Need a small but fully featured linux distro!

[joecop120]

Ok, heres the situation:

Got a gigabyte i-ram, originally for an XP install. Only put 3gb ddr-400 into it though, and even after using nLite I still had disk space issues when I wanted to install things (like openoffice or office) to a 160gb sata drive. Ended up having to install everything to the 160gb drive.

Now, I have this i-ram being used as the worlds fastest pagefile drive...and would like to turn it into a quickboot to linux for browsing and email.

I've searched and found Xubuntu and Gentoo, however, am hesitant to pick one or the other.

Any input would be great! Thanks!

[HuffPCair]

I have unbuntu on my laptop and I love it. Lite and quick OS and very customizable.

[joecop120]

regular ubuntu is too large to fit. I need something less than 3gb including some installs and paging.

[[XC] moddolicous]

If you do some research, you can build a gentoo install that won't take up much space at all. DSL (Damn Small Linux) should work also. I think it has an email client, an internet browser and maybe even a word processor.

[joecop120]

yeah i had a friend recommend "DSL" but i am a little leary of the security of it. I'll try the gentoo tomorrow, see how it works!

[pwolfe]

ubuntu has a ton of space taken up by just desktop environment packages. Maybe try one of the lightweight de remixes. That way you can still take advantage of ubuntu's harware support and apt-get packaging.

http://fluxbuntu.org

http://www.xubuntu.org

[Dr_Swizz]

I shrinked an ubuntu installation to fit on a 2GB SD-card, so a 3GB installation shouldn't be too problematic.
Ubuntu contains a ton of libraries that doean't appear to used by anything. There is also allot of fonts for odd languages that use way too much space. A custom kernel and minimalistic window manager will also save you some space.

[joecop120]

Thanks! Hopefully others can use this thread, as a lot of low capacity SSD's are to be found on the cheap.

[Gogeta]

Gentoo would probably be the best in terms of installing only the bare essentials as you have the opportunity to select only the kernel modules required for your rig on install. It is also the most technically involved and will "have you" before its apparent a la http://xkcd.com/456/. That being said, Arch Linux gives you very close to the same amount of customization with a text-based installer allowing you to deselect extraneous packages and edit mkinitcpio.conf for modules. It also makes use of the best CLI package manager I've ever used in any distribution. There are thousands of packages in the official repositories and hundreds more in the AUR which are maintained by users and usually don't require more than a download + "makepkg -i"

My vote: Arch + Openbox and your browser, file manager, office suite, music player, etc of choice. It really doesn't get any better for what you're trying to do or otherwise.

www.archlinux.org

Edit: My main server is running Arch and has been since May without a reinstall and minimal downtime. Since May I've only managed to use 4.4GiB on the root filesystem, not including /home. The machine runs NFS, SMB/CIFS, NTP, CUPS, SANE, BIND, rsync, MySQL, Apache, and I've just begun to experiment with iSCSI....so its not like she's underused.

[kiikkuja]

Gentoo would probably be the best in terms of installing only the bare essentials as you have the opportunity to select only the kernel modules required for your rig on install. It is also the most technically involved and will "have you" before its apparent a la http://xkcd.com/456/. That being said, Arch Linux gives you very close to the same amount of customization with a text-based installer allowing you to deselect extraneous packages and edit mkinitcpio.conf for modules. It also makes use of the best CLI package manager I've ever used in any distribution. There are thousands of packages in the official repositories and hundreds more in the AUR which are maintained by users and usually don't require more than a download + "makepkg -i"

My vote: Arch + Openbox and your browser, file manager, office suite, music player, etc of choice. It really doesn't get any better for what you're trying to do or otherwise.

www.archlinux.org

Edit: My main server is running Arch and has been since May without a reinstall and minimal downtime. Since May I've only managed to use 4.4GiB on the root filesystem, not including /home. The machine runs NFS, SMB/CIFS, NTP, CUPS, SANE, BIND, rsync, MySQL, Apache, and I've just begun to experiment with iSCSI....so its not like she's underused.

My vote is Gentoo. I ran a little while 64-bit arch and it was horrible. Maybe the packet count has been increased but back then ~6 months ago there wasn't enough packets and the experience was terrible. Gentoo on the other hand was nice from the get go. It doesn't matter if you use 32 or 64-bit the packet count is ~20000 still and I love it personally. You can do what ever you like with it!!

[pwolfe]

I've been messing with this lately, its new from SuSE:

http://studio.suse.com/

I've been using it to make my own version of the ultimate boot cd with just the tools I need.

:edit: I felt I should mention, its invite only atm, I already gave mine to colleagues but if you poke around you might be able to find one.

[Logos]

if you want a distro with minimal foot print on HDD/SSD, use this:
http://linux.softpedia.com/get/System/Operating-Systems/Linux-Distributions/PCLinuxOS-MiniME-11665.shtml

I've been a PCLOS user for a while, and minime is just as great as the full version. You can always add what you want later from "Synaptics" (interface to update/install software).;)

edit: this minimal version of PCLOS (minime 2008) being in fact no more available on their site, I wouldn't recommend it anymore. You might get update issues with their servers. But there's that:
http://tinymelinux.com/doku.php
(and it's newer)

otherwise keep in mind that any distro live CD let you the opportunity to discard or add any program installation before you launch the setup process...just go to the distro install program interface during the live CD phase and do what you want there. OK that would also require that you know what you do...

[MentholMoose]

I don't think you necessarily need a "light" distribution, because you can make most distributions work with your requirements. The trick is to NOT do a normal or full install when doing the initial installation, rather, start with a base system only. Once the base is set up and updated, add only the packages you really need (e.g. a light window manager and email/web software), and you will have a pretty light install. This is how I typically install Linux.

For example, I recently built a Fedora Core 10 system like this. Even with Gnome and a variety of other things (especially various localization features), the system uses about 3.4GB (not including swap). Using a light WM and removing some less used features would easily reduce this by over 1.5GB, leaving more than enough room for swap and 'some' user data.

EDIT: I just checked another FC10 install I have, which is basically a base system with a few networking utilities, used as a firewall/router. It's using 1.2GB, not including swap, and nearly 200MB is yum cache files (i.e. deleteable). Adding a light WM, browser, and email would only add 200MB or so.

[gillbot]

I use DSL myself, it's a nice disto.