Playing with antiX 15



The antiX distribution is a lightweight operating system based on Debian. The latest release was put together using packages from Debian 8 "Jessie" and ships with SysV init software instead of systemd. The latest release, antiX 15, is available in three editions: Core-libre (233MB), Base (582MB) and Full (686MB). There are 32-bit and 64-bit x86 builds of each edition. The antiX wiki tells us that the Core edition ships with virtually no software pre-selected for us, allowing us to customize the operating system to our needs. The Base edition is for older computers, like Pentium II and Pentium III machines, while the Full edition is for more modern computers and people who want a complete desktop experience. I opted to download antiX's Full edition.



Booting from the antiX media brings up a graphical user interface, powered by IceWM. The wallpaper is bright and decorates our desktop with images of painted flowers. There are icons on our desktop for opening the file manager, launching the project's system installer and accessing documentation. The documentation covers such information as how to use the desktop, installing the distribution, acquiring additional software and customizing the operating system. At the bottom of the screen we find an application menu, task switcher panel and a system tray. We can right-click on any empty portion of the desktop to access the application menu.



The distribution's installer is a graphical application. The installer's window is divided into two panes. On the left side we are shown documentation explaining how to make use of the settings on the current page. On the right side are prompts and controls for configuring the distribution. The installer begins by asking us which branch of Debian (Jessie, Testing or Sid) we would like to use as the foundation of our copy of antiX. The default is to use Debian's Stable branch (Jessie) and I decided to stick with this option. We are then asked which hard disk should be used to house our new copy of antiX. Once we have selected a disk we can click a button to launch the GParted partition manager. GParted makes it easy for us to create and alter our disk's partitions. Using GParted we can set up ext2/3/4, JFS, XFS and Reiserfs disk partitions. Once we close GParted the installer gives us the chance to assign our partitions to the swap, root and /home mount points. One thing I appreciate about the installer is it asks for confirmation before it formats each of our partitions and attaches it to a mount point. I get nervous when an installer eagerly overwrites data and I like that antiX is cautious and makes very certain we want to proceed before it erases anything on our disk. The system installer next copies its files to our hard drive and walks us through some configuration screens. We are asked if we would like to install the GRUB boot loader and, if so, where GRUB should be placed. The installer once again pauses to confirm our choice before it installs GRUB on our hard drive. We can then select a name for our computer, set our keyboard's layout, confirm our locale and select our time zone from a list. The installer then gives us the chance to enable/disable background services like Bluetooth, OpenSSH, CUPS and the Wicd network manager. The last screen of the installer asks us to create a user account for ourselves and protect the root account with a password. With these steps completed we are prompted to reboot the computer.



I like the antiX installer. It is fairly easy to navigate, comes with built-in documentation and is careful not to over-write any data without our explicit permission. Plus, the installer works quickly and is fairly easy to navigate.





antiX 15 -- Browsing the project's documentation

(full image size: 335kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)



Our new copy of antiX boots to a dark login screen with stars and an image of the Earth in the background. We can press the F1 key to cycle through a list of available sessions. Our desktop session options include Fluxbox, JWM and IceWM. I typically stuck with using IceWM during my trial. Usually, distributions provide a way to shut down or reboot the computer from the login screen, however I did not see any obvious way to perform these actions. It appears as though we need to login in order to power off the computer.



I experimented with antiX in two test environments. When running on a physical desktop computer, antiX performed very well. The distribution booted quickly, set my screen to its maximum resolution and was highly responsive. I found networking and sound worked out of the box. When running inside VirtualBox, antiX again performed very well. The distribution worked quickly in the virtual environment and integrated seamlessly into VirtualBox, allowing me to run the virtual machine with my screen's full resolution. The distribution is quite light on memory and used about 140MB of RAM when logged into IceWM. The distribution does not require a lot of storage space either; the Full edition of antiX used 2.4GB of my hard drive space.





antiX 15 -- Exploring multimedia options

(full image size: 836kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)



The antiX distribution ships with a surprisingly large number of applications considering the operating system's small footprint. Looking through the application menu I found the Iceweasel web browser with Flash enabled. I also found the very lightweight Dillo web browser, the Claws Mail e-mail software, gFTP and the HexChat IRC client. The Droopy service is available to assist people in sending or receiving files. The Transmission bittorrent software is included, along with LibreOffice and the Ted text processor. To help us get on-line, the Wicd software is included. The antiX distribution features the Gtkam digital camera manager, the Mirage image viewer, the mtPaint simple drawing program, a simple scanner utility and the Xpdf document viewer. I found DOSBox and a few games were installed along with the Geany IDE. Digging further we find the Asunder audio CD ripper, the GNOME MPlayer application, the WinFF file format converter, the XMMS audio player and the "YouTube Browser for SMPlayer" application. The distribution ships with multimedia codecs, allowing us to play most media files. The operating system features a number of administration tools, including BleachBit, the GParted partition manager, ISO-snapshot, the Midnight Commander console file manager and the ROXFiler file manager. Grsync is available to help us synchronize files between directories and the luckyBackup program makes archiving our files quite straight forward. In the background we find the GNU Compiler Collection and antiX runs the secure shell network service. I found antiX uses SysV init software and runs version 4.0.5 of the Linux kernel.





