Distros of interest and why.

[nunol]

Slitaz is very nice.

Don't know why you need to get to such a extreme OS to have a fast system. What's your computer hardware?

You can always go back to FreeDOS!

[exploder]

Slitaz is very nice.

Don't know why you need to get to such a extreme OS to have a fast system. What's your computer hardware?

You can always go back to FreeDOS!

I think he just enjoys seeing how fast and light he can get things to run. I have to admire the effort and anyone that can get that number of operating systems recognized in grub has real talent.

[thouartsimple]

Slitaz is very nice.

Don't know why you need to get to such a extreme OS to have a fast system. What's your computer hardware?

You can always go back to FreeDOS!

I think he just enjoys seeing how fast and light he can get things to run. I have to admire the effort and anyone that can get that number of operating systems recognized in grub has real talent.

Hehe, yeah, he's doing a great job =D I love reading his posts... full of so much enthusiasm. I had to switch to Legacy Grub to get all my OSes to boot on my desktop. I have LM11, LM10 KDE, PCLinuxOS KDE, LM10 LXDE, and Bodhi Linux... and I will probably add more later. =P Legacy GRUB is so much easier to deal with than GRUB2...

[lmintnewb]

Thanks exploder ... for a lot of stuff.

Yeah exploder pegged me. It's just the resource miser. The comp can handle more, P4 2.8ghz and 512mbs DDR2. It's just a compulsion to see how far things can be pushed. If someone would've told me a full OS install with everything you need to run a comp could be done in under 300mbs.

I'd have been extremely skeptical with only a M$ background. XP the slowest OS installed by far in all respects. Sitting on like 7+GB's of disk space. ( well almost 50 total, but with windows ya need room for security apps, sec patches and virus database updates, lol.)

But seeing is believing and now that he introduced me to Slitaz. Have no choice but to believe it, lol. The rest is just wondering just how much linux developers have been able to eek out of hardware. It's amazing what can be done with linux.

(edit) It's also really intriguing to think with stuff like this. Hardware and systems that could only be used as coasters before. Could honestly be turned into a really snappy fully functional comp. Think exploders dead on in sayin that.

[nunol]

Well, while old linux distros are obsolete you can try some old Debian, Slackware, DSL, Deli, small linux or basic linux.

Also, there was a howto that I used when I was trying to install linux on 386/486 with 4MB of RAM in late 90's (before that linux run fine in CLI on 4MB of RAM): http://tldp.org/HOWTO/4mb-Laptops.html

If you are open to other kernel (not linux) you may want to try KolibriOS:
http://www.kolibrios.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KolibriOS

[exploder]

lmintnewb, my father-in-law bought a semi truck load of old Pentium PCs with 32 MB of RAM for $20.00. I had to think of a way to make them usable again. My father-in-law got impatient and started putting the computers in the trash a few at a time. I discovered SliTaz, loaded it on a few of these computers. I sold a few of them to make his money back, with some profit and gave some away to people that really needed them.

I see a lot of people getting rid of P4 systems real cheap, to me that is still pretty decent hardware. I would like to start buying up used systems, put on a remastered install of PCLinuxOS and sell them to catch up my bills. I am currently on medical leave from work, had to have my right foot re-constructed. I don't plan on getting rich, just make some extra cash. Recovery time for my bones to heal is 3 to 4 months.

[lmintnewb]

Wow ... sorry 2 hear that exploder.


But seems like you have no shortage of craftiness and tech know how. See zero wrong with the concept either. Was thinking at one time of starting a biz to do consultation, setup, migration and basic tech support ( includ remote ) to opensource for people.

Realistically ... think you're onto something there. Could see otherwise unusable tech being brought back online with a simple idea and the skills ya already have. Sheesh, think you'd even be doing some folks a favor on top of it. And sticking it to the malware coders of the world all in one fell swoop.

Hoping for a swift and total recovery for ya for sure.


