Distros of interest and why.

[exploder]

zerozero, PCLinuxOS has a group of volunteers that help with packaging. PCLinuxOS does have some gtk elements but it looks like they only use what they need for specific things. I like how it is set up by default so gtk apps that use administrator privileges look native in KDE, most distros you have to do this yourself. I liked the way the root actions were included in Dolphin too. I have never seen quick fixes for Ubuntu though, in my experience they tend to leave things broken or fix them and just break them again with the next update. In Ubuntu I kept seeing the return of the udev issue where my CD-ROM tray kept opening and closing. In Ubuntu my graphics drivers keep breaking, they will work fine for a while then suddenly I get the message that they are installed but not in use. I get so irritated reading all of the news articles about how great Ubuntu is when they can't even keep the basic system in one piece!

I was just so fed up with Ubuntu I had to find something that worked!

[zerozero]

my comment about Ubuntu was sarcastic of course

the gtk integration is very good, the non-kde applications fit very well, FF looks almost native, synaptic you can't tell is not qt; impressive, really

ahh, and i went ahead and installed the 38.6 pae bfs kernel, flawless!! with two clicks

[exploder]

my comment about Ubuntu was sarcastic of course

Yeah, I should have thought about that for a minute! From reading most of your posts I should have realized that you like high quality. I am not too happy with Ubuntu right now, they have disappointed me too many times now.....

[zerozero]

tks exploder very kind

[mychance]

Just for the sake of pure interest, I enjoyed having a peek at Sugar OS, the system loaded in the OLPC laptops. Here is a small distro that looks like nothing you commonly see on the broad Linux highway. Not very practical for my daily use though.

[exploder]

I have looked at screenshots of Sugar OS, it looks to be the king of lightweight operating systems and I have to admire why it was built.

[linXea]

I admire the SugarLabs guys. Great work

[lmintnewb]

+1 AntiX 11 ... simply marvelous. Also d&mn small linux just caught my attention. Pretty neat lil distro. I might actually install this thing to drive and by small they ARE NOT kidding. Download is like 50mbs and with a browser open it's using all of 64mbs. Wonder what it could do if it were actually native to the system !

Anybody had any experience with installing dsl to hdd ? How'd it turn out ?

[nunol]

DSL is a nice little distro, it uses very little RAM and HDD, I requires a 486DX or better CPU and if you pre-install a SWAP partition you can boot into a GUI with 12MB of RAM with the "lowram" cheat code and with 32-64MB of RAM you can use Firefox 2.x. However there are a few problems, DSL 4.4.10 is a 2008 release that has no security updates to this date, you are always in root mode and some of the software is showing it's age and it's roots (old Knoppix release).

Unless you are using a computer with less than 64MB I would prefer AntiX or Puppy over DSL. A frugal Puppy install is also very small and a Puppy full install fits into 500MB.

[lmintnewb]

Wow ... thanks much nunol.

Have 512mbs/ram. But am amazed by what these lil distro's can do. Antix 11, is my main OS. Think it's awesome ! Thanks a lot for the info. Will heed your advice ... Puppy was on the things to try list. lol ... was using a util I found called sardu to combine a bunch of iso's onto 1 livecd. Had some room left and the dsl iso was only 50mbs. Figured why not ? Otherwise would've just been wasted space on the cd and wanted to see what summin that tiny could do.

Anyway ... again appreciate the info. Ya might have saved me some serious pains and tech problems. I had no idea about the security issues. Looked around for a firewall or summin to enable in dsl and didn't find anything.

[nunol]

Puppy also always runs in root and it doesn't have security updates but it's a 2011 release and it releases often.

With 512MB of RAM to play with I would go with a Mint release as my main OS. Mint 9 Fluxbox, Mint 10 LXDE and Mint XFCE work great with 512MB of RAM but Debian LXDE/XFCE, Crunchbang, AntiX and Puppy are faster and use less RAM.

[k357k9]

I've got my eyes on Pardus

So do I. It has been highly praised by some of the reviewers. I ran it off the LiveDVD for a while and it was very nice. But, when is KDE 4.6 going to be ready?

