computer, and it seems to work great from the usb stick so far, but am having issues getting it to install onto the puter.

As you're fairly new, I'd personally suggest sticking with something more mainstream. You don't have to listen to me, of course. I just have your 'best interests' (as I'd imagine them) in mind. If you keep having issues, it may turn you away from Linux. Again, that's my thinking.

In your case, I'd suggest trying Lubuntu. It's no longer a 'lightweight' distro by design, but it is still rather lightweight. It should run fairly well on older hardware.
Here's Lubuntu's download page:

Downloads – Lubuntu

lubuntu.me

In that case, you probably want what is labeled "24.04.3 LTS". It's the table release. Though, 26.04 will be out soon, and you'll get to update to that when you're ready. (It'll almost certainly be painless.)

Hmm... You could also just start with Debian and a lightweight desktop.

As their site is probably annoying to navigate as a new user, I'll help with that one.

OCF Mirrors

You can pick your desktop environment. The files to download are those with the .iso and large file sizes. You only want those that end with .iso and nothing else.

If you go that route, LXDE will be one of the lightest -- and will be easily navigated. LXQt, which is what Lubuntu users, is also an option and is more likely to get improvements as time passes. LXDE is pretty much dead in the water. It's only being maintained. They now concentrate on LXQt, which is basically LXDE, but with the Qt backing. (Not too important at this stage.)

 

[heretical_1]

As you're fairly new, I'd personally suggest sticking with something more mainstream. You don't have to listen to me, of course. I just have your 'best interests' (as I'd imagine them) in mind. If you keep having issues, it may turn you away from Linux. Again, that's my thinking.

In your case, I'd suggest trying Lubuntu. It's no longer a 'lightweight' distro by design, but it is still rather lightweight. It should run fairly well on older hardware.
Here's Lubuntu's download page:

Downloads – Lubuntu

lubuntu.me

In that case, you probably want what is labeled "24.04.3 LTS". It's the table release. Though, 26.04 will be out soon, and you'll get to update to that when you're ready. (It'll almost certainly be painless.)

Hmm... You could also just start with Debian and a lightweight desktop.

As their site is probably annoying to navigate as a new user, I'll help with that one.

OCF Mirrors

You can pick your desktop environment. The files to download are those with the .iso and large file sizes. You only want those that end with .iso and nothing else.

If you go that route, LXDE will be one of the lightest -- and will be easily navigated. LXQt, which is what Lubuntu users, is also an option and is more likely to get improvements as time passes. LXDE is pretty much dead in the water. It's only being maintained. They now concentrate on LXQt, which is basically LXDE, but with the Qt backing. (Not too important at this stage.)

trust me, after going to Linux to get away from Microsoft nothing can make me go back! (laughter symbol goes here, but that is something else I haven't figured out!). One person on the antix forum suggested that it might be hanging up bc it is trying to reach out to the internet to finish downloading and suggested a potential way around it. If that doesn't work, I have already downloaded the lubuntu program, but honestly, as long as the live usb lets me sort and file stuff I have on a couple of external drives, that is all I need, at least until my bluetooth dongle gets here in a few months. Thank you again!

 

[Alexzee]

trust me, after going to Linux to get away from Microsoft nothing can make me go back! (laughter symbol goes here, but that is something else I haven't figured out!). One person on the antix forum suggested that it might be hanging up bc it is trying to reach out to the internet to finish downloading and suggested a potential way around it. If that doesn't work, I have already downloaded the lubuntu program, but honestly, as long as the live usb lets me sort and file stuff I have on a couple of external drives, that is all I need, at least until my bluetooth dongle gets here in a few months. Thank you again!

Thanks for the update!

 

[KGIII]

If you see vulgarity (swear words in other words), do not include them in your quote. That just means we have to edit more posts.

If anything, you should bring it to our attention by hitting the report button.

We have children who visit. One thing we do not want is a child to be exposed to swear words on this site while their parents are monitoring their online activity.

Plus, we're mostly adults. That means we don't have to swear (or call things names).

Thank you for cooperating.

 

[Defender]

AntiX is not very customizable I don't think you can make the interface dark. It is a live OS and I don't recommend to install it on the hard disk. I did, but my experience didn't meet my expectations: you can't install flatpaks, you can't install snapd, I had big problems with VPN (Mullvad) which never worked on AntiX.
It is not very intuitive and also has a software manager with outdated Apps, also in my opinion AntiX is not a very flexible OS.
AntiX is very light on resources, and that's very good.

