14 DAY TRIAL // The developers of the Debian-based antiX Linux operating system released today new Alpha builds of the upcoming antiX 17 series, the first public images based on Debian Stretch.
antiX 17 Linux entered development a while ago, at the end of January, but it was available for testing only as netboot images that offer a minimal base system allowing users to install the Linux-based operating system over a network.
Today we witness the release of the first public Alpha builds of antiX 17, which include packages from the software repositories of the soon-to-be-released Debian GNU/Linux 9 "Stretch" operating system, and are powered by a kernel from the long-term supported Linux 4.9 series.
Also included in the Alpha 2 milestone of antiX 17 Linux is a version of the Luckybackup system backup utility built against the latest Qt 5 technologies. Users are informed that the default cheats disable the Wicd network manager, so they'll have to use ceni to connect to the Internet.
Available only for 32-bit systems
The antiX 17 Linux Alpha 2 images also come with some debranded antiX MX, but they are available only for 32-bit systems at the moment of writing this article. However, you'll notice that the ISOs will no longer fit on a CD, so make sure that you're burning them on DVDs or USB flash drives of 2GB or higher capacity (recommended).
Tools like xz-utils, lockfile-progs, and gettext-base are also pre-installed in antiX 17 Linux Alpha 2, along with the eudev device file manager, which still needs some testing before it can be used as a replacement for SysVinit, which remains the default init system for now.
The antiX 17 Alpha 2 ISO images are available for download right now from our website, but please note that this is a pre-release version of the operating system. 64-bit ISOs should be available during the next phase of the development cycle, most probably when the Alpha 3 or Beta 1 releases arrive.