( random edit) Thanks for the info nunol .. Might play around with that sometime. Didna know such existed either. And thouartsimple too.

Thought of summin to add about that midori issue. Think I resolved it in Mint 10 by upgrading to midori version 0.3.5.1. Don't recall it having the same issue in that version. Also don't know if that version of midori is avail or supported under Slitaz. Or if ya can just add the midori and webkit ppa's and be good to go .. dunno.

Just thought to add that for people who absolutely have to have a really low resource web browser. Midori was the fastest, lowest resource, closet to being full featured web browser I was able to find ( supports flash/java etc). Though mentioned it has a few short comings ... no PW manager etc. Supposed to be some work arounds for those issues too. Never got around to finding them though.

[nunol]

There is a new Midori version, 0.3.6: http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2011/05/mido ... peed-bump/

There is another nice OS (non linux), Haiku:
http://haiku-os.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haiku_%28o ... _system%29

I tested Haiku one year ago and was hopping for a R2 release but I am still waiting...

[lmintnewb]

wow, already came out with a newer version of midori ? Yikes ... is it official, or some private cook up someone did ?

Like midori ... extremely light and snappy web browser that has most of what a full web browser does. Though not having a password manager and well working autoform filler to go with, makes it tedious to use. Mentioned there's supposed to be work arounds for all that. Just thinking if the guy behind it were serious about promoting it. He'd resolve such stuff, shrugs.

Was another one that's supposed to be fairly well featured ( java/flash ... etc) really light-weight. That does have a PW manager etc Arora. Tried it too, but must've borked summin. Cause it's RAM use was horrible. Not sure what I did wrong with it. Might not have installed the webkit is uses correctly or summin else was amiss. Also not sure if having midori and arora installed at the same time contributed. They use diff webkits apparently .. not sure if that caused a conflict or whatever.

Just mentioning this stuff again. For folks who really do have ultra low-sys resources. But still want/need a browser that can do java & flash. Cause midori and/or arora would be where I'd start looking in that situation.

Slitaz is neat ... total install is a lil over 250mbs on my hdd. Uses more RAM than I thought and like. But still an impressive lil distro. Cause at least for what it uses it's extremely snappy. Boots faster than anything else I have installed, shutdown fast ... apps are up and running quick/quick. Agree with what exploder said and the creator of the distro mentioned on his site. Wouldn't want to try slitaz on a sys with less than 256mbs/ram.

Sure someone could tweak it and compromise on diff stuff and get by with less than 256mbs. But don't think it'd be nearly as comfortable a computing experience ( not w a default install anyway ). Still really impressed with it though and hats off to the guy who created it.

[nunol]

Testing MeeGo 1.2 now...

Hope this distro goes far, a true linux in the phone world. Version 1.1 was very fast but as it gets more complete I expect it to become slower. Let's see, the live pen is ready.

[lmintnewb]

Thought to add summin else about Slitaz. Was wrong ... once installed it did pick up the swap on it's own ... no prob. Didnt have to edit fstab or nuttin.

Was hoping to get some feedback on another distro I recently stumbled on. From anyone who's actually had some hands on with it. A distro called absolute linux ... Supposed to be a really great distro for older/lower resource hardware ... Or for newer stuff too for that matter.

Wondering if anyone's used it and what the final impression was ? Thanks ...

[exploder]

I am still having a great time with PCLinuxOS.



Uploaded with ImageShack.us

I got 38 updates today, among them was the latest version of java and the Virtualbox script was updated so I now have the latest version. For some reason a couple of apps I did not want got pulled in but I quickly removed them and I am happy how this system just keeps on running.

[craig10x]

exploder..is that the kde version or did you "one panel" the gnome version
also, how did you get the lower panel to be that small (as far as adjusting it)? And that color (black) ?
They haven't put out a new iso in quite some time have they? Also, what happened with the 64 bit version that was supposed to be released?

