Suggest me a distro?

[bashhelp]

My hardware have drifted down to the low end. So I will have to be economic with my resources. The new distros I tried really on a lot of resources, which I do not have.

Would someone please suggest me a distro that is 1 CD. That is not heavily bloated (SUSE, Fedora, Mandriva, etc). XFce has to integrate well into the distro. Has a built-in firewall.

HAS TO have good hardware detection. I tried many distros, and it has lousy hardware detection.

And easy to install. I had the hardest time trying to install Slackware-based distros. Nothing boots after going through all the choices I had to make.



Please EXCLUDE the following as I already tried and didn't work for me. If it worked for you or you like the distro, then good for you. I am looking for something that I might work for me; not what worked for you. So PLEASE if you see your favourite distro below, don't try to convince me or debate me over it.

Here they are in no particular order: (K)Ubuntu, (Open) SUSE, Mandriva, Red Hat, Fedora, Debian, Damn Small, Arch, Ark, Zenwalk, Slackware, Slax, PCLinuxOS, Xandros, Vector.

Also exclude, the live-CDs. Distros without a communitee (forums) or are not active in on-going development or have a handful of developers.

Thanks for reading. Please keep it on topic.

[sakiZ]

I would check out Puppy Linux. The latest version is very useablle according to reviews. Not fancy. Very basic. But usable.

It is especially designed for older systems.

sakiZ

[tdjokic]

My hardware have drifted down to the low end.

What is your hardware like? You listed almoust all popular Linux distrubution and none works for you? Read this "VectorLinux 4.3 - Rocket Fueled Slackware" http://www.madpenguin.org/cms/html/47/2784.html :

"So what do you do with that old Pentium II 266MHz laptop or PC that's been stashed in your closet for the past three years? Is it possible to actually use it again as a worthwhile companion for performing everyday tasks that your new 3GHz computer handles so easily? Well, the full answer could be very complicated if we were to cover ever last little detail, but the short answer is simple: YES. "

Which Vector did you try? You simply said: "Please EXCLUDE the following as I already tried and didn't work for me." but forget to say what did you try. Which release, basic or SOHO etc. After that, you said: "Also exclude, the live-CDs." - there are many distribution that are Live and installation CD in one and same CD.

Why Damn Small Linux didn't work for you if it can do this: "Run light enough to power a 486DX with 16MB of Ram"? http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/

Go to www.distrowatch.com and you will find something among 400 distributions there.

[bashhelp]

What is your hardware like?

3-4 times slower than the new ones. Not exactly low end, but to leeters it is. 1.2 GHz, 256 DDR, onboard video, 3 GB HDD. Yes, you read right, 3 GB HDD!

No, I am not going to upgrade any of them. I don't play games nor store music/videos.

You listed almoust all popular Linux distrubution and none works for you?

Don't confuse me and my box. When I say didn't work for me, I mean myself; not my box.

Read this "VectorLinux 4.3 - Rocket Fueled Slackware"

I don't mean to be blunt. But if it has to do with Slackware, I am not even going to bother trying anymore. I have tried 3 or 4 Slackware-based distros, and like 2 or 3 version of each. I spent a lot of bandwidth and burning on them and they didn't boot. Only Slax did, but it was lesser than Knoppix. I might as well keep using Knoppix as my rescue distro.

Also, I find Slackware community quite unfriendly towards new users.

Which Vector did you try?

Don't recall, but if it worked well and interested me, I would have kept it.

Which release, basic or SOHO etc.

Seriously, how many people keep track of this?

"Also exclude, the live-CDs." - there are many distribution that are Live and installation CD in one and same CD.

Live CDs are heavily packed. A distro like Knoppix tends to be slower than other meant-to-install distros because live-CDs needs to unpack before using. The last thing I need is going slower than the rest. Don't get me wrong, I love Knoppix, but not for everyday computing.

Why Damn Small Linux didn't work for you if it can do this: "Run light enough to power a 486DX with 16MB of Ram"?

As I mentioned, I wanted something that has a built-in firewall. It's not just about the hardware, it's about security too.

Go to www.distrowatch.com and you will find something among 400 distributions there.

I already spent enough bandwidth and burns. That is why I am asking for suggestions. I don't have more resources to test the rest. Especially when many of them are developed by handful-sized communities; thus, the distro will eventually go dead or don't have updates for a very long time. Then I will be back at the start again.

I would check out Puppy Linux. The latest version is very useablle according to reviews. Not fancy. Very basic. But usable.

I never tried Puppy Linux. But according to some who have, it has too much of a Windows-feel. From what I saw in the screenshots, they maybe right. And their logo is a cheap cut out of a dog, literally a cut out. If they don't even bother designing their own logo or at least make it look better, I don't know how devoted can they be.

I am impressed by Puppy's new feature of being able to write onto multi-session CDs and load everything into RAM. But I am looking for something geared towards installable.

Please keep the suggestions coming.

[tdjokic]

[quote="bashhelp"]

Seriously, how many people keep track of this?

There is a huge difference betwen the two, man! This is not about keeping or not keeping track about this! Are you serios at all?

Don't get me wrong, I love Knoppix, but not for everyday computing.

Knoppix is not the only Live CD.

If they don't even bother designing their own logo or at least make it look better, I don't know how devoted can they be.

Very interesting point of view!

By the way, your PC is far from being low end. HDD is a bit small, but in general, this is better than many PC's.

[OErjan]

my laptop (which i use daily) is a 350Mhz with 128M ram and 1.2G hdd, it is works great with Slackware and XFCE.
I use that for most daily tasks, NOT openofficew or playing films... but mail, browsing, messaging, edit code, answering posts here...

just so you know, most distributions have several diferent windowmanagers and/or desktops (KDE, Gnome, Xfce, blackbox, icewm, fvwm...), they are ALL diferent in some way to eachother.
not to mention several sets of each "tool" like browsers, editors, wordprocessing, mediaplayers, file-handling...
it is mostly up to you to pick what you want to use. if you do not like the default, try the next, and next...
I once made fvwm look extremly close to WIN95 in apperance just for fun. all by switching icons, colours, fonts...

[bashhelp]

There is a huge difference betwen the two, man!

Mostly official releases. I have no idea what this SOHO is, but if I don't know, then I haven't tried it. I have tried a few bleeding edges, but that is very recent.

Yes, I am serious, but really, I am not about to downloading some random distro to test out. I would like to hear some opinions first. As I mentioned, it isn't easy on the bandwidth. Not all of us have unlimited high speed connections.

As I mentioned before, Slackware-based distros are unfriendly to my box. Each time I finished going through the installation. I reboot, and it would not boot. It doesn't even give me an error message when I boot. It just sits there on the black screen with a "_" flashing.

I managed to get Gentoo to work on my box, and it is supposedly the hardest to install. Well, I couldn't get the sound to work. But nonetheless, I got it to boot and start X. Slackware just doesn't like my box, or vice versa.

[tdjokic]

I have no idea what this SOHO is

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_office/home_office

"At the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st, the term "Small or Home Office" and its variants-- along with the acronym "SOHO"-- have been used to a great extent by companies who market products targeting the great numbers of small businesses which have a tiny or medium sized office."

[Kowood]

Archlinux is rather lightweight (the ISO is around 500mb) and fully installed it was only about 3/4 of a gigabyte for me. It's easy to use, as long as you read the manuals. It'll kinda force you to learn how to write your own configuration files, so it's great for learning.

[rusty]

One that comes with most, if not all of what your looking for, including firewall, hardware detection and community is Kanotix.