The package xosd-bin provides Linux hackers a way to show messages on X screen. In itself this might not be very useful but the functionality can easily be included in scripts.
After installing xosd-bin the you can use osd_cat to show text on-screen. This is done by sending text over a pipe to osd_cat.
The simplest way to use osd_cat would be:
echo "Hello World!" | osd_cat
If you try this you might not even notice the small output on the top left corner of your screen. But the following gives an output that can barely stay unnoticed:
echo "Testing xosd using different fonts" | osd_cat -p middle -A center -d 5 -s 3 -c blue -f "-adobe-helvetica-*-*-*-*-34-240-*-*-p-*-*-*"
As you see, osd_cat understands many options. In the example, the output is shown at the middle of the screen centered for a period of five seconds with a shadow of three pixels. The color is blue and the font is defined by the rest of the line (use xfontsel for selecting the font).
Now that I have installed xosd I have to think about some cool use for it! Maybe it could be used in a script that checks my email account or to show on-screen reminders.
Any other ideas?
Still using antiX
I've been too lazy to blog during the last week or maybe just too busy with my studies. Either way, I'm still using antiX as my desktop system and I've been completely happy with this prerelease version.
I have not installed a lot of extra packages as I have mostly been able to get things done with the default installation and some extras like Emacs. As I've used both Debian and Ubuntu earlier, I am very much at home with antiX.
Two weeks ago I thought I would just test antiX and then install something more useful. At the moment I think I'll continue to use this distro installed much longer than I would have imagined. I see no technical reasons for installing yet another distro.
But in order to have something to write about in this blog, I'll tomorrow install DeLi on an even older computer. It will be interesting to see how much the distro has developed with the latest release.
I have not installed a lot of extra packages as I have mostly been able to get things done with the default installation and some extras like Emacs. As I've used both Debian and Ubuntu earlier, I am very much at home with antiX.
Two weeks ago I thought I would just test antiX and then install something more useful. At the moment I think I'll continue to use this distro installed much longer than I would have imagined. I see no technical reasons for installing yet another distro.
But in order to have something to write about in this blog, I'll tomorrow install DeLi on an even older computer. It will be interesting to see how much the distro has developed with the latest release.
OSMO - a lightweight PIM
There are few good lightweight personal information managers available unless one is willing to use Emacs for everything. For some time I used remind as a console solution for my time management problems but at the moment I mostly use my mobile phones calendar function. Now I have to reconsider using a computer for time management as antiX provides a nice lightweight organizer application OSMO.
OSMO is very simple to use as all the main functions can be found in one window on six tabs. There are tabs for calendar, tasks, contacts, notes, options and information about the application. OSMO is included in the package repository of Ubuntu, so it is only a simple sudo apt-get install away from your desktop if you use Ubuntu!
OSMO is very simple to use as all the main functions can be found in one window on six tabs. There are tabs for calendar, tasks, contacts, notes, options and information about the application. OSMO is included in the package repository of Ubuntu, so it is only a simple sudo apt-get install away from your desktop if you use Ubuntu!
AntiX 8 test release reviewed
antiX has been around for some time but I have never installed or even used it. The goal of antiX is to provide a light, but fully functional desktop system for both newbies and experienced users of Linux. It does not require much from the hardware and it should run on most computers, ranging from 64MB old PII 266 systems with 128MB RAM to the latest hardware. At least 128MB RAM is recommended for antiX and 1.2GB is required for a hard disk installation.
Having already used several lightweight Linux distributions, I wanted to see how antiX would perform on my secondary desktop. This computer is an old e-Vectra (1 GHz, 256 Mb) that should be a perfectly good computer to be used with antiX. Some years ago, it was a popular corporate desktop and it was used a lot as Internet kiosks and desktops for examples in universities and libraries.
AntiX must be installed using a live CD which makes it cumbersome to be installed in the oldest computers. With my e-Vectra the installation took about 25 minutes. Quite acceptable, but I wonder how the GUI installer would succeed when used on an even older box with less memory.
Edit: I forgot to mention that antiX did not correctly recognize the graphic chip of my computer which means that the screen resolution offered was completely unusable. I copied the xorg.conf from another system.
AntiX uses IceWM as the default window manager which was of course a pleasant surprise for me. Nowadays, more and more lightweight distributions use either JWM or LXDE but IceWM can look just as nice as any other window manager. In fact, AntiX provides the user with a nice selection of installed themes.
