Choosing a fast and powerful distro

[KaFive]

Hi, I've been using linux for a while (various distros) but somehow they dissapointed me. So I need help choosing one, I know what I'm looking for, a lightweight, fast, minimalist but customizable enough, with no specific graphical environment, bleeding edge distro for a new laptop (used for studying and surfing internet), that hopefully works with my hardware.

I want to have the possibility to compile from source to make my own changes but also to install from binaries easily. I'm not a linux expert, not even an advanced user but I'm willing to learn anything to get my distro running so I'm not looking for a full out of the box distro.
It would be great if this distro also had a good community.

Any ideas?

Thanks!

[zenwalker]

How come rokytnji has not said "antiX core," yet? (heh heh -- beat ya' to it!)

Zenwalk core (or basic)
or
ZEN-mini

AntiX may have the better community --- lots more choices!



Welcome!

[tornow]

Debian is not exactly for compiling on your own, but it is easy enough (lots of scripts for that: devscripts,debuild, dh-make, pdbuilder, and what not)
During installation, at the end, deselect environment, reboot, install xorg, install a wm, install the apps you need.
Advantage: it is rather an easy distribution. Most default settings are sane.

Not really bleeding edge, but if you go for a mixed testing/unstable it should suffice.

[reed9]

Sounds like you're a good candidate for Arch Linux.

Criteria #1 - Lightweight and minimalist
Arch is distributed as a base system only. Installing a GUI or any but basic core utilities is up to the user. It can be as light or as bloated as you choose.

Criteria #2 - Bleeding edge
Arch is a rolling release system and aims to provide the latest stable releases of programs.

Criteria #3 - Install from source or binary with equal ease.
Arch is a binary based distro, but includes a ports like system in ABS. Rebuilding packages with your own tweaks or config options is trivial. Akin to this, packages not included in the official repos are almost always available through the Arch User Repo.

Criteria #4 - Good community
Well, I don't entirely know what you mean by "good". But Arch has a very active community who are generally quite knowledgeable. They very much believe in a "do it yourself" ethic, though, so people asking questions without doing their research first tend to get a poor response.