Hmmmm, I was surprised to see someone thought antiX wasn't very configurable. It comes by default with a lot of IceWM themes, and there are 6 mb of additional ones you can install from the repos with apt or Synaptic in icewm-themes-extras-antix. Main menu >> Settings >> Themes. You can just go down the themes list trying them all till you find one you like. I like the antiX-Magic* ones because they are designed to work well on laptops with touchpads but I'm not sure if they are dark enough for you, and there are many others to choose from. There are also many more out on the web at gnome-look.org https://www.gnome-look.org/browse?cat=142 that you can browse through, download and install.

Wallpaper settings are easy to switch and are configurable to automatically change (play a screenshow of a directory of them switching every hour if you like, for example).

There are also things like widgets, icon themes, mouse cursor and font settings you can switch or install more of under "Customize Look and Feel" on the Desktop tab of the Control centre that control other aspects of the interface.

Also antiX includes JWM and Fluxbox (other lightweight window managers) as well as the Herbstluftwm tiling window manager, and you can switch between them witout rebooting.

If you have extra space you could just install it to a partition and play with it, or if short on space or don't want to change anything on your drive, you could boot it from a flash drive and install the other themes, and just play around with it to figure out what you like best before installing.

 

[f33dm3bits]

Hmmmm, I was surprised to see someone thought antiX wasn't very configurable.

FYI: You're replying to someone who's account doesn't exist it anymore.

 

[Defender]

FYI: You're replying to someone who's account doesn't exist it anymore.

True, but it didn't seem right to leave such an unreasonable post unchallenged. Leaving it there might cause people to think antiX isn't very configurable, which is far from the truth. As for flatpaks and snaps, they might work, but are not recommended, and it does work with AppImages. As for the software being out of date, that makes no sense, because the versions are as least as new as Debian's, and many are newer. I'll edit my post so its no longer a reply to whomever wrote that. My comments and suggestions should be useful for others trying antiX and wanting things like darker themes, etc.

PS: I'm sorry, I wasn't able to edit out the offending comment. I can delete the post entirely and repost only my comment separately if you'd like?

 

[Defender]

More input is needed brother.
Can this Anti-X be installed to the HDD?

Could you boot up your Anti-X and look under IceWM and see if under Themes> Customize Look & Feel> the option is there like the pic I posted in post #17?

I see this never was answered.

On the desktop there is an Install icon. I run Gparted first, to setup the partition I want to install to, then run the install. If you have UEFI make sure you have the ESP partition being reused, and have the partition for root as / set to to be reformatted. If you made changes to the desktop, make sure to select Save changes to the desktop.

Themes are off the Main menu >> Settings >> Themes

Customize look and feel is Main menu >> Control centre >> Desktop tab >> Customize look and feel
and yes the dark one in your pic has been there for many years.

I'll add a pic with antiX-Magic-Medium theme and Adawaita-dark look/feel

PS: I changed the wallpaper to a dark one as well

 

[f33dm3bits]

PS: I'm sorry, I wasn't able to edit out the offending comment. I can delete the post entirely and repost only my comment separately if you'd like?

I was only saying that so you know you weren't going to get a reply from that person. Nothing offending was said, you were just sharing your views and experience. It's all good. Nice to have you here!

 

[Alexzee]

I see this never was answered.

On the desktop there is an Install icon. I run Gparted first, to setup the partition I want to install to, then run the install. If you have UEFI make sure you have the ESP partition being reused, and have the partition for root as / set to to be reformatted. If you made changes to the desktop, make sure to select Save changes to the desktop.

Themes are off the Main menu >> Settings >> Themes

Customize look and feel is Main menu >> Control centre >> Desktop tab >> Customize look and feel
and yes the dark one in your pic has been there for many years.

I'll add a pic with antiX-Magic-Medium theme and Adawaita-dark look/feel

PS: I changed the wallpaper to a dark one as well

The old laptop was before UEFI. ...2012-ish.
I wasn't sure how to go about setting this up on the 13 year old lappy.

Thank you!

 

[Defender]

The old laptop was before UEFI. ...2012-ish.
I wasn't sure how to go about setting this up on the 13 year old lappy.

Thank you!

With an older, non UEFI machine you probably want to install grub on MBR which is the default. I'm assuming you are installing antiX 23.2 full.

 

[Alexzee]

With an older, non UEFI machine you probably want to install grub on MBR which is the default. I'm assuming you are installing antiX 23.2 full.

Yes, anti-X.
However it's been several months since the last .iso I downloaded and made bootable on the thumb drive.

 

[Defender]

antiX 23.2 has been out for a while. You can check the version file with a text editor if you mount the USB its in the root directory.