[exploder]

On the earlier subject of very light distros, SliTaz is pretty amazing. I installed SliTaz on a Pentium 166 system with 32 MB of RAM and a 1 GB hard drive, believe it or not the system was quick! I figured a computer that old had no other use than being a doorstop but SliTaz made it a useful machine again. I gave that computer to a guy at work about 2 years ago, he is still using it!

[lmintnewb]

Thanks a lot ! ... Runs off to check out SliTaz. Definitely sounds like just the type of distro I'll be really interested in.

[exploder]

Thanks a lot ! ... Runs off to check out SliTaz. Definitely sounds like just the type of distro I'll be really interested in.

Glad I could be of help. When I installed SliTaz on first boot it came up with some language settings, it was a one time thing. Just thought I would mention this so you would not be surprised by it.

Edit: I just looked at the system requirements for SliTaz on Distrowatch, it now says 256 MB of RAM. The minimum used to be much lower but I think it still is worth a try. From what I saw with the previous release I don't think you could get any lighter of a system.

[exploder]

SliTaz should be alright according to this.

Supported Hardware

SliTaz GNU/Linux supports all machines based on the i486 or x86 Intel compatible processors. A minimum 192MB of memory is recommended to use the core LiveCD. 80MB is needed for the "slitaz-loram" flavor and 16MB for the "slitaz-loram-cdrom" flavor.

With the slitaz-loram flavor, the system is less responsive, but allows you to graphically install SliTaz on very old machines with limited resources. Once installed, SliTaz works well with a minimum of 16MB memory, but forget about using Firefox to surf the web - you'll have to use the text based 'links' for example.

SliTaz 3.0 provides all needed drivers and tools such as 915resolution to have support for a wide range of netbooks (Eeepc, HP mini, Aspire One, etc).

[lmintnewb]

Looked good ... am brewing up the recipe for another mixed livecd and SliTaz will definitely have a place. Along with puppy ... have heard so much about that one, itching to try it. Have 512mbs/ram ... So this old dinosaur should have what it takes to try those distro's out. That and the infamous crunchbang.

It's amazing to me what the people who develop linux can do with software. From Mint onto so many others. Cannot help but be blown away by the selection and options linux developers have brought people. AMAZING stuff.

Was digging around and stumbled on this post in the ubuntu forum. Mentions a ton of diff distro's ranging from the feather weight to light middle weight divisions. Several of them are probably not around anymore ... since it's from 07'. But has me scratching my head wondering just how many linux distro's and variations of distro's there are .. yikes.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=575456

Sorry if posting that's off topic. Not necessarily interested in those distro's. Have no experience with them personally. Crunchbang, puppy and slitaz I'd be interested in trying. AntiX is top shelf imo.

[exploder]

lmintnewb, I would be very interested in your thoughts on SliTaz when you install it. I thought that SliTaz could keep a lot of old computers in use and out of the landfills. I was amazed by the small size of the iso and how well the old machine I put in on ran.

[thouartsimple]

I have to say, I really like PCLinuxOS! I've installed the KDE edition and had it replace Xubuntu in my multiboot environment. I'll put some sort of XFCE on there later, just not sure which distro yet. Any suggestions? =)

Thanks!

[lmintnewb]

SliTaz is a neat and blazing lil distro. Appreciate you bringing it up exploder. Finally got a chance to play around with it a bit from livecd. How do they do it ? Amazing what the linux developers of the world can do. How do they pack an entire OS on to summin so tiny ?

Wasn't sure if I was going to try putting it on hdd.

Installer only gives two options. Grub to mbr or no grub and I really like the legacy grub set-up I have. You have to pre-partition for it apparently and edit the /etc/fstab file to point it to a swap. etc. Though you were right ... it's a really slick lil distro and now I'm hooked. Want to see what it can do from a hard drive and shouldn't be all that much trouble to install grub to it's root partition.

Liking it ALOT so far. Thanks for letting me know such a distro even existed exploder.