SimplyMepis: January 2008 Archives

I haven't linked to Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols of Desktoplinux.com in awhile, and he had a great opinion piece today about the $150 PCLinuxOS box and other cheap computer solutions called "How low can you go and still run Linux?"

He does a good job of going through the distributions and recommending many low-spec software solutions for hardware of less than current vintage. He mentions many of my favorites, including Damn Small Linux, AntiX (which I haven't tried in awhile ...), Zenwalk, plus another I really should try: the PCLinuxOS "Mini-Me" spin.

He also talks up gOS, which is going from version 1 to 2. I booted into gOS today to see if Synaptic would magically do this upgrade for me. It did not. I got a couple dozen Ubuntu updates, but nothing indicating anything new or improved. And gOS is still as much of a dog as it ever was. On my hardware anyway, Ubuntu runs way better.

And I'm disappointed that Vaughn-Nichols didn't mention Slackware derivatives Vector or Wolvix (the latter being my current favorite distro), or even Slackware itself. He could've also put in a word for Debian and even Ubuntu.

One thing I've learned is that whatever anybody says about how fast or slow a particular Linux distribution is, a little experimentation on your own hardware is in order before settling down with any one setup. I recommend creating a partition for /home, which you can keep intact (and backed up) while rolling different distributions in and out of there. That's what I'm starting to do; my New Year's resolution is "less dual- and triple-booting, more separate /home partitions." See, I'm setting the New Year's resolution bar very low -- then I'll be sure to succeed (unless I'm caught triple-booting anytime soon).

Anyway, I'm still using Wolvix Hunter 1.1.0 and Debian Lenny on the Gateway Solo 1450. I'm packing the Lenny install with a whole lot of software, including lots of educational stuff for our 4-year-old.

I have Wolvix using a separate /home partition but not Debian. I might change that in the weeks ahead and see if they can share /home. I still can use Puppy 3.00 as a live CD -- I have a pup_save on the Debian partition. For me, this is total, complete stability, the likes of which I haven't seen in the past year.

I still have Debian Etch with Xfce on the Compaq Armada 7770dmt, with Damn Small Linux 4.0 as a live CD. I'm thinking of trying Wolvix Cub on it, but with 64 MB of RAM, it could be a little dicey. What I need to do there is bump up the RAM to 144 MB (maximum of this circa 1999 laptop).