The first test I usually do with any distro is to see how it handles the most common web site for multimedia, that is the YouTube. In fact, AntiX has no problems in showing any of the YouTube videos I wanted to see. This is certainly a something a newbie expects even from a lightweight distribution as flash animations, Java games and YouTube videos are an important part of web experience for most users. These of course demand a lot from the hardware and the experience might not be exactly great with the oldest computers, but it was good enough for me.
Second test: what happens when I insert an audio cd in the cd drive? - Nothing.
In fact, that is exactly what I was hoping for. I started xmms and clicked Play directory, then chose the directory /media/cdrom to be played. For a total newbie this might not be the most obvious way to play a music cd but I have no problems with this.
A third test: what happens when I try to use an USB memory stick? - As far as I see, nothing. At least nothing appears in the directory /media.
First I thought I should just mount the pendrive by hand, but I finally found the solution. Start the Control center, select the tab Peripherals, click Mount connected Devices and give the root password. Now the memory is mounted as /media/sda1. But I still don't know how to umount the memory except as root on the command line with umount /media/sda1. Rox filer cannot handle it as the ordinary user is of course not allowed to umount a device that was mounted by the root.
AntiX is based on MEPIS that in turn is based on Debian. This means that the system beneath the desktop is (or should be) familiar to any user of Ubuntu or Debian. This in itself is a strong point in favor of antiX for anyone coming from the Ubuntu land. I can warmly recommend AntiX for anyone who is looking for a lightweight alternative to Ubuntu. AntiX provides a good selection of lightweight applications and an even wider selection of applications is available in the Debian stable repositories. The default installation provides the applications that most people need: a media player, web browsers, a word processor (Abiword), a spreadsheet application (Gnumeric), DVD player and even some games.
AntiX 8 is still a release under development. I have, however, not encountered any problems with the system during these two days I have used antiX. I can recommend antiX to anyone who is looking for a lightweight distribution to be used on an old computer.
Links:
Having already used several lightweight Linux distributions, I wanted to see how antiX would perform on my secondary desktop. This computer is an old e-Vectra (1 GHz, 256 Mb) that should be a perfectly good computer to be used with antiX. Some years ago, it was a popular corporate desktop and it was used a lot as Internet kiosks and desktops for examples in universities and libraries.
AntiX must be installed using a live CD which makes it cumbersome to be installed in the oldest computers. With my e-Vectra the installation took about 25 minutes. Quite acceptable, but I wonder how the GUI installer would succeed when used on an even older box with less memory.
Edit: I forgot to mention that antiX did not correctly recognize the graphic chip of my computer which means that the screen resolution offered was completely unusable. I copied the xorg.conf from another system.
AntiX uses IceWM as the default window manager which was of course a pleasant surprise for me. Nowadays, more and more lightweight distributions use either JWM or LXDE but IceWM can look just as nice as any other window manager. In fact, AntiX provides the user with a nice selection of installed themes.
The first test I usually do with any distro is to see how it handles the most common web site for multimedia, that is the YouTube. In fact, AntiX has no problems in showing any of the YouTube videos I wanted to see. This is certainly a something a newbie expects even from a lightweight distribution as flash animations, Java games and YouTube videos are an important part of web experience for most users. These of course demand a lot from the hardware and the experience might not be exactly great with the oldest computers, but it was good enough for me.
Second test: what happens when I insert an audio cd in the cd drive? - Nothing.
In fact, that is exactly what I was hoping for. I started xmms and clicked Play directory, then chose the directory /media/cdrom to be played. For a total newbie this might not be the most obvious way to play a music cd but I have no problems with this.
A third test: what happens when I try to use an USB memory stick? - As far as I see, nothing. At least nothing appears in the directory /media.
First I thought I should just mount the pendrive by hand, but I finally found the solution. Start the Control center, select the tab Peripherals, click Mount connected Devices and give the root password. Now the memory is mounted as /media/sda1. But I still don't know how to umount the memory except as root on the command line with umount /media/sda1. Rox filer cannot handle it as the ordinary user is of course not allowed to umount a device that was mounted by the root.
