Which distro for performance?

[technossomy]

I have checked the smaller distributions like DSL, Knoppix and Puppy just to compare speed on some older hardware (PII, PIII) and they do not seem to make much difference. Speed is purely perception and not measured in any way.
However, Puppy may run entirely in RAM, so intuitively runs faster where the other distributions are held up by the occasional CD seek. Does that mean there is no HDD install taking place at all for any of the distributions? And, to get to the real question, which distribution would be recommended for performance (window switching, starting apps, page rendering)?

[techieMoe]

I have checked the smaller distributions like DSL, Knoppix and Puppy just to compare speed on some older hardware (PII, PIII) and they do not seem to make much difference. Speed is purely perception and not measured in any way.

You are correct. That makes it hard for us to recommend a distribution that you will think has good performance.

However, Puppy may run entirely in RAM, so intuitively runs faster where the other distributions are held up by the occasional CD seek. Does that mean there is no HDD install taking place at all for any of the distributions?

I'm not sure I understand what you're saying here. Normally when you run a LiveCD nothing is touched on your harddrive at all. This is the purpose of a LiveCD. You can optionally choose to install the distribution onto your harddrive if you want. All of the distributions you named above have this ability.

And, to get to the real question, which distribution would be recommended for performance (window switching, starting apps, page rendering)?

It doesn't matter whether you're asking about speed, ease-of-use, most applications, or server/desktop installations. We still simply can't tell you what distro will work for you. Only you can figure that out. You're on the right track having tried out the ones you have. There are many more Linux distributions in the "small" category. Most can be found on Distrowatch.

[technossomy]

I'm not sure I understand what you're saying here.

Puppy runs in RAM only, the other ones do not necessarily. I like the idea of RAM only distros and taking my files of the web. I am looking into distros which by design are faster.

Thanks though for your answer.

[techieMoe]

Puppy runs in RAM only, the other ones do not necessarily. I like the idea of RAM only distros and taking my files of the web. I am looking into distros which by design are faster.

Thanks though for your answer.

DSL also has the option to load into RAM. I believe the option you have to pass it at boot is toram. The same goes for Knoppix.

[technossomy]

Well, that is great news and offers some helpful pointers. I will definitely look into this further and revert with some findings on "RAM-only distros" (for want of a better word). I might even see if FreeSBIE offers the same.

[technossomy]

Some more balanced views on the performance topic here:
http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/lin...ages-each.html

[technossomy]

I have tried and found the following:

DSL 3.1: will load into RAM, but has some hardware idiosyncracies which are hard to solve; appears to be slow, both in terms of loading applications as well as screen handling
Knoppix 5.0.1: by far the fastest OS; the icewm desktop seems to be the fastest, although not by much when compared to the other desktops; screen showed glitches
PuppyLinux 2.11: quite fast, although there are concerns regarding the updatability, something also for instance Gentoo installations generally suffer from
FreeSBIE 1.1: have not been able to install, probably due to a hardware glitch and abandoned after repeated attempts.

Again, speed is not measured very scientifically, but I have looked at opening applications, page rendering, switching between applications, how reactive the computer becomes when having many applications open and other such typical home user tasks.

It did turn out to be a very useful learning experience and the question does become pertinent whether ultimately all OS will be RAM-only given memory's increasing reliability.