Distros of interest and why.

[exploder]

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

Your welcome! Thank you for posting your experience with SliTaz. I was totally amazed how fast SliTaz ran on such old hardware. Systems I would have thrown away can now be put back into use and given to people that are really in need of a computer. I am a big fan of the SliTaz Developers and the work they are doing.

[lmintnewb]

Interesting perspective on things for sure. Nothing wrong with thinking about the greater good. Believe you're right too. In more ways than one ... morally and technically speaking.

Will quit hogging the thread. Thanks again for the recommendation. If it runs as well from disk as it does from livecd. Then I'm sold and will promote it to people with older hardware as well. Still can't believe what a talented software developer can do !!! My M$ install is like 7-8GB's. This thing ... plan on giving it 1 so it has plenty of room to grow. And majority of that will be empty when the install's finished. Yet asking myself what an M$ OS can do that this tiny lil bit of software can't ?

lol ... it has midori as default browser !!! Had recently become a fan of midori ... Being a resource miser an all. Here goes nothing folks. If ya don't hear from me in the next few hours I borked it.

[exploder]

lmintnewb, you are not hogging this thread, you are contributing to it and I appreciate your comments. It's nice to see what interests people and we all have a nice opportunity to learn from each other. There are experiences posted here that we would never see in any review because these are real user experiences. I have a much better understanding of Slackware now and see why people enjoy it so much. I hope the thread keeps growing because there is a lot more we can learn from each other.

[thouartsimple]

explorer: Do you know of a good XFCE distro I should try? I could always go for LM XFCE, but last time I had that... let's say I struggled a bit with it because I'm not sure Debian is good for me

Thanks!

[exploder]

The best Xfce system I have tried is Linux Mint 9 Xfce, it's an LTS so there is still plenty of support time remaining. Someone else might know of a more current release though. I had some problems with the Debian based Xfce release myself.

[lmintnewb]

(random update) Nothing borked, that I couldn't manage to unbork. Though not fully successful either. Tried a bunch of stuff and due to my linux newbness ... Not yet able to get slitaz to boot successfully via my other bootloader. So far all I've managed is a partial boot that goes into a kernel panic. I'm sure for someone who actually knows a thing or 3 about linux they'd have no problem sorting it out in 5mins.

Also could just use the Slitaz bootloader and edit it's grub menu.lst to boot my other stuff. But I'm finicky and want things my way. I like antix's boot layout and want to preserve it the way it is ... just add Slitaz to it.

Oh well ... not the end of the world. It'll give me a proj to play with as time permits.

Which Slitaz is still a fast and neat lil linux distro. Will just leave it's partition until I can figure out a way to boot it normally, the way I want it. Otherwise there's always it's livecd to use too.

[exploder]

lmintnewb, you will get it all sorted out. I did not know you were running antiX! anticapitalista makes the most complete system with IceWM out there.

Edit: For someone that claims to be a newb you sure have some very advanced interests! You will go far.

[lmintnewb]

lol .. thanks a lot exploder. From someone who's been using Linux as long as you have. That actually means something.

[lmintnewb]

SUCCESS !!!

Posting from SliTaz/midori now. Was an odd problem I was having ... The newer, old grub legacy that Antix uses. Uses the syntax sda to identify the partitions. The older, old grub legacy Slitaz uses ... uses hda instead. So had to make a couple changes to the entry I was adding to AntiX's menu.lst to reflect that and .... SUCCESS !!! SWEET SUCCESS !!!

Random note: Both of these distro's allow for someone to upgrade to using grub2. I'm just keeping the old grub legacy that came with AntiX. Cause I like it.

lol ...

[vrkalak]

I used Fluxbox in the older anti-X (8 and 8.5) releases ... I'm not so familiar with Flux but I muddle through.

The new release of anti-X M11 defaults into IceWM ... fast and easy. And it works on my ancient laptop.
The IceWM is better for my needs and is more familiar to me; as it more resembles the Xfce desktop ... right-click menu and all.

I just downloaded the anti-X M11- 'base' release . . . which boots into a new Fluxbox WM.
All I can say about Fluxbox in the anti-X M11-'base' is ... WOW!!

