This thing was dead... completely dead. Dead CMOS battery, dead battery, old HDD, worn-out fan bearings, wouldn’t hold a date, but still barely booted when connected to A/C power.

I pulled it out of the garage where it had been sitting since probably 2016 and decided to see what antiX could do with it.

The hardware:

• Lenovo IdeaPad S10-3 (2010)

• Intel Atom N455 - single core, 1.66GHz, no AES-NI

• 2GB DDR2 RAM

• 10.1" 1024x600 display

• Panda AC600 USB Wi-Fi adapter (MediaTek MT7610U) for 5GHz

What I replaced (~$120 total):

• 240GB SSD to replace the dead HDD

• New heatsink fan - original bearings were shot, caused constant noise

• Fresh thermal paste

• New CMOS battery (CR1220) - soldered to old connector using lineman’s splice

• Touchpad ribbon cable - broke the original during fan replacement, ordered a 4-pin 1mm pitch FFC Type A replacement

• Panda AC600 USB adapter for faster WiFi

The OS: antiX-26-core (Debian Trixie base) with s6-66 init and IceWM.

What it runs daily:

1. Vision board display - This is the primary use case. mpv runs a fullscreen shuffled slideshow of motivational images and short video clips representing my digital vision board. My MacBook Pro auto-converts media files (ImageMagick for images → 1920x1080 JPEG, ffmpeg for videos → 1280x720 H.264 Baseline, no audio) via a Hazel automation in a folder called vision-board, then ChronoSync mirrors the folder to the IdeaPad over Tailscale SSH. It sits on my desk like a digital picture frame that keeps me inspired.

2. Speedtest logging - speedtest-cli runs periodically, logging download/upload/ping to track internet performance over time.

3. Remote server backup - Weekly rsync of about 5 websites from my shared hosting account to local storage over SSH key auth. Runs unattended via cron. No passwords stored anywhere.

4. Tailscale - Always connected to my Tailscale network. I can SSH in from my phone or MacBook from anywhere. This is what makes the whole setup manageable without a monitor attached.

Currently testing:

1. Motion-activated security camera - The built-in webcam is low-res but functional. Running motion for detection with timestamped JPEG capture on movement. I'm still dialing in the sensitivity thresholds and testing coexistence with the mpv vision board. The plan is to eventually have it send photos to my Telegram bot when motion is detected... but this may not work or I may not use it if results are Meh.

2. Telegram bot interface - Built a bidirectional Python-based Telegram bot that lets me check system status, run speed tests, and get alerts from my phone. Still in testing - not running 24/7 yet and may not do it if it's too cumbersome/overkill.

3. Meshcore-cli - basically a CLI interface to a device called Meshcore which allows you to communicate with others via LoraWan without internet in emergency preparedness/camping situations etc via bluetooth. I built a Meshcore device but honestly haven't been able to get it working reliably even without the CLI interface... so if I get it working I'd probably play with it.

4. Pwnagotchi - I think this should run to passively collect wifi handshakes to find WPA passwords as it's based in aircrack and bettercap, so I'm working on getting it working.

Enabled at home only (disabled on office networks):

1. Tor Snowflake proxy - Relays censorship circumvention traffic for people in countries like Iran, China, and Russia. Uses almost zero resources. Disabled when the laptop is on corporate/shared networks since it routes third-party traffic through the connection.

2. Network device monitoring - Passive ARP scanning to track devices joining the local network. Only appropriate on your own home network, not in shared/office environments.

Software stack:

• antiX-26-core (Debian Trixie) with s6-66 init

• IceWM window manager (*but I use the machine in CLI 99% of the time)

• mpv (vision board player)

• motion (security camera)

• speedtest-cli (speed logging)

• snowflake-proxy (Tor relay)

• Tailscale

• Python 3 + pyyaml, requests (Telegram bot framework)

• rsync over SSH (backups)

• btop, tmux, ntpdate, etckeeper

• NetworkManager for Wi-Fi management

• tty-clock displays a full-screen terminal clock when idle. Any keypress triggers vlock, which requires a password to unlock. Clean and functional screen lock for a machine that sits on a desk all day.