Nice car by the way...

[thouartsimple]

I'm with exploder here... I am in love with PCLinuxOS KDE. It's so awesome =D It has to be the best rolling release distro period. =P



Just because he posted his! =P

[lmintnewb]

(update) Installed absolute linux 13.37 .. Figured out how to boot it. Tried it out a lil bit and got rid of it. Saw no advantage to keeping it over what I've already got installed. Used more and less user friendly than the others. Still not a bad distro I guess. Just not what I was looking for.

Next up ... vector linux light v 6.0, may as well try it too eh ?

Got the livecd for PCOSlinux. Haven't tried it beyond live session. If exploder ( and others ) are rating it highly must be a great distro. It's partially based on xubuntu and I'm allergic to anything buntu though, shrugs. Again .... cannot see it bringing anything more to the table than distro's already installed. Probably my loss ... oh well.

[exploder]

exploder..is that the kde version or did you "one panel" the gnome version
also, how did you get the lower panel to be that small (as far as adjusting it)? And that color (black) ?
They haven't put out a new iso in quite some time have they? Also, what happened with the 64 bit version that was supposed to be released?

Nice car by the way...

Yes it's the KDE mini. I set the panel to the KDE default and actually had to make it a little bit taller to make clicking on the icons easier. The reason the new quarterly releases have not come out yet is because they are updating the tool chain. Currently, new xserver-org packages are being tested and they are trying to work out problems with some nvidea graphics. PCLinuxOS is also going to go with a different package manager because Synaptic is no longer being developed for rpm based distributions. No official announcement has been made as to what package manager will be used at this time.

PCLinuxOS releases when ready and that is something I like very much. I have not heard anymore about a 64 bit release but I do see 64 bit kernels are built. 64 bit packages would have to be built in order to support a 64 bit release, that would be an enormous amount of work. I just used the 2.6.38-6 bfs pae kernel and I am happy with the performance of the system. These guys have managed to teach me to be patient, the end result is always worth the wait.

thouartsimple, I have to agree, PCLinuxOS is the best rolling release. I don't mind doing a re-install once in a while but it sure makes my life easier not having to. For a small group of volunteers these guys and gals do big things. I am amazed these guys build all of their own packages and they manage to find bug fixes for so many things. Texstar really made a huge impression on me when he found problems with nvidea graphics with xserver-org 1.10.1 and built some xserver-org 1.9.5 packages to try and resolve the problems. Rather than use the latest, greatest, Texstar was more concerned about peoples hardware working. Texstar really cares about people and what he releases and that has made a lasting impression on me.

[exploder]

Got the livecd for PCOSlinux. Haven't tried it beyond live session. If exploder ( and others ) are rating it highly must be a great distro. It's partially based on xubuntu and I'm allergic to anything buntu though, shrugs. Again .... cannot see it bringing anything more to the table than distro's already installed. Probably my loss ... oh well.

PCLinuxOS is not technically based on anything, they build their packages from source and they use source from many distributions. In the early days PCLinuxOS was based on Mandrake, some of the tools are still variations of Mandriva's tools but they are heavily modified to work in PCLinuxOS. If you compare the tools in both distributions you will see that there is quite a difference. You might want to look at the 2011 releases when they come out because they have made a lot of changes and there are more to come.

[m.keane]

Without meaning to blow any self-trumpets... I'd just like to take the chance to put
a little project I'm involved in into the lime light.
Many times we've tried getting it off the ground, but now its really happening.
Its a project Ikey Doherty and myself are working on, SolusOS.
There's no download just yet, but keep your ears open all the same..
http://www.solusos.comxa.com/

[exploder]

I would be interested in anything ikey is involved with. ikey is a brilliant individual with real talent and good ideas. Nice to see ikey is doing well and using his talent.

[AlbertP]

Mint is an interesting distro. Especially Mint 11 with its fast boot (if the power bug wasn't there).