Why are some distros so large?

[dahliorse]

Hello newbie here,

I've been downloading and testing distros. Trying to find one that's right for me. There are so many to choose from. One thing I can't help noticing is how large some of the distros are.
For example debian two DVD's!! Weighing in at a whopping 8.8GB!! Why are they so huge? I've used PCLinuxOS and that was about 700MB. Ubuntu and xubuntu are also small in comparison to fedora, redhat, debian, slackware, opensuse etc...
If recently been testing Slax 192MB, really small but very good.
What is going on under the hood? I know every distro is different but when I compare what I get from PCLinuxOS and Xubuntu with fedora or redhat for example. I don't see any huge differences in performance, extra apps, or anything else.

On my quest for a distro my main criteria is for a stable OS. Has anyone got any recommendations?

yours,
dahliorse

[devils casper]

What is going on under the hood? I know every distro is different but when I compare what I get from PCLinuxOS and Xubuntu with fedora or redhat for example. I don't see any huge differences in performance, extra apps, or anything else.

Size depends on the number of packages included in Installation Disks. Fedora and SuSe has tons of packages in Installation CDs/DVD but in other distros, you have to download extra packages from their repositories.
Debian's netinstall CD image is of 40-170MB only.





Casper

[bashcurescancer.com]

dahliorse,

Linux (the kernel) is only one portion of a distro. Beyond that Linux distros are free to choose to package any software they wish with the kernel. This along with a certain methodology of doing things creates a distro.

Thus, the larger ones simply decided to send more packages (prebuilt softwares) with the distro. This is much like Microsoft selling two versions of Windows. One with MS Office and one without. The one with MS Office would require more space since there is more software involved.

[Roxoff]

Remember, it's not the size of your distro, but what you do with it that counts. If you dont have an internet connection, then having a distro on multiple DVDs is a big bonus. The 'smaller' distros dont necessarily have a smaller package selection either, they just rely on internet sources to get some stuff. The important thing to recognise here is that the available distros give you an awful lot of choice.

[bashcurescancer.com]

True. For example Gentoo has an extremely small install cd, but this is because your packages, when built, are obtained externally.

The distinction is not very clear. For example you can install one RHEL with one cd and then install everything else via yum which will download the needed packages. Or you can install everything you want via CDs.

Most distros have multiple ways of distributing software.

[rong]

On my quest for a distro my main criteria is for a stable OS.

Slackware and Debian are high on the list of the most stable linux distros. Check their web sites for details on why they rate high for stability.

[tuxv]

Slackware and Debian are high on the list of the most stable linux distros. Check their web sites for details on why they rate high for stability.

Yeah I agree with you Debian is very stable even the testing version, if you want you can download only the first cd or only the first DVD and install debian. Then you can install other softwear easily.

apt-get install softwear-name

or you can use a graphical package manager like synaptic.

I hope this will help you to select your desired distro. I recommend Debian to any linux newbie too (I started out with Slackware).

[dahliorse]

Thank you for your feedback on my questions. A little more enlightned

[weknowtheworld]

Do feel free to post your queries here in future..