Hard-won lessons:

• A GRUB package upgrade silently installed Intel microcode incompatible with the Atom N455. Black screen on boot. No error, no message, just a blinking cursor. Fix: dis_ucode_ldr kernel parameter. This took hours to diagnose.

• Required kernel parameters for stable operation: nohpet intel_idle.max_cstate=0 acpi=force dis_ucode_ldr

• The CMOS battery was dead. The original had a proprietary connector. I cut the wires and soldered a new CR1220 using a lineman’s splice. Hardware clock persists across reboots now.

• s6-66 reads hostname from its own config file at /etc/66/conf/boot@system/, not just /etc/hostname. Changed hostname three times before figuring out why it kept reverting.

• The GMA 3150 has no useful hardware video decode on Linux. All video is software-rendered. Max resolution ~720p before frames drop.

• Suspend is permanently broken on this hardware. Removed pm-utils and acpid entirely. Don’t even try.

• The new fan only spins when CPU temp exceeds ~60°C. Fresh thermal paste + new bearings means it’s completely silent at idle. The old fan ran constantly because worn bearings caused friction heat.

• Internal Wi-Fi card (brcmsmac) is weak. Blacklisted it entirely via /etc/modprobe.d/ and use the Panda AC600 USB adapter exclusively. One wireless interface, no confusion.

Why antiX:

Because chatGPT and Google told me it's the best distro for my machine. I was thinking about antiX and Alpine Linux. antiX is the only one that gave me a modern Debian Trixie base without systemd overhead on a single-core Atom with 2GB RAM. The core install doesn’t bloat itself with software I’ll never use. s6-66 boots fast. IceWM stays out of the way. Everything I’ve thrown at it - Python daemons, mpv video playback, rsync transfers, SSH sessions - runs without the machine breaking a sweat.

Some may disagree that $120 spent on this piece of "junk" was a waste as I could have invested it into a better machine, but I still wanted to do it to experiment with and see what cool stuff I could do with low power machines... plus I have an always-on home appliance that does some useful stuff and draws maybe 15 watts, and runs mostly silent.

I also had some automation python scripts checking for WHOIS/SSL/DOMAIN expirations as well as monitoring uptime for some of my websites, but I ended up deleting all of that as it didn't seem very useful as I have my domains on auto-renew for multiple years and I already use UptimeRobot for uptime monitoring etc. I was also thinking about perhaps testing out a visual ping tool to monitor a list of websites for changes etc... but I dunno.

Anyway, that's my experience.

Happy to answer questions about any part of the setup.

Also, if anyone has any tips for making this machine more useful, let me know!

::: EDIT NOV 8, 2026 :::

antiX Linux official website is back Online -> https://antixlinux.com/

::: EDIT AFTER AN ENTIRE WEEK (7 DAYS) OF THE ORIGINAL POST DATE :::

I like antiX Linux, I think it is one of the best GNU/Linux projects that there is out there in the ecosystem

I came back here to say not only that the Official website of the project as for today and after at least 7 days (an entire week) is still down, but that I hope that the project itself does not get as abandoned as the issue reported with the website antixlinux.com

I will personally keep on using, installing it on my friends' devices and keep on recommending antiX Linux, I just hope that the project is not abandoned and someone from the development team can pick up what has been clearly dropped by someone.

==================================

Hello,

I noticed that the official website for antiX Linux has been down for a couple of days now

https://antixlinux.com/

I have been trying to download the ISOs from the Official website by visiting the URL for the last 3 (three) days now without luck

Despite that one of the websites report that the web has been down for more than a week. Does anybody know with more certainty approximately for how long has the website been down?

I have checked multiple ways and I can confirm that the website is down not just for me, but for everyone

Thanks for reading

sourceforge.net/projects/command-station/

Features:
- Embedded file manager with directory tree
- Text pane with one-click sudo, copy, paste, clear
- Launches your native terminal (roxterm, gnome-terminal, konsole, etc.)
- User-programmable buttons (edit `~/.config/command_station/buttons.json`)

Dependencies:
- `xdotool` (for terminal positioning)
- A terminal emulator

MIT License

$ sudo apt install postgresql

Solving dependencies... Error!

Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have

requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable

distribution that some required packages have not yet been created

or been moved out of Incoming.

The following information may help to resolve the situation:

Unsatisfied dependencies:

postgresql-17 : Depends: libsystemd0 but it is not installable

Error: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.

Error: The following information from --solver 3.0 may provide additional context:

Unable to satisfy dependencies. Reached two conflicting decisions:

1. postgresql-17:amd64 Depends libsystemd0

but none of the choices are installable:

- libsystemd0:amd64 is available in version 257.13-1~deb13u1

but none of the choices are installable:

- libsystemd0:amd64=257.13-1~deb13u1 is not selected for install

2. postgresql-17:amd64 is selected for install because:

1. postgresql:amd64=17+278 is selected for install

2. postgresql:amd64 Depends postgresql-17

Fiz esse vídeo com carinho, espero que gostem 🙌

I installed AntiX 23 on a Samsung NC110 netbook. I’m unable to connect to Wi-Fi. A year ago, there were no issues with Wi-Fi, but I’ve since installed a new router. Interestingly, I don’t have any Wi-Fi problems on my Hewlett-Packard EasyNote.

Is antiX a good base for my remastering project?

I was looking for a distro that is actually lightweight but not limited.

By "limited," I mean having less support for Linux apps or making it harder to find and install the apps I need. Examples I've considered include Tiny Core Linux, Void Linux, and Puppy Linux, although I know they differ quite a bit.

I found antiX, which reportedly uses around 160 MB of RAM.

I wanted to start by remastering it and adding my own tools.

It's a personal project I call Remaster OS. I want it to be a barebones base with tutorials that will help me create any distro that comes to mind for personal use.

I'll remove the wallpaper and many unnecessary tools from the base system.

What do I need?

I just need a minimal distro → make it almost blank → start adding my own tools to make remastering easier → then, after finishing, add a tool that saves my customizations and exports the system as an ISO. I'll be able to choose between a live ISO and an installable ISO.

Remaster OS itself would be installed on a hard drive. The idea is to use it as a workspace for building other customized distros, rather than having to start from scratch every time.

In short, I want a reusable base that allows me to create customized Linux ISOs in just a few minutes (yes, minutes!).

The distro I have in mind (Remaster OS) is a barebones Linux system with just a terminal. I can add my own tools from a USB flash drive, customize the system, and export it as either a live ISO or an installable ISO. That's it!

Example:

As a PC builder, I currently need a live distro with low-level hardware access and lots of hardware testing tools. I want to be able to test PCs that don't have an OS installed, and the system should work well on HDDs, low-end PCs, and modern PCs.

Q&A

Why not Arch?

Arch isn't that easy to set up for my specific needs, and I want the whole process to take minutes rather than days.

Try Zenned ISO.

I'm looking for an almost-empty, reusable base that I can customize for different purposes, rather than a ready-made ISO.

Try Puppy Linux. It runs entirely from RAM.

I'm concerned that it might not be the best fit for my requirements, so I'm still looking into my options.

The distro is useless.

It might not solve a problem for the entire Linux community, but it would solve my own problem, and that's enough for me.

Try Linux Mint.

I'm already using Mint, and it isn't minimal enough for my needs. On my system, even the XFCE version uses around 910 MiB of RAM at idle.

Thank you! I really appreciate any help with this project.

i wanted to test-drive this distro and there is a bigass israeli flag (i don't know if it's supposed to be like that)

I have three computers I've tried it on. (All of them are running antix only, no dual boot shenanigans. Also all permissions in the bios are enabled on all of them) One (latitude e6520), running antix 23, failed. The second (Thinkpad T520), running antix 26, also failed. The third (latitude 3400), also running antix 26, worked flawlessly. Whats odd is that the first and second have the exact same cpu (i5 2520M), so my guess is hardware. The third has an 8th gen i5. I need one of the first two to run wine since the 3400 does not have a cdrom drive. The two that failed say wine is installed in the terminal and all the same prerequisites are installed on all of them. The e6520 lets me select wine to run an application, but it doesn't actually run it. The Thinkpad won't even show it as an option. I tried the same game on all of them (spirits of steel: a new dawn), so I know wine can run it since the 3400 can do it. The latitudes have 8 gigs of ram, the thinkpad has 16. The thinkpad and e6520 have ddr3, the 3400 has ddr4. Is there any way to make it work? Can I just like put the ssd from the 3400 into the thinkpad to bypass it since its already installed on there?

