alexander Posted January 18, 2005 Report Share Posted January 18, 2005 ok, i've said this before about my favorite distro of linux, if you want a system with limited space and resources, you want GENTOO, here's why:1) its completely cost free, if you wanted to you can pay for the cds themselves, or you can download images of them from one of the mirror sites (go to gentoo.org and get into downloads)2) for people with broadband connection, this distro is completely installable from the internet, infact i recomend that the way to go3) the only other linux distro that Gentoo compares to is Slackware, you can change anything and build your kernel the way you want to build it, not the autoinstaller wants it to be built, which makes for a smaller kernel (If Krylen ever posts, his kernel is about 1200k, i believe)4) Mandrake linux uses a PPS, what you need is a PMS, and there's nothing better out there than Portage, taking its roots from BSDs Port this is by far the best PMS available, makes for very simple package and system maintenance.5) If you have questions, gentoo forums on gentoo.org have about 80,000 users in many parts of the world, if you have questions, there's someone out there that is bound to answer it.6) Many instructions about different setups and so forth have been translated to wiki format and posted on gentoo-wiki.com7) Limited space is not that big of a deal, for your partitioning sceme i'd recommend:50m - boot512m - swaprest - linuxthat makes for about 7 1/2 gigs of space for your system, how does that sound?8) Installation handbooks can be found here: http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/index.xml?catid=install 9) You will never go to another system for easier, better and faster software installations and maintenance, ever. You need an internet connection, but portage has a huge database of software (actually stored locally), all the software that you know, heard and never even thought existed is in portage, and their lists get updated every day, sometimes many times a day. So all you need to do is open up the terminal, switch to root and do emerge [options] [package] and your computer will automagically find the package, download and install it (unless you specify to only fetch it or do a dry run or something) + with portage syncs, if a newer version of the software is released, or there are any system updates, they will be downloaded and installed with one command line. (no seriously how do other people survive without portage?) Dont get me wrong, Suse, Mandrake, Slackware and others are still linuxes, and perhaps are better distros for people with anything less than a DSL, their updates don't include software updates, and much software is preinstalled on the system, but if you have the ability to go the extra step, Gentoo is the way to go... P.S. Irish, Knoppix boots off of a CD, and as much as it gives you a feel for linux, its still much slower than other linux distros, because it runs off of a CD. A thing i'm looking foreward to is the next generation of gentoo live CDs, supposedly they are supposed to be more like knoppix and actually be a pretty full system running off of a cd.P.P.S. if you have really limited resources check out minix, an OS that completely fits on a floppy (due to the fact that it is completely written in assembly), and has its own browser, office and other apps, and even a webserver. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alexander Posted January 18, 2005 Report Share Posted January 18, 2005 Oh, I wanted to say this too about Gimp. It is a great piece of software for people that do general graphics, also i hear its great for people that do graphics, but also know how to program, because Gimp has some cool interface that allows you to write macros, addons and filters in python, and i hear that you can do really awesome things with it, but I still prefer Photoshop over Gimp, it seems their engine is quite a lot better, it could be me ofcourse, i've used Photoshop since the day after 5 came out (they are up to 8 now), and i havent really given Gimp a try, although i have used it on occasion, just thought i'd say that... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tormod Posted January 18, 2005 Report Share Posted January 18, 2005 ok, i've said this before about my favorite distro of linux, if you want a system with limited space and resources, you want GENTOO, here's why: Excellent post, Alex. I'll check it out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alexander Posted January 18, 2005 Report Share Posted January 18, 2005 well, i'm sitting by myself in an empty computer lab, you know, gotta kill time somehow... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tormod Posted January 18, 2005 Report Share Posted January 18, 2005 I'm just in for some late 2K ping pong. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alexander Posted January 20, 2005 Report Share Posted January 20, 2005 Wiring party at one of our labs... Cat 6, oh yeah!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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