antiX 15 -- IceWM and the application menu

(full image size: 809kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)



I found the software which ships with antiX worked well for me. I like that there is some variety. I especially like that there is a mixture of large, full featured applications (such as Iceweasel) and there are lighter applications for low-end machines (like Dillo). Usually distributions focus on either high-end or low-end applications and I like that antiX gives us options at both ends of the scale. I also like that antiX solves the common problem of "How do I receive a large file from someone?" The Droopy program makes it very easy to receive large files over the Internet and all the other person needs to send us a file is a web browser.



The antiX operating system ships with the Synaptic package manager to help us locate, install and upgrade software. Synaptic presents the software available to us in an alphabetically sorted list and we can click a box next to each entry to indicate the packages we wish to install, remove or upgrade. We can also search for packages by their name and enable or disable repositories. By default, antiX pulls software from a mixture of Debian's servers and its own repositories. Though not enabled by default, antiX provides a list of additional software repositories we might find useful and these can be enabled from within Synaptic with a mouse click. I found Synaptic worked well and performed its actions quickly. Shortly after installing antiX I checked for software updates and found 12 new packages were available in the project's repositories. These 12 upgrades totalled 34MB in size and installed without any problems.





antiX 15 -- Managing software packages and repositories

(full image size: 726kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)



One of the more interesting components of antiX is the operating system's Control Centre. The Control Centre is a simple panel we can use to launch configuration modules. The panel is broken into a number of different tabs, which nicely organize the various functions available to us. Through the Control Centre we can access configuration modules that will change our interface's background, configure window manager settings, browse system information, create new user accounts, configure the firewall and set the date & time. There are also modules for configuring dial-up networking, launching the package manager, changing our display's resolution, imaging a partition, backing up files, configuring the sound system and setting up printers. There are a few additional modules for synchronizing files between locations and configuring the mouse pointer. There are a few things I found interesting and maybe a touch unusual about antiX's Control Centre. One is that the modules mostly just launch programs we can access through the application menu, though sometimes with specific parameters. For example, some of the session and window manager configuration buttons simply open a text editor with the appropriate configuration files loaded. The system services manager button launches a text console program that displays a matrix of available services and run levels. While this technically may work, it's not the friendly point-n-click interface one usually expects from a modern control panel. Other Control Centre buttons will launch graphical programs to help us configure the system. For instance, the Firewall button launches the simple gufw graphical front-end to working with firewalls. The Control Centre works, and some of the programs it launches are friendly, but others will take us down the text file configuration rabbit hole.





antiX 15 -- Exploring system settings and hardware information

(full image size: 543kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)



During my time with antiX I only ran into one issue and I'm not sure if it was a bug or something I caused. Once, during a package upgrade, the screen went blank and turned blue. My windows and mouse pointer disappeared and most keyboard input was ignored. The only way I could find to rescue the system was to use the CTRL+ALT+Backspace key combination to shut down my desktop session and get back to the login screen. Having the screen go blank and turn blue only happened once during my trial, so I'm not sure if it was a side-effect of the package upgrade or a result of a key combination I may have hit while typing.



Conclusions



I quite enjoyed my time with antiX 15. The distribution is fairly easy to install, offers the user the choice of working with stable software repositories or rolling release/development repositories and antiX is very careful not to overwrite any data without our explicit permission. The distribution runs quickly and offers a fairly friendly interface that is also minimal in its resource usage.



I especially like that antiX ships with a wide variety of software and can complete many different tasks out of the box. Everything from productivity software to web browsing to transferring files to enjoying multimedia is available. If we need more software, we can access Debian's massive software repositories where there are over 40,000 packages.



The antiX distribution worked quickly, properly detected all of my hardware and offered a nearly trouble-free experience. The one item on my wish-list is I would like to see some of the Control Centre modules launch nice graphical configuration tools rather than text editors, thereby lowering the bar to customizing the distribution's interface. Those rare descents into configuration files aside, antiX was pretty beginner friendly. I think it is an excellent distribution for reviving old hardware or for giving a little additional pep to a computer that could do with a lighter user interface. * * * * * Hardware used in this review



My physical test equipment for this review was a desktop HP Pavilon p6 Series with the following specifications: Processor: Dual-core 2.8GHz AMD A4-3420 APU

Storage: 500GB Hitachi hard drive

Memory: 6GB of RAM

Networking: Realtek RTL8111 wired network card

Display: AMD Radeon HD 6410D video card