[SOLVED] Difference between antiX and MX

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#1 Post by **Klaas Vaak** » Wed Apr 24, 2019 1:02 pm

I know antiX has a smaller footprint, i.e. is lighter in terms of resources used. But from a user's point of view, what are the important differences?

#2 Post by **manyroads** » Wed Apr 24, 2019 1:33 pm

Klaas Vaak wrote: ↑Wed Apr 24, 2019 1:02 pm I know antiX has a smaller footprint, i.e. is lighter in terms of resources used. But from a user's point of view, what are the important differences?

You will find them to be very significant. If you have not run antiX, you really should. It is the only way you will gain personal experience.

Edit:
Here's a list of obvious (crucial?) differences that I see... be advised there are certainly many more than these. I assume you are familiar with MX and not antiX. So here I go... antiX emphasizes the following:
--- small foot-print (low resource consumption, CPU, etc.)
--- cli interface rather than GUI
--- use of windows tiling managers (like IceWM (default), Fluxbox, jwm and herbstluftwm) rather than Desktop Environment like xfce
--- targets geeky (read experienced, technically oriented) users rather than traditional desktop users (light touch users??)
--- offers significantly less eye-candy

#3 Post by **rs55** » Wed Apr 24, 2019 2:00 pm

I mainly run MX, but also installed antix just to see what was different. Its a great system - very light- but primarily because it is not using XFCE but rather the really lightweight window managers like fluxbox. I suspect if you installed XFCE on antix - you would be getting close to what MX is.
I missed the MX package installer - which allows you to install packages from "testing" repo without having to add that repo.
XFCE is just much more user friendly ( in fluxbox you have to go in and change config files to do things that MX lets you do with a gui)..
Antix used about 100MB less ram than MX ( 300MB vs 400MB) - not a particularly huge benefit on my systems that have 16GB of ram ! I am glad to have XFCE and pay 100MB .

#4 Post by **rs55** » Wed Apr 24, 2019 2:06 pm

rs55 wrote: ↑Wed Apr 24, 2019 2:00 pm I mainly run MX, but also installed antix just to see what was different. Its a great system - very light- but primarily because it is not using XFCE but rather the really lightweight window managers like fluxbox. I suspect if you installed XFCE on antix - you would be getting close to what MX is.
I missed the MX package installer - which allows you to install packages from "testing" repo without having to add that repo.
XFCE is just much more user friendly ( in fluxbox you have to go in and change config files to do things that MX lets you do with a gui)..
Antix used about 100MB less ram than MX ( 300MB vs 400MB) - not a particularly huge benefit on my systems that have 16GB of ram ! I am glad to have XFCE and pay 100MB .

Oh - I should add - I am using Antix 32 bit on my 20 year old thinkpad x40 - that has only 1.5GB ram. Works great- runs like a scalded dawg.

#5 Post by **manyroads** » Wed Apr 24, 2019 2:07 pm

As you may have noted... I am building an OpenBox version of MX (re-spin). OpenBox is a windows manager not a Desktop Environment. I will try to port the OpenBox, I build over to antiX. I think with a similar UI on both OSes, you'll get a much better idea of the 'under the hood' differences. Besides, it's just a fun exercise.

#6 Post by **mxer** » Wed Apr 24, 2019 2:19 pm

AntiX is created to be usable on some really old computers, with a lack of ram, etc, as well as new ones.
It is a little bit more oriented towards the command line, but has plenty of GUI options, for those that want it, & tries to use the least amount of your computers resources.

I've been using it since the demise of #! (Crunchbang Linux), several years ago now, it's a great distro.

I only really came to MX because of problems with the version of Firefox, which was freezing on me, on a very regular basis, the version on MX doesn't do that so much, just the occasional freeze now.
(But that is a Firefox problem, not the distro.)

Other than that, it is a smaller distro when installed, just a bit over half the size of MX, plus there are even smaller versions available.

#7 Post by **skidoo** » Wed Apr 24, 2019 2:28 pm

PSA:
iceWM, fluxbox, JWM are stacking window managers

antiX currently provides only one tiling window manager, the funnily-named (to my ear) herbstluftwm
archwiki::Comparison_of_tiling_window_managers

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stacking_window_manager

A stacking window manager (also called floating window manager)
is a window manager that draws all windows in a specific order, allowing them to overlap...

see also:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compariso ... w_managers
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/wi ... w_managers
The Comprehensive List of Window Managers for Unix {------ clickme !

#8 Post by **skidoo** » Wed Apr 24, 2019 2:38 pm

missed the MX package installer - which allows you to install packages from "testing" repo without having to add that repo.

antiX full edition includes a similar application (but no "testing" tab) ~~ /usr/bin/packageinstaller , aka
antiX Control Center }}} System }}} Package Installer

#9 Post by **beardedragon** » Wed Apr 24, 2019 2:59 pm

I like to mix and match. I started with MX preferring xfce to fluxbox, currently running Kernel: 4.20.12-antix.1-amd64-smp x86_64 bits so I can use GeForce GT 720/PCIe/SSE2 v: 4.6.0 NVIDIA 418.56
Sort of like Manjaro using things straight from Arch.

#10 Post by **Artim** » Wed Apr 24, 2019 6:02 pm

Openbox antiX? That would be great! antiXbang? crunchX?

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[SOLVED] Difference between antiX and MX

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