| Ultra-lite AntiX Linux targets obsolete PCs |
Jun. 06, 2007
 MEPIS said today that the release candidate of a community-built "ultra-lite" derivative of its own Linux distribution is ready for testing. AntiX (pronounced "Antics") is the personal project of MEPIS community member "anticapitalista," who wanted a MEPIS version that would work well on old PCs.
AntiX runs a 2.6.15 kernel and offers a choice of Fluxbox or IceWM as the desktop environment. It is architected for i586 and x86_64-bit machines and only has about a 400MB footprint.
AntiX is not a "lite" version of SimplyMEPIS and is not an official product of MEPIS. It is built using the MEPIS Linux core, but mostly it has a different set of default user applications reflecting the preferences of anticapitalista (aka "anti"), a MEPIS spokesperson said.
The main applications include: - Abiword text editor
- Firefox 2.0 browser
- GAIM 1.5 instant messenger
- Mplayer media player
- Xchat chat client
- GIMP 2.2.13 graphics editor
- xpdf
Also included are: Gnumeric, Sylpheed-claws, Dillo, Links2, LeafPad, Nano, gftp, Pan, Irssi, Raggle RSS reader, Gtk-Gnutella, BitTorrent, Flash, Xmms, Scite, Audacity, Xine, "Midnight Commander," Rox-filer, Xarchive, XCdroast and Graveman.
AntiX screenshots -- click each to enlarge
AntiX screenshots -- click each to enlarge
Anti, in his own words, says he is "a Brit living and working for the last 18 years as a teacher in Thessaloniki, the second-largest city in Greece."
He explains: "My remastered Mepis 6.5, antiX, is an attempt to give something back to the community, and aimed for boxes with 128MB RAM (it does work with 64MB RAM + 128MB swap). You can call it whatever you like, but it is supposed to be like antics (fun) and antiques (i.e., older boxes). Plus 'anti' from my name."
"I'm really happy 'anti' did this project," MEPIS founder and chief maintainer Warren Woodford said. "I've had requests for a long time for a version of MEPIS that would work with only 64 MB of RAM, but we didn't have time to do it. I'm very impressed with 'anti's' work."
Testers and users can contact "anti" via the forums at mepislovers.org or at MEPIS public mirrors. Alternatively, an FTP link directly to the 403MB iso image housed at at a Penn State University server can be found here.
Note: when you run the live CD, you need to supply a login name and password -- both are "demo". After experimenting with the live CD, if you want to install antiX to your hard drive, you need to run the minstall MEPIS installer. To do that, right-click your mouse and select Admin/Tools > Mepis Admin > Install. Now, you will be prompted for the "root" account password; at this point type "root" and hit Enter. That should launch the installer.
Screen shots can be viewed here, courtesy of The Coding Studio.
-- Chris Preimesberger
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