How To for MX-Fluxbox to use less memory

[seaken64]

This is a How To for installing MX-Fluxbox to use less memory. Use these tips to get the most out of MX and MX-Fluxbox when you have limited resources on your equipment.

After some successful experiments with MX-18 and MX-Fluxbox on one of my old computers I decided to see if I could get MX-19 working. Since MX-19 is current it will have longer support than MX-18, and it is based on the current Debian 10 (Buster). I wanted to see if I can get the latest MX and MX-Fluxbox working on this 20 year old computer. I am happy to report that I have been successful in setting up MX-19 with MX-Fluxbox 2.0 on the old P-III with 512MB. Here’s how I did it.

First of all, an old computer like this is very limited and I’m sure it was never intended by the MX developers to support such old and outdated equipment. I would caution anybody attempting to use MX on such old hardware to be patient and respectful of the MX developer’s time and effort and not to expect MX to cater to this equipment. You should expect to be pretty much on your own with this type of use of MX. There are other distros that cater to old computers, like it’s sister distro antiX.

But this How To is not only about old P-III computers. This setup for MX-Fluxbox can be very useful for computers with limited memory but newer processors.

This post is an outline of the steps. See the following thread for more in-depth instructions:
viewtopic.php?f=143&t=56264

MX-Fluxbox 19 on old P3 - Outline

Step 1: Use 32-bit ISO and Change the Kernel

Download the latest 32-bit ISO. I used the latest original release, not a snapshot.
Use Live USB Maker to create a new LiveUSB for MX-19 32-bit.
[If you do not want to change the kernel you can now skip to Step 2 below]
Use MXPI to add a 4.9 kernel.
Run the MX RemasterCC tool and remaster your LiveUSB.
Run Live-USB Kernel Updater to update the default to the 4.9 kernel.
On reboot, MX will now boot using the 4.9 kernel.
Finally, you need to remove the 4.19 kernel from the LiveUSB
We are now ready to move the LiveUSB to the old computer.

Step 2: Boot LiveUSB on Old Computer and Install MX-19 32-bit to Hard Drive

I recommend using the command line and the cli-installer on an old computer.
A Pentium-4 with 1GB of RAM can probably use the GUI procedures to install
My P-III uses Plop Boot Manager from a CD to boot the LiveUSB.
Under the boot menu list there is an entry box entitled “Boot Options”
At the end of the existing entries add a “3”, without the quotes.
You will see a “Welcome to MX-19…” and a blinking cursor asking you to log in.
Login as “root” with password “root” and enter the command “cli-installer”
You should already have the partitions you need. Prepare ahead of time
Select the correct partition to install MX to by typing in it’s device name
You will be asked if you want a separate /home partition.
If you are asked if you are running antiX-net say “N”
If you are asked if you want to install some applications from cli-aptiX say “N”
MX-19 will now be copied to your chosen partition
You will be asked if you want to install Grub to the MBR.
You can type in your computer name, and settings for locale & keyboard, etc.
You can disable some startup services.
If you are asked if this is a remaster or snapshot just say “N”
Enter your username, password. Also the root password. For auto login say “N”
The installer will finish. Now reboot. (Type “reboot” at the prompt)

Step 3: Boot MX-19 and setup MX-Fluxbox

You can use your other Grub configuration to setup the newly installed MX-19 to boot
Or boot MX-19 from the Grub menu installed by the installer.
We don’t have MX-Fluxbox setup yet so we will be using the default Xfce session
When the login screen appears type in your username and password.
You need internet. If you have an Ethernet port you should use that
The first setup task we need to do is run an “update & dist-upgrade”.
MX will be updated to all the latest packages. Now we are ready to install MX-Fluxbox.
Open MXPI and search for mx-flux and choose the Fluxbox (with MX-flux) choice
After MXPI finishes you can close MXPI and then log out of the Xfce session.
At login drop down list of session types select the Fluxbox entry. Then login again.
Upon login you will now see the Fluxbox toolbar. This is now “MX-Fluxbox”.

Step 4: Setup MX-Fluxbox to use less memory

If you have at least 1GB you may not need to go any further to setup MX-Fluxbox.
To lower the memory used you can disable some services and apps that you don’t need
Background services.
Open a terminal (F4) and run: sudo sysv-rc-conf.
Move your cursor and disable the services you don’t need.
Background Applications
Open the “startup” file and comment out some apps that are setup to start
Right-click on the desktop and browse the menu to |Settings|Configure|Startup
Put a hash mark (#) in front of the apps you don't need running at startup.
Toolbar System Tray
You can save some memory by removing the system tray from the toolbar
Open the menu and browse to |Settings|Configure|Init
Look for the item named “session.screen0.toolbar.tools:”
Look for the item on that line named “systemtray”
Remove the “systemtray” word and the leading comma
Restart/refresh or Logout/Login to reset the Fluxbox settings

Step 5: Install and use Applications that use Less Memory than the default MX apps

Some applications use less memory and allow MX-Fluxbox to be used on old computer
SeaMonkey browser (with NoScript add-on)
Audacious music player
SMTube for YouTube
AbiWord and Gnumeric
Use the menu to launch programs instead of the Xfce tools like Application Finder

That's it. Now, go have fun with MX-Fluxbox on your limited equipment!

Seaken64

[Jerry3904]

Very fine, and shows a lot of work and thought behind it.

[seaken64]

Thanks Jerry. You guys are doing all the hard work! MX-Fluxbox is a great idea. Thanks a lot for making it available for us users.

Seaken64

[seaken64]

If you have setup your MX-Fluxbox to use less memory you may get surprised when you "upgrade" your MX-Fluxbox and find that most of your changes for low-memory are gone. Don't worry. You can restore your low-memory setup under the new version of MX-Fluxbox. See here:

viewtopic.php?f=143&t=59586

[JayM]

Oops, replied to the wrong topic.

[andyprough]

I'm wondering how Seamonkey with noscript compares to 32-bit Palemoon with ublock? Might be that Seamonkey still runs with less memory. Probably worth comparing though.

[kobaian]

Ad. Step 5. There are some other good applications for low-resources computers:

MPV instead of VLC
PCManFM instead of Thunar
GPicView instead of Nomacs
Palemoon web browser (You can add an extension to Palemoon called "Watch with MPV" to play videos in an external player)
Slimjet web browser
Rofi instead of XFCE4-Appfinder

Step 6: Browsing Internet on a low-resources computer

Use the mobile version of the websites if it is possible, e.g. https://m.facebook.com/, https://lite.duckduckgo.com/lite/ etc.
Use user-agent switcher to browse the mobile-version of websites instead of the desktop version.

[Girafenaine]

Actually when you 've done all these changes you got... antiX :) (with xfce)

I do believe you better stick with antiX on such an old PC (and the whole Seaken64 's post is still useful).

[PPC]

A bit off topic, but I agree with Girafenaine- for veryyy low specs machines, stick with antiX. If you like MXFB, antiX comes with the Fluxbox desktop pre-installed, and you can easily configure it to use the same tint2 toolbar that MXFB uses for it's "legacy" mode - I wrote a script that installs and configures antiX to use Fluxbox and Tint2, giving it an almost Windows 10 look and feel- it runs on about 100Mb of idle RAM (https://www.antixforum.com/forums/topic ... post-50443 ) - sorry for the shameless plug... But antiX does run on about a 1/3 of MX's RAM...

P.