AntiX is based on MEPIS that in turn is based on Debian. This means that the system beneath the desktop is (or should be) familiar to any user of Ubuntu or Debian. This in itself is a strong point in favor of antiX for anyone coming from the Ubuntu land. I can warmly recommend AntiX for anyone who is looking for a lightweight alternative to Ubuntu. AntiX provides a good selection of lightweight applications and an even wider selection of applications is available in the Debian stable repositories. The default installation provides the applications that most people need: a media player, web browsers, a word processor (Abiword), a spreadsheet application (Gnumeric), DVD player and even some games.
AntiX 8 is still a release under development. I have, however, not encountered any problems with the system during these two days I have used antiX. I can recommend antiX to anyone who is looking for a lightweight distribution to be used on an old computer.
Links:
- antiX discussion forum
- download antiX test release from Mepisimo or Tuxfamily.org
Ubuntu 8.10 - first impressions
It must be a year or two since I last used Ubuntu on a regular basis. Today I decided to install the Intrepid Ibex on my high end desktop (CPU 2.8 GHz, 512 Mb RAM, Asus P4PE mother board, Geforce 7600GS) as the openSUSE 11.0 would anyway soon be replaced by 11.1. Now I'm not so sure about installing openSUSE even if DHL should deliver the box sometime next Monday.
The installation went without problems as is usual with all mainstream distros today. In fact I have not encountered any big problems since 2001 when I had a brand new desktop at the university. My own desktops are always old and cheap hardware so usually there is no problem with hardware drivers. Even the sound device is nowadays not usually muted by default. Seven years ago it took me some weeks or months of reading about Linux before I learned how to turn the sound on.
After reboot I installed the driver for the graphic card I just added to the computer. Some old card made by Ati was replaced by an almost modern Geforce 7600GS that can even cope with Compiz desktop effects. I am not a great fan of desktop effects but I must admit that the effect for changing the virtual desktop is cool! Furthermore, Ubuntu does not overdo the effects: transparency and shadows are kept to the minimum and they are not disturbing. I only needed to turn on the subpixel smoothing to get nicer fonts on my LCD monitor (System -> Preferences -> Appearance -> Fonts tab).
One small thing was missing from the GNOME menu, namely Firefox web browser. I tried to add an application starter for FF in the panel, but even then the system seems not to find an icon for Firefox.
I encountered one more small annoyance when I tried to add a second user to the system. Ubuntu did not accept a user name that already had a home directory under /home (created by the old openSUSE system). There was no problem in continuing to use the old home directory for the first user created - the problem seems to exist only for further users. I could of course have tried to add the second user with command line but I decided just to use another username for the second user and consequently also another home directory. Then I copied the files and changed the owner, group and permissions to match the new user name.
There should be a more obvious solution but this quick and dirty solution is always available regardless of the distribution. It is quite possible that all the problems I encountered are caused by the fact that I wanted to continue using the old /home partition and the old configuration files for each user. Usually there are no problems when one just upgrades the distribution but there are always some slight hiccups when one changes the distribution as well.
Next I installed the ubuntu-restricted-extras and some other packages like Emacs to be able to edit text files comfortably. It is true that Emacs is not the lightest editor available, but I like the way it can be configured for editing text files with longlines-mode. It is almost like writing with a word processor I've been looking for Linux console for many years with no luck. It seems I'm the only person on this planet who would like to write with a text mode word processor with Linux...
One thing I like in Ubuntu is that the default applications are pretty well chosen for an ordinary desktop system. My non-geek partner has no difficulties in using either GNOME or KDE as long as she can easily find the icons for Firefox and OpenOffice.org. She needs terminal only for a ssh session to the university's Unix system where she receives her email. So Ubuntu seems to be a rather good system for someone who just needs the ordinary office applications. I myself prefer to use some more lightweight applications even with this pretty fast computer. Usually Abiword is good enough for my needs, sometimes I stay with Emacs or use LyX if I want to get a decent printout that is typeset with LaTeX.
I've been quite happy with the latest incarnation of the most famous and popular distribution today. Of course, it should have come as no surprise to me or most of my readers! It remains to be seen whether there will be any problems later or not. But I like what I've seen now and I will certainly be able to recommend Ubuntu 8.10 to any newbie who is looking for a distribution to be used with a computer that has at least 512 Mb RAM, a decent processor and a good graphics card.