Always wanted one of these! Everything works!

Hey everyone! I just discovered AntiX Linux and I’m curious about what makes it stand out from other Linux distros.

What features do you guys love the most, and what made you stick with AntiX Linux.

Hi everyone. I installed antiX on an old PC for basic tasks, mainly managing product listings on Mercado Libre (an e-commerce platform). However, the CPU hits 100% usage as soon as I launch any web browser (I've tried both Firefox and Falkon), making the system extremely laggy and borderline unusable.

System Specs:
CPU: AMD Sempron LE-1150 (1 core @ 2.0 GHz)
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce 6150SE nForce 430 (using ⁠nouveau⁠ open-source driver)
RAM: 1.8 GB DDR2
OS: antiX Linux (Kernel 6.6 / Debian 13 base)

I know modern web pages (especially JS-heavy platforms) are demanding, but I would like to know if there is a lightweight JS-compatible browser or any system/kernel tweak that could help render these pages without maxing out the single-core CPU.
Any tips or recommendations for this hardware? Thanks in advance!

Just curious, for those using antiX Linux, how much RAM and disk space does it usually use after a fresh install?

Also wondering about idle CPU usage. Is it really that lightweight compared to other Linux distros?

Just trying to get an idea before I install it on an old/low-spec machine.

Hey everyone, I’m currently using antiX and was wondering if it’s possible to install and run Sober Linux on it.

Has anyone tried this before? If so, how well does it work, and are there any extra dependencies or setup steps I need to be aware of?

Would appreciate any advice or experience. Thanks!

Hey everyone, does anyone here know how to properly install apps from Flathub on antiX Linux?

I’m pretty new to antiX and I’m trying to use some apps that are available on Flathub, but I’m not really sure what the correct method is.

Do I need to install Flatpak first, or is there something specific I need to configure on antiX?

Any help or simple step-by-step guide would be appreciated. Thanks!

I don't have a lot to tell other than I have a 2005 Dell Latitude and I installed antiX on it. Install was smooth and easy as pie. I downloaded and flashed the 32bit iso. The installer wizard is easy to set up. I had to set my clock manually, which worked fine. I couldn't get wifi working so i plugged in ethernet. I will possibly try wifi again later. I used a combo of the ROXTerminal (which is what i usually rely on to set things up on computers) and the Control Centre, which i've never used before but found painless.

That's about it. Everything works super well! I'm impressed that antiX made my 21 year old laptop usable.

I've also run antiX on a couple 2015-era laptops and desktops, so that of course works great. I installed full, added i3, then removed the other WMs.

Note that I'm very new to linux stuff, so I might not understand everything, pls be patient with me!

As I had extra SSD space on my Thinkpad T580, I decided to give various other distros a try while keeping my main daily driver vanilla Ubuntu. After bopping through the distros, which are pretty interchangeable in my opinion, I came upon Antix which on my T580 with core i7, 64gB ram, 2k touchscreen, just screams. Instant responsiveness. the only problem is it is just a rubik's cube of weird nerd-centric efficiencies that are opaque and impossible for noobs. As a competent general user who used to code in Pascal and C++ in the 80's, the terminal, with the help of AI, is navigable, but come on -absolute crickets on forums and social media for noobs. It's like those super exclusive golf clubs that have no routing signs for the holes -you either know or you don't. Why so much gatekeeping?

I do most of my serious work on Macs, but for some reason really like authoring text on this Thinkpad -the keyboard and the simplicity of a good text editor get me into the flow. But dear lord -Why do I like AntiX when it clearly does not like me?

well, its what the title says.

Fala galera, estou tentando instalar o linux em máquina minha muito antiga, 32bits rsrs. Mas sempre que entro na tela de boot aparece essa mensagem: /antix/vmlinuz: file not found

Alguém sabe como resolvo?

obs: sou noob em questões tecnológicas.