[Tfug] Machine Rehabilitation

[rlumpy at comcast.net]

Henry, 

There is a new Mepis spin-off, Antix, put together by Mepis-Lovers moderator anticapitalista:

http://www.mepis.org/docs/en/index.php/AntiX

that is currently at rc5. It uses Ice, Fluxbox, or ROX, includes Firefox and uses Synaptic to access the Ubuntu Etch repositories, so you can add in OpenOffice and Kaffeine. It will boot and Requirements are

    * 2.0GB free space on the hard disk
    * 96MB RAM, will work with 64MB plus swap
    * Pentium II/AMD CPU 

There is a long thread about it at
http://mepislovers.org/forums/showthread.php?s=6056528d24294b2e331992a8f38c8ed9&t=5444

Rich Lamoreaux


 -------------- Original message ----------------------
From: "hharden71 at netzero.net" <hharden71 at netzero.net>
> I want to try and breathe new life into a machine I have been given.
> An old IBM Aptiva
> 450 Mhz AMD
> 128 Megs ram 
> (I don't know if this can be upgraded-2 memory slots ea/w 64m currently)
> (PC 100 or 133 memory)
> SIS 350 video card (onbaord)
> Onboard audio (works /w a live cd I tried out)
> ISA 3Com 3C509 10baseT ethernet card 
> (haven't tried this piece of hardware - but it is so old I expect only minimal 
> trouble - it is ISA after all)
> PCI 56k modem
> 8-10 gig HDD
> cdrom
> 3.5" floppy
> This seems like it would fit in fairly nicely with the "Grandma Millie" 
> discussions I read.  Especially since, once it was set up I wouldn't really 
> want to change it. 
> I was thinking of trying to turn it into an "internet cruiser".
> I have reasonable expectations of what I want out of the system.
> E-mail
> Web Browsing
> Audio Jukebox
> Along with word processing & spreadsheet office functions, 
> Image display/editing, 
> and a little p2p/torrents.  
> There is also the desire to be able to hook it up to a home network/broadband at 
> some point.
> 
> Now for my quandry.
> I will probably have to modify the heck out of somebody's distro.
> If I could get some advice on software alternatives I would appreciate it.
> The majority of my experience is running Simply Mepis 6.0.  
> It is a Debian/Ubuntu varient that uses KDE.
> I am looking to use something lighter for this machine.  
> Perhaps Fluxbox, or Xfce4 as primary and ICWM for backup.  
> Pros/Cons for each potential primary when compared to the other.
> As you might expect many of the apps I use an am familliar with are KDE.
> I am wondering what alternatives you might suggest for the following apps 
> keeping in mind the system they will be going onto.  I may be passing the system 
> on to my daughter once I have it finished, so the less CLI the better (for now 
> at least).
> Ktorrent
> Mozilla Firefox - I use Konqueror. which I find to be much more stable, faster, 
> easier on the system resources and less prone to crashing. (now  I may be wrong 
> about the resources - but not the rest.)
> e-mail client (I would like an e-mail client that is stable, pretty, easy to 
> import/export to/from.  I did not find Thunderbird to be "the one".)
> Kpf - KDE Personal File Server [pannel applet] (I found it very handy to be able 
> to have a repository of files for my friends.)
> Kaffine
> Kpdf
> Kprintfax
> Kfax (fax viewer)
> klamav (antivirus) - Is this becoming more necessary with the advent of more 
> linux kernel based machines?
> Kwikdisk (gui & pannel applet - mount/unmount util - this sort of thing is very 
> handy when you have multiple drives or partitions.)
> file manager - I am used to using Konqueror for this function.
> Ksysguard (GUI performance manager)
> XMMS
> Things I don't plan to change my mind about:
> Open Office for my spreadsheets & word processing.
>        - The MS office interoperability I've seen in the stand alone products is 
> not up to my needs. I have friends and family who have not yet seen the open 
> source light. 
> I plan to include Java 1.5.  I use a dial-up connection and a java-based 
> propriatary dialer.
> 
> Are there any packages to enact parental controls?
> 
> -Henry
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