On the other hand, I am not going to install either Ubuntu or openSUSE on my 1 GHz desktop. I just think that the amount of time needed for tweaking and optimizing either distro to be run with a computer that has a 1 GHz CPU and 256 Mb RAM can be better spent doing something else. I might, for example, write another blog posting or study some economics.
I will, however, try to have time for testing some lightweight distribution on that old box during the next week. Just for fun.
But I would like to read about your experiences with Ubuntu on old computers. Is it worth the trouble?
The installation went without problems as is usual with all mainstream distros today. In fact I have not encountered any big problems since 2001 when I had a brand new desktop at the university. My own desktops are always old and cheap hardware so usually there is no problem with hardware drivers. Even the sound device is nowadays not usually muted by default. Seven years ago it took me some weeks or months of reading about Linux before I learned how to turn the sound on.
After reboot I installed the driver for the graphic card I just added to the computer. Some old card made by Ati was replaced by an almost modern Geforce 7600GS that can even cope with Compiz desktop effects. I am not a great fan of desktop effects but I must admit that the effect for changing the virtual desktop is cool! Furthermore, Ubuntu does not overdo the effects: transparency and shadows are kept to the minimum and they are not disturbing. I only needed to turn on the subpixel smoothing to get nicer fonts on my LCD monitor (System -> Preferences -> Appearance -> Fonts tab).
One small thing was missing from the GNOME menu, namely Firefox web browser. I tried to add an application starter for FF in the panel, but even then the system seems not to find an icon for Firefox.
I encountered one more small annoyance when I tried to add a second user to the system. Ubuntu did not accept a user name that already had a home directory under /home (created by the old openSUSE system). There was no problem in continuing to use the old home directory for the first user created - the problem seems to exist only for further users. I could of course have tried to add the second user with command line but I decided just to use another username for the second user and consequently also another home directory. Then I copied the files and changed the owner, group and permissions to match the new user name.
There should be a more obvious solution but this quick and dirty solution is always available regardless of the distribution. It is quite possible that all the problems I encountered are caused by the fact that I wanted to continue using the old /home partition and the old configuration files for each user. Usually there are no problems when one just upgrades the distribution but there are always some slight hiccups when one changes the distribution as well.
Next I installed the ubuntu-restricted-extras and some other packages like Emacs to be able to edit text files comfortably. It is true that Emacs is not the lightest editor available, but I like the way it can be configured for editing text files with longlines-mode. It is almost like writing with a word processor I've been looking for Linux console for many years with no luck. It seems I'm the only person on this planet who would like to write with a text mode word processor with Linux...
One thing I like in Ubuntu is that the default applications are pretty well chosen for an ordinary desktop system. My non-geek partner has no difficulties in using either GNOME or KDE as long as she can easily find the icons for Firefox and OpenOffice.org. She needs terminal only for a ssh session to the university's Unix system where she receives her email. So Ubuntu seems to be a rather good system for someone who just needs the ordinary office applications. I myself prefer to use some more lightweight applications even with this pretty fast computer. Usually Abiword is good enough for my needs, sometimes I stay with Emacs or use LyX if I want to get a decent printout that is typeset with LaTeX.
I've been quite happy with the latest incarnation of the most famous and popular distribution today. Of course, it should have come as no surprise to me or most of my readers! It remains to be seen whether there will be any problems later or not. But I like what I've seen now and I will certainly be able to recommend Ubuntu 8.10 to any newbie who is looking for a distribution to be used with a computer that has at least 512 Mb RAM, a decent processor and a good graphics card.
On the other hand, I am not going to install either Ubuntu or openSUSE on my 1 GHz desktop. I just think that the amount of time needed for tweaking and optimizing either distro to be run with a computer that has a 1 GHz CPU and 256 Mb RAM can be better spent doing something else. I might, for example, write another blog posting or study some economics.
I will, however, try to have time for testing some lightweight distribution on that old box during the next week. Just for fun.
But I would like to read about your experiences with Ubuntu on old computers. Is it worth the trouble?
Absolute Linux 12.2.1
Absolute Linux 12.2.1 has been released. It is primarily a security update. See the release notes for more information.
VectorLinux 6.0 RC2
For some months, I've been using Vector Linux 5.9 on my second desktop machine that I in fact use more than my better desktop. I've been very happy with the performance it provides and I'm looking forward to the next release. It should become soon available, as the project has just released the second release candidate version of the distribution.
See the release notes for more information.
See the release notes for more information.
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