Bento antiX is a rebuild of the antiX Linux system, created with the support of members from the antiX forum https://www.antixforum.com.
Wallpaper by Charlie Henson from gnome-look.org, lettering created with GIMP.
User level: beginners and beyond.
Required hardware configuration: at least 1 to 4 GB of RAM, and 32-bit or 64-bit processors (minimum power requirements not tested) + 7200 RPM HDD or 2.5″ SATA SSD or equivalent.
Information
antiX is a GNU/Linux distribution that has existed for many years. It is lightweight and designed to run on older computers while keeping it easy for newcomers. Notably, it makes use of the traditional init system instead of SystemD.
Bento antiX makes antiX easier to use by retaining only the core system and equipping it with a single environment, composed of a few programs, some selected and others developed over more than ten years. These were first used in a PCLinuxOS remaster, then an Ubuntu remix, before being ported to antiX in 2019/2020 and featured here since early 2022.
Bento antiX Spring 26
Bento antiX offers a lightweight desktop environment based on Openbox, an advanced and lightweight window manager, configured to create a user-friendly desktop experience for Linux distributions.
It includes openbox-menu, which displays the list of applications from the Openbox menu, and obsession, which allows shutting down the PC, reboot, log out, etc. These various components depend on a minimal set of additional packages without the need for a full desktop manager.
Bento antiX provides the PCManFM file manager to display wallpapers and icons on the desktop. Other setups are possible (Nitrogen, feh, iDesk…).
The included pre-built configuration files form a ready-to-use graphical system out of the box, while remaining fully customizable.
This configuration has the advantage of being very light on resources without sacrificing ease of use.
Common applications to both versions
Internet
- Firefox: the web browser from the Mozilla Foundation.
- antiX Viewer: ultra-lightweight web browser, ideal for machines with limited resources.
Graphics
- Feh: lightweight image viewer, controllable via command line.
Accessories
- L3afpad: simple text editor.
File manager
- PCManFM: lightweight and fast file manager, with desktop management.
System
- Synaptic Package Manager: complete graphical interface for installing, updating, and removing packages.
- Zram-control: graphical application to load and unload the Zram kernel module on the fly. Zram artificially increases the amount of RAM available in the system by compressing data in memory.
- GParted: graphical partition manager.
Preferences
- Display (ARandR): graphical interface to configure monitors and screen resolution.
- Appearance (LXAppearance): to customize GTK themes, icons, and fonts.
Network
- Broadcom Manager: tool for managing proprietary drivers for Broadcom network cards. Essential for machines equipped with this type of hardware.
- Connman: wired and wireless network connection manager.
- Connman-ui: graphical interface for Connman.
Console tools
- Sakura: lightweight terminal emulator.
- htop: interactive system monitor and process manager.
- mc (Midnight Commander): twin-panel console file manager (a versatile tool supporting remote filesystems and archive browsing)..
- rsync: synchronization and backup of local or remote files.
- scrot: command-line screenshot tool.
All other applications needed for everyday use as well as occasional tasks are available and installable via the Synaptic Package Manager.
64-bit version
Name: bento-antiX-Spring_20260517_64bits.iso Size: 1.5 GB Kernel: Linux 6.12.86 md5sum: 46a2ff9557be3c0dba1dd13b7bbd4928 sha512sum: 581fe912166fa0b02b2d592003a45d35e82a9e117b0a81fde55e4fe92942d85072b437d2e9f3a9c47abc93e74524bb6c688554fc7b431226003ef6a4327063dd
Accessories
- File Roller: graphical archive manager (zip, tar, gz, etc.).
System
- Printer configuration: add and manage printers.
32-bit version
Name: bento-antiX-Spring_20260517_i686.iso Size: 1.5 GB Kernel: Linux 6.1.170 (686-PAE) md5sum: 75e4d3e0f33288b611fc56232a74ed3a sha512sum: c6c9b5edb887a1bf80383d687e4ffab893318bd6a3c5ab286266979411e49a69a0effcef305c94ddeda758299af8088e150f6a8836b6c777bff184d9060391e5
Preferences
- PowerStats (gnome-power-manager): energy consumption statistics.