u/TurtleGraphics64

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.

Hi all, I've been using Void Linux just about 4 years. I've noticed a large amount of Arch users posting in this subreddit asking to compare to Arch, which does not feel super-similar to me honestly. But I've rarely seen folks post about the Debian-based distros so I thought I'd write here about antiX, which I've been using on a second computer (a desktop) for about a month now, as well as intermittently running off a USB stick on an old 2012 eee PC (the 32 bit version).

I would say antiX comes in at some similarities to Void, and of course some differences. It expects similar levels of knowledge, but has a few niceties I wanted to point out.

Similarities

antiX is a Debian-based distro, with choice of init. The default is runit, but sysVinit, S6, 66 and dinit can alternatively be selected on startup.

Startup with antiX is a bit slower than Void on my desktop, even with runit. I'm not sure why this is.

antiX downloads available are both 64bit and 32bit. There is a full and a core offering. The full version ships with choice of 4 window managers (and variations on them): IceWM (default), fluxbox, jwm and for tiling managers, herbstluftwm. It also ships with SliM login manager. The core has no GUI packages by default, and just enough to get internet setup. I installed "full" but I did not use any of the default window managers, opting to replace with my fave i3wm.

Installing can be much easier than Void for some newbies as there is a simple GUI install wizard that can pretty easily walk you through it. You can of course also manually use gparted for example. I used gparted for install on one machine and the wizard for my other install. I think the graphical wizard is actually pretty nice! It's the same GUI wizard on MX Linux, a midweight distro that antiX contributes to. I liked it so much that I think Void should consider shipping it!

I have continued to use the default runit on antiX since I know it best based on experience with Void, but i think it's cool that you can select a different init on startup, i just haven't tried any of these (s6, dinit, 66, sysVinit) out.

Access to packages is a personal thing. I've found Debian's apt package manager to be easy to use. I do like xbps more, but not 1000 times more. In terms of package availability, I've personally found roughly the same package availability in both distros. Debian has a few things Void doesn't have. Void has a few things Debian doesn't have. Case in point, I had to manually install ulauncher on antiX, my preferred app launcher, whereas it's in the repos for Void. But this wasn't a big deal.

antiX and Void are not meant for beginners! For both distros, I've occasionally needed to manually debug/fix things myself (and with help from reddit, web searches, forums, etc). My personal experience is that sound is set up and runs easily in antiX whereas it can be a pain for some people on Void, just based on the large number of daily posts about this on reddit. I also think wifi was way easier to set up on antiX through it's default graphical gui but this is really a user/operator preference thing. I just think antiX has a few good defaults on this where Void generally requires more setup. For example, on Void i tend to use network manager with nm-tui (nmtui).

In general, I copied my dotfiles from Void to antiX and everything worked the same, including for runit, i3, polybar, etc. My /etc/ files and ~/.config files worked no prob.

SOME DIFFERENCES:

Of course I should point out that antiX is debian-derived, not an independent distro. It is also not a stable rolling-release. THIS IS THE BIGGEST THING I MISS FROM VOID.

There is no MUSL option in antiX out the gate. I believe it can be installed through the repos, but I have no experience doing so.

Some interesting antiX options: antiX can run as a live usb with persistence. I'm currently trying this out on another super old laptop, and it works well.

antiX has its own self-hosted forum, which feels better than this corporate platform. The community is friendly, and a little less RTFM combined with less people posting about hyper/whatever and random AI stuff that they tried doing.

CONCLUSION

okay, so what was the point of this post? I just wanted to point out some similarities and differences between antiX and Void because I think Void users may be interested in this distro, and I hadn't seen much writing about the two together. Note there are a few antiX forum posts comparing these distros, but I thought I could write something more concise and specifically written for the Void community.

I may have missed some things, or mis-stated something. and your mileage may vary.

Cheers.