Looking for the cleanest distro

[pjb515]

Hi everyone,
A quick question: Is there a distro that is really lean? I don't want any frills, just the OS, with support for sound, video, network. No games, no openoffice, etc.
Which one is the cleanest?

[devils casper]

Hi and Welcome !

I would suggest you to install Debain ( Debian netinstall ). You will have minimalist OS without X and any other package. You can install X Server, Audio/Video Player and other necessary packages.
You can do the same with Arch, Slackware too.

[oz]

To add to what Casper said... you can also do a minimal install with Gentoo and CRUX.

[pjb515]

I went to download debian, the download page has 20 or so cd images to download, is each one a different version? If not, there's no way I'm downloading all those large files.
I got the gentoo, it took about 10 seconds to download, w00t!

[oz]

If you are new to Linux, keep in mind that Gentoo is not considered one of the easier distros to install, but plenty of new users have successfully gotten it up and running.

Have fun with Linux!

[daark.child]

I think most distros can be lean depending on what you install. If you choose a distro that lets you pick and choose the packages you want at install time, then you can make the distro as lean as you want.

[devils casper]

I went to download debian, the download page has 20 or so cd images to download, is each one a different version? If not, there's no way I'm downloading all those large files.

If you have good internet connection then download Debian Netinstall only. As I suggested earlier, install X Server and other packages later on.
OR
Download first 2 Debian CDs only. Those Cds have all packages required to install KDE/Gnome Desktop Environments.

[pjb515]

2 cd's is more than I wanted, so I'll pass on debian, but thanks anyways. Unless there's any other suggestions, I'll install the gentoo and see how it goes.

[BillB0B]

Simple go with PCLinuxOS.

[Dapper Dan]

I have very high praises for BLAG. It has all the multimedia apps you want with a limited amount of frills. It's based of Fedora Core 7, so community help will be easily available. Through the Yum package manager, you can uninstall whatever else you don't want. Check it out...

BLAG