The anti-X Devs have out-done themselves in the development, design, layout and implementation of Fluxbox in anti-X. This is a fun and easy to use Flux/anti-X distro.

I would normally install Xfce, but I am going to spend a lot of time playing with and customizing this version of Fluxbox and anti-X.

If you want to try out and experience a very light and fast, highly configurable version of Fluxbox ... checkout anti-X M11 - 'base' edition. (
The .iso files for anti-X M11-'base' is 360 Mb - total. Anti-X is based on Debian-testing.

Anti-X > http://antix.mepis.org/index.php?title=Main_Page

[lmintnewb]

Well there's two of us who are very pleased that exploder started this thread.

Big fan of both antix and now going to learn to love slitaz too. Betting fluxbox will grow and grow on you vrkalak. Once you add some keyboard shortcuts to it ... It's magnificent. You'll wonder why ya ever used other DE's, lol.

The default in AntiX 11 ... is nothing to sneeze at either. Ridiculous how lil resources it uses for all that it offers ... jmo's. Haven't had time to fully explore Slitaz yet. But initial impression would have to conclude same thing applies. How did they poss include this feature rich of a desktop on summin this small !?!?!? Unbelievable.

Gawd this lil distro is amazing. Updating it takes all of a split second. It installed the flash player and upgraded over 200 packages in like 2mins !!! Just clicked update all. I mean then I had to click on search in it's package manager and do a search for flash. The package popped up ... clicked on it. Clicked install ... BAM !!! Done in like 30 secs and have flash.

Have bob marley playing on youtube while typing this !!!! Thanks sooooo much exploder !

(edit) Alright ... done ranting about other distros on Mint's forum. The stuff the Magic Mint developers make is nothing to sneeze at too.

[nunol]

I played with AntiX M11 when it was released and tested some of the WM available:

The used RAM was measured with the "free -m" command on a console with the OS running in Virtualbox.
RAM used, OS WM (and notes):
52MB, Crunchbang Openbox (with network-manager)
49MB, Archbang (with wicd)
43MB, AntiX iceWM (with wicd)
37MB, AntiX Fluxbox (without wicd)
33MB, AntiX iceWM (without wicd)
27MB, AntiX wmii (without wicd)
24MB, AntiX dwm (without wicd)

AntiX is light just like Debian with the same WM but it's already (well) made.

[exploder]

nunol, those are some very impressive numbers! I am amazed that such a full featured system can have such a light memory footprint.

(edit) Alright ... done ranting about other distros on Mint's forum. The stuff the Magic Mint developers make is nothing to sneeze at too.

You are free to talk about any distros you like here.

[nunol]

Debian 5 and 6 have the same RAM usage numbers (except Fluxbox, in Debian it takes about 31MB) but because you have to assemble the OS yourself it takes more time and work and the finished OS is not as nice, AntiX is just better.

Remember that this number don't include cache or buffers. With a SWAP partition you can run AntiX (or Debian 6) with 64MB of RAM but even with Midori and one web page opened it swap's to much. It works better with 128MB of RAM.

[exploder]

vrkalak, I enjoyed reading you comments on antiX. I have known anticapitalista for a long time, matter of fact he was one of the people that got me interested in Fluxbox in the first place. anticapitalista used to have instructions for setting up Fluxbox in the Mepis wiki years ago. As soon as I saw the screenshot of Fluxbox, I had to try it. I have set up IceWM but I had to google everything and it took me the better part of a day to get everything working. It sure is nice to see distros being developed to run on older hardware and for people that just don't want a lot of bloat. I get old machines for free every once in a while and it is nice to be able to make them useful and put them back in service again.

[lmintnewb]

Is forever grateful to exploder for the referral and starting this thread.

Am also impressed by the awesome sys resource stats nunol is getting and am jealous, lol. Ye must've tweaked a bit to get that ... I'm jealous. Went with default antix install and idles at like 65mbs/ram. I am jealous !

