Re: [dev] Minimal distributions

From: Tony McKenzie <hx_AT_lavabit.com>
Date: Tue, 4 Dec 2012 14:09:46 -0800

Im partial to Arch Linux, the suckless stack, mutt for email, mplayer2
for audio/video, wpa_supplicant/netcfg for networking. I find its
pretty easy to slim your install down if you're willing to give up your
GUI tools. If you need a filemanager, PCManfm is pretty lightweight and
lacks the dependency tree of nautilus.

If you must use a full "desktop" I'd vote for XFCE and if you argue
systemd sucks too much you can opt to check out Crux which arch is based
on, its a little more "elite," relies on a knowledge of ports and
requires a bit more configuration but if you are up for it, it is much
more minimal.

There really isn't a perfect "minimal" distro in my experience, I'd aim
for whats comfortable for you to use and fits your workflow.

Good luck


On Mon, Dec 03, 2012 at 10:18:03AM +0000, Ethan Grammatikidis wrote:
> On Sat, 1 Dec 2012 13:50:04 +0100
> Hugues Moretto-Viry <hugues.moretto_AT_gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Thank you for these many interesting comments.
> > I was looking for a secondary distributions for desktop usage. And I will
> > try FreeBSD soon.
> >
> > Regards.
>
> minimal or desktop... i could almost say 'pick one'. the catch is 'desktop' is a really broad church; for me it means a web browser, eagle mode, wine, a media player or two, as well as 9vx or drawterm. many others wouldn't want wine but would want a more mainstream filing manager which then requires file associations and other sophistications and before long you end up with a full gnome or kde. define what 'desktop' means to you and you can better pick your system.
>
> if in fact you do want a conventional filing manager then you may be happy with puppy linux. there are many different 'puppies' based on different linux distributions which allows you to pick many of your requirements by distro while knowing it will be pared down to a minimum and paired with a very lightweight desktop... if that makes sense.
>
> --
> Developing the austere intellectual discipline of keeping things
> sufficiently simple is in this environment a formidable challenge,
> both technically and educationally.
> -- Dijstraka, EWD898, 1984
>
>
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Received on Tue Dec 04 2012 - 23:09:46 CET

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