Looking for a low impact linux distro

[luciusad2004]

Hey guys. Ive been running Ubuntu for a little bit. It runs great and all, but I'm running a pretty weak box and i was wondering if any of you could recommend a low impact os. (give me some time and ill get the spec's on my PC for you) Every now and then i still get some visual lag in Ubuntu and i want something quick and responsive.

As far as what ill use it for, i pretty much just use it for web browsing and what not. I might occasionally listen to some music if i get around to hooking it up to my stereo.[i have no PC speakers :( ] I'm a total newb to linux so i guess i don't want anything overly complicated, but i have been pretty bored so i might be up to a learning experience.

Thanks for any responses guys.

[XcOM]

http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/damnsmall.jpg (http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/)
^Link

DSL stands for "Damn Small Linux

The following is ripped from the website:

DSL is a very versatile 50MB mini desktop oriented Linux distribution.

Damn Small is small enough and smart enough to do the following things:
Boot from a business card CD as a live linux distribution (LiveCD)
Boot from a USB pen drive
Boot from within a host operating system (that's right, it can run *inside* Windows)
Run very nicely from an IDE Compact Flash drive via a method we call "frugal install"
Transform into a Debian OS with a traditional hard drive install
Run light enough to power a 486DX with 16MB of Ram
Run fully in RAM with as little as 128MB (you will be amazed at how fast your computer can be!)
Modularly grow -- DSL is highly extendable without the need to customize


-----------------

See the website for more details. Its a live CD with the option to install onto a hard drive.

[luciusad2004]

Actually... i was thinking of going with that. I even have a disk for it. Ive been holding on to it for a while. One question. It says that it transforms in to debian with a traditional HDD install. Is that an option when i install or do i not have a choice. I defiantly want it installed to my hard disk, but i want to keep it as DSL. The only reason i wouldn't do a HDD install is if it prevented me from loading it to ram. I'm going to go do some more reading on it since i haven't toyed with it in a while. Thanks for the response.

[.Maleficus.]

DSL would be good, and I don't think it will install all of the Debian frills (like Ubuntu, I think it's just a Debian derivative). You can try and see, and if it sucks, reformat.

Otherwise, Gentoo (*gasp*) installs nothing in the start. NOTHING. Once installed, it is a command line. That's it. After it's installed, you install the other stuff you need, and nothing more. For a DE, you could do Blackbox, or Openbox, something lightweight and speedy on older systems. If you are up for a learning experience, then that's the way to go. Very interesting install, and I think I learned more about Linux installing that a few times (because I didn't read the files clearly... Damn ADD) then I did with a year of Ubuntu.

Then, there's Xubuntu. You'll be very familiar with it. It works great on my sisters 733Mhz system.

Either way, any of those would be good.

[luciusad2004]

Ill definitely look in to Gentoo. Ill have to see if I'm up to the challenge. Ive been wanting to learn more about how all this works, and i guess this could be a good chance. I think what has been holding me back is the fact that i have never been forced to go through command line. I think ill try Gentoo and then if that doesn't work out I'll go with DSL, I've always had a fascination with any OS that could load itself to ram.

Anyway, im off to read up on installing Gentoo, thanks for the comments guys, as always anymore input is welcome.

:bunny:

[XcOM]

go for it,

DSL will install to your HDD, it will remain DSL, but they say transform to debian becuase it is based on debian.

even when installed on your HDD it still runs from memory.

[.Maleficus.]

Cool, have fun with the install. My suggestions: Do it over a weekend you have free, so that when you mess up (you will) you'll have time to take a break and start over. Also, what got me messed up so horribly it took me a week to install (literally, and I mean working at it for 6 hours a day) was the fstab part. When you read the install instructions, it tells you what to add to the file. But the catch is, most of it is already in the file, and you only need to edit a few words :rolleyes:. I added all of the stuff at the bottom of the file, and it read the incomplete part at the top and GRUB wouldn't work :dead:. But that's just my stupidity.

If you need any help at all during the install, PM me and I'll see what I can do.

[luciusad2004]

I'll definitely drop a PM if i run in to any problems. I don't currently have a job (waiting till i move off to school in a couple of months), so i have all the time in the world to work on this. I read through some of the guide book posted up in the Gentoo wiki and I'll probably read through some more of it tomorrow and start installing Tuesday. Thanks for the help everyone.