Is there a list of changes MX/Antix vs Debian somewhere?

[Danathar]

I have both Vanilla debian, Antix and MX Linux systems running at home.

Is there some sort of log or change documentation the MX and Antix developers have somewhere that list/explain the changes done in Antix/Debian vs Vanilla Debian Buster? I find that sometimes I make a change on Debian and then go to Antix/Buster but have to hunt around to figure out what changes have been made to Antix/Buster. I don't want to break something and understand how the devs have modified it.

For instance. I know that there are additional files and configurations for Antix/MX in regards to automatic upgrades. Is there somewhere where what changes were made that is documented?

thanks!

[dolphin_oracle]

there isn't really a list of changes, mostly because we don't start with a base debian system when we build MX and antiX. and what is a basic debian system anyway?

we build them up from scratch using the debian repos.

a few highlights:

use of the antiX live-usb system instead of debians
sysVinit by default (mx uses systemd-shim, antiX uses elogind/eudev)
there are a few changes to default grub configurations (/etc/default/grub)
use of our own updater (apt-notifier/mx-updater) which brings in some of those auto-update configs
tweaks to /etc/sysctl.d
modified sysVinit init scripts in some cases (lightdm, sddm, virtualbox, udev)
we do not install "recommends" as dependencies by default (apt configuration under /etc/apt)

[Danathar]

there isn't really a list of changes, mostly because we don't start with a base debian system when we build MX and antiX. and what is a basic debian system anyway?

we build them up from scratch using the debian repos.

a few highlights:

use of the antiX live-usb system instead of debians
sysVinit by default (mx uses systemd-shim, antiX uses elogind/eudev)
there are a few changes to default grub configurations (/etc/default/grub)
use of our own updater (apt-notifier/mx-updater) which brings in some of those auto-update configs
tweaks to /etc/sysctl.d
modified sysVinit init scripts in some cases (lightdm, sddm, virtualbox, udev)
we do not install "recommends" as dependencies by default (apt configuration under /etc/apt)

Interesting. I'd say a basic Debian system would be a vanilla default install of Buster if you took all the defaults in the installer.

What would be your recommendation to somebody who is familiar with Debian on the underside but has to dive into an MX/Antix system to replicate some changes that were made on a debian system in Antix/MX as to not break something that was modified? It's hard to know what you don't know when poking around (other than general items like you listed above)

[Huckleberry Finn]

we don't start with a base debian system when we build MX and antiX. and what is a basic debian system anyway?

we build them up from scratch using the debian repos.

So, in general , a description rather than MX / antiX is "based on Debian", "MX / antiX are compatible with Debian" would be more accurate ?

[asqwerth]

we don't start with a base debian system when we build MX and antiX. and what is a basic debian system anyway?

we build them up from scratch using the debian repos.

So, in general , a description rather than MX / antiX is "based on Debian", "MX / antiX are compatible with Debian" would be more accurate ?

Don't know about that. When an Arch user installs their Arch system from scratch, don't they just pick their own choice of packages from Arch repos to put together their system? But it's Arch, isn't it?

An Arch-based distro will have packages from Arch, and then probably have a small repo of their own where they add their own packages, either original tools and applications, or packages rebuilt from other sources which they are bringing into their fold officially so that the user doesn't have to install them from AUR. But they are generally called Arch-based distros, not Arch-compatible distros.

[anticapitalista]

Re- antiX.

As mentioned, antiX uses eudev, elogind (or consolekit2), has its own custom kernel built from 'vanilla' kernel over at kernel.org plus we add 4 or 5 patches, and its own apps that can be browsed in the antiX repos. Everything else is from Debian. Some apps from Debian are updated from testing/sid and placed in our antiX repos eg latest IceWM, herbstluftwm, mpd etc

Our 'live' system is completely different from Debian's.

[dolphin_oracle]

there isn't really a list of changes, mostly because we don't start with a base debian system when we build MX and antiX. and what is a basic debian system anyway?

we build them up from scratch using the debian repos.

a few highlights:

use of the antiX live-usb system instead of debians
sysVinit by default (mx uses systemd-shim, antiX uses elogind/eudev)
there are a few changes to default grub configurations (/etc/default/grub)
use of our own updater (apt-notifier/mx-updater) which brings in some of those auto-update configs
tweaks to /etc/sysctl.d
modified sysVinit init scripts in some cases (lightdm, sddm, virtualbox, udev)
we do not install "recommends" as dependencies by default (apt configuration under /etc/apt)

Interesting. I'd say a basic Debian system would be a vanilla default install of Buster if you took all the defaults in the installer.

What would be your recommendation to somebody who is familiar with Debian on the underside but has to dive into an MX/Antix system to replicate some changes that were made on a debian system in Antix/MX as to not break something that was modified? It's hard to know what you don't know when poking around (other than general items like you listed above)

that's a pretty loaded question, but I would think most things that work on debian will work on MX. most of our changes, besides the antiX live system, focus on letting the user make adjustments to the system without needing to drop to a command line terminal if they don't want to, or to make some things easy that are non-obvious to those unfamiliar with linux.

It might be easier to tell us the changes you have in mind, versus us trying to tell you everything that is different.

[Danathar]

there isn't really a list of changes, mostly because we don't start with a base debian system when we build MX and antiX. and what is a basic debian system anyway?

we build them up from scratch using the debian repos.

a few highlights:

use of the antiX live-usb system instead of debians
sysVinit by default (mx uses systemd-shim, antiX uses elogind/eudev)
there are a few changes to default grub configurations (/etc/default/grub)
use of our own updater (apt-notifier/mx-updater) which brings in some of those auto-update configs
tweaks to /etc/sysctl.d
modified sysVinit init scripts in some cases (lightdm, sddm, virtualbox, udev)
we do not install "recommends" as dependencies by default (apt configuration under /etc/apt)

Interesting. I'd say a basic Debian system would be a vanilla default install of Buster if you took all the defaults in the installer.

What would be your recommendation to somebody who is familiar with Debian on the underside but has to dive into an MX/Antix system to replicate some changes that were made on a debian system in Antix/MX as to not break something that was modified? It's hard to know what you don't know when poking around (other than general items like you listed above)

that's a pretty loaded question, but I would think most things that work on debian will work on MX. most of our changes, besides the antiX live system, focus on letting the user make adjustments to the system without needing to drop to a command line terminal if they don't want to, or to make some things easy that are non-obvious to those unfamiliar with linux.

It might be easier to tell us the changes you have in mind, versus us trying to tell you everything that is different.

The other posts in the thread have really cleared things up. I was under the impression that Antix/MX was a heavily modified debian distro, but that's not really the case. It's more that it leverages debian where needed/desired and everything else is built from the bottom up from source and modifed to fit the goals of the distro?

My changes are really just specific for my rather small use case (setting a laptop in a corner and letting it run a background task but get updates with no gui running). I had managed to get that working with Debian fairly easily, but noticed some additional files that had been used in antix and started to wonder what other changes had been made that I should be aware of.

Given the distro is really gui oriented it makes sense. Antix is my choice for old equipment I scrounge up.

[dolphin_oracle]

antiX is sweet on older machines. I run it on netbook class machines too. usually just off the usb since my usbs are larger than the netbook's internal drives.