Light stable distro ???

[rog99]

I am searching for a very stable distro to run on Centrino laptop with 512MB of RAM. It should have the apps for everyday tasks, like the spreadsheets, writer, some MMs and support for extra languages, at least in spellcheck.

The distro does not have to run the latest software, or even better I would prefer older well tested, w/o bugs software. Also support for older devices is quite important at this stage; preferably sitting on GNOME.

And to further narrow the results the distro should be one-time install. No, reinstalling every 6 or 12 months, be reasonable responsive in consideration to the RAM limit.

Thanks for suggestions and sharing your experiences

[MikeTbob]

Hello and Welcome.
I'd suggest that if you want a light distro, try Puppy Linux or Damn Small Linux, you might have to install the office apps after you get installed/online.

[oz]

Welcome to the forums (your first post), even if you did join 2 years ago!

Gnome or KDE tend to make distros not so light, but you could take a look at Arch, Debian, or Gentoo, because with any of them you can install the base system only, then install Gnome on top of it along with just the apps you really want, or need.

Best of luck with your new system.

[rog99]

yep, just joined 2 years ago

well, thats the gnome which I got so familiar over the years, even after trying kde it is little bit too much of buttons and gnome has got simplier look for my needs

further, I also run mandriva however if I ask for light distro guess where I end up and I want some independence in this opinion

how easy is the gentoo install these days? arch I havnt tryied either. debian had a try couple years back but there were some hardware issues.

[Jonathan183]

Arch and Gentoo installs are straightforward but you must read the instructions . Since Arch is binary based it will be a quicker install than Gentoo which is source based so you need to allow for compile time. The other thing that caused quite a bit of frustration initially for me with Gentoo was getting a combination of USE flags which work ... some have posted examples that work for them on this thread.

Both Gentoo and Arch are rolling updates so you can get away with a single install ... even I have managed about 5 months without a reinstall now - trust me thats a long time for me (previous reinstalls have been caused by me).

I have not really used Debian ... got it installed but have not really used it. I think based on your requirements any of the three could be a good fit. You do a base install and then add the bits you want after - so you can make it as light as you want.

It may be worth considering running another WM instead of gnome if resources are a problem. I've used fluxbox, and have also started trying out LXDE and XFCE4 fairly recently.

[jayd512]

So far the fastest and lightest WM I've used is IceWM. Used it on a computer that has a P3 with 512 RAM. It made Fedora seem way more responsive.
Like Jonathan, I've also started playing with Xcfe, and it's not really hogging any resources either.

As far as the distro, I would go for anything that is really minimal. Gentoo, Arch and Debian have been mentioned. There is also CRUX or Slackware to consider.

[Jonathan183]

So far the fastest and lightest WM I've used is IceWM. Used it on a computer that has a P3 with 512 RAM. It made Fedora seem way more responsive.
Like Jonathan, I've also started playing with Xcfe, and it's not really hogging any resources either.

As far as the distro, I would go for anything that is really minimal. Gentoo, Arch and Debian have been mentioned. There is also CRUX or Slackware to consider.

I have not really used Crux ... got as far as a sucessful install I use to chroot into Arch and Gentoo when I need to ... I thought the one time install would rule Crux out ... and Slackware 12... made me think a one time install would not work . They both fit the build what you want approach though .

[jayd512]

I have not really used Crux ... got as far as a sucessful install I use to chroot into Arch and Gentoo when I need to ... I thought the one time install would rule Crux out ... and Slackware 12... made me think a one time install would not work . They both fit the build what you want approach though .

I think I somehow forgot the part about the 'one time install', so. yeah. CRUX and Slack might not be exactly what rog99 was looking for. I think I was focusing mainly in the fact that they are light on resources and there's not much cruft with either of them.

[pookiebear]

You can install firefox and openoffice in puppy. You can install it to the hard drive the installer is in the menu. Do a full install and get the apps from their app manager. VERY FAST for a nix. Very small too. Slax is similar but I had problems with it on my p3 notebook that I use as a netbook. Slitaz is another you can try it is even faster than puppy but the hardware support is not as robust.

puppy 100mb download with ICEwm
slitaz is 30mb with openbox ?

Puppy's site has a bunch of homebrew variants too listed like ones that are already setup with enlightenment or mac themes with different software packages so you can LIVE try it first.

[saivin]

My suggestion would be Zenwalk.
1. Its based on rock solid Slackware.
2. Uses XFCE as desktop which is minimalist yet usable.
3. The latest version has OpenOffice instead of Abiword...