It's the resource miser in me I guess. Agree with exploder o course. Now having experienced what linux developers can pack into so small a package. Asking myself why any of the other distro's would want to go the other way and bloat, bloat, bloat, bloat, bloattttttttttt their stuff out.

Could go in and start parring down antix I guess. But why ... it already uses so lil sys resources and zips along fine. I'd probably just bork it up. Still jealous of nunol's linux tweaking skills.

(random over elaboration) Think they should all release a streamlined base and let people add to it as they see fit. Don't know why I could poss want a default install that uses 250mbs of my precious ram!. Then have to tweak it 1,342 ways to get it down. Risking the dreaded borkage all the while.

When I can have summin using 65mbs and runs better right out of the box, shrugs.

[nunol]

In Virtualbox a OS uses less memory than when it's running in bare metal (unless it loads some package to better support the VM). Also, take note that I didn't install cups or wicd (I am missing the other AntiX install option).

Most linux install way more than I need, so I rather build something from a base Debian install and just install what I need or use a light weight distro like AntiX or Puppy to save time and work.

You can lower that memory usage by using other WM (dmw is pretty light but basic- read the keys combinations), remove a few consoles (you don't need 6 every time, 2 or 3 is fine), move to faster and lighter applications, remove applications and services that you don't need or use often.

[lmintnewb]

nunol ye are a linux user after my own heart.

Definitely agree with the base is better and am interested in the barebones debian install you mention. Though know more than a lil about tweaking linux installs now. After a raging battle to chop down Mint 10. I managed to get it much lighter than it was at default but was never satisfied with it's resource use.

I tweaked, I borked, I unborked, tweaked some more, reborked, reunborked and reinstalled more than a few times through-out the process, lol. After finding these lighter weight distro's. No longer see the point in having to tweak.

Also agree ... and was thinking about it awhile ago. Just don't see why all these linux distro's are insisting on coming so bloated by default. Including 1,321 apps/progs people have never heard of. Nor have any use for, shrugs.

Isn't that what package managers are for and repos and software managers ? If someone wants something, they can add it ... right.

Just more linux newb babbling ... sighs.

[nunol]

Distros have so much packages/programs installed and configured from default so it works out of the box with most hardware for most types of utilization, especially for new users that sometimes lack the ability to install what they need or just don't know they can and is only a few clicks away.

Besides Debian, Arch is another nice distro to learn how to build your own OS.

[lmintnewb]

Am definitely interested in basic debian and arch. Though are still a lil bit outta my league as a linux newb. Would probably bork things in the attempt.

These lighter distro's are already amazing. Don't know, it's kinda a compulsion to see how small and how lil I can get a linux distro to use. Slitaz has become my new favorite. Amazing lil distro. Actually uses more ram than antix. But boots faster, loads apps faster, runs smoother, has a neat lil cpu monitor by default on the toolbar, shutdowns a bit quicker ... Amazing.

You can install .... be surfing the net with flash and a variation of FF called Shiretoko in 20mins. ( Which seems to run faster on this. Than a tweaked FF 4.01 did on Mint 10, even though I think it's based on FF 3.5+ version.)

Had to get rid of midori. No password manager, plus it has some odd tendency to crash and all of a sudden lock up for no apparent reason. The cpu spikes to 100% and stays there with midori sometimes on this box.) Easy fix though ... search Slitaz package manager for firefox. Up pops Shiretoko ... click on, click install. Done in 30 secs and ya ready to surf in style.

Total time elapsed from setting up a partition for it, installing it, updating packages, installing flash, installing new browser and surfing da net ? ... Probably under 30mins ! lol ... including downloading the livecd and burning it !

(edit) Well assuming ya know how to fiddle with grub. Took me probably 10hrs to figure out how to get Slitaz to boot under AntiX's grub legacy version and boot normally from it's grub menu. Might not have the same headaches if a person were using grub2. Which I liked antix's legacy so wanted to keep it the way it was. Recall both antix and slitaz allow for someone to use/install grub2.

Also heard of a variation of puppy called Turbopup Extreme. Think it's latest is like version 2.summin. Anyone heard of ... used it and how'd it go ? Thing is supposed to use like 10mbs/ram !!!