topic title: Distros I recommend
anticapitalista
Posts: 5,955
Site Admin
Joined: 11 Sep 2007
#1
I thought this might be interesting. Just google for more info.

Refracta - A very lightweight Debian Xfce distro with cool scripts some of which we adapted for antiX

LinuxBBQ - A constant supply of uploaded iso flavours ranging from the the usual suspects desktops to the obscure. These guys would win the Merkel award for productivity! Try some of their flavours out.

AUSTRUMI - an old favourite of mine. Fast and light, ideal for running on a stick.

Add yours.
Posts: 667
jdmeaux1952
Joined: 01 Nov 2013
#2
I've tried out Refracta and LinuxBBQ. Like them both. Some of the scripts I was trying to learn. but kept getting myself confused as a beginner (again).

Played around with Crunchbang !# before falling in love with antiX13.1. Been here since.
Posts: 1,445
skidoo
Joined: 09 Feb 2012
#3

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(debian derivative)
Hmm, can't say I would recommend"using" grml but
across several years, they've created & shared quite a few interesting/unique shell scripts.

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(debian derivative)
Serves as a fine example to dispell the Debian sid"unstable" misnomer.
It's worth a look, but I can't quite"recommend" using it, because it targets English-only audience.

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(slackware derivative)
Yes, to certain types of users, I would feel comfortable recommending Porteus.
The current Porteus release is offered in several flavors: KDE, xfce, lxde.
They're making great progress toward achieving a distro-agnostic package manager, USM.
The code within their shell scripts / utils is often ingenious (and amazingly straightforward/readable)


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DebianDog ~~ debian + puppy hybrid
background/development thread:"Light-Debian-Core-Live-CD-Wheezy + Porteus-Wheezy"
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For me, DebianDog stands as the most exciting new/upcoming distro project.
It's worth a look (very few bugs when I've tested) but I can't yet"recommend" it to anyone for use as their"daily driver".
For users who can't handle antiX***, I would select from the following to recommend, instead:
Lighthouse64-6.02-B2.iso
Fatdog64-630.iso
slacko-5.7.0-PAE.iso

***(explanation)
Out-of-the-box, the puppy derivatives are the most likely candidates to"just work" (sound, wireless) per my extensive testing.
For a single-user desktop system where user will never add/change/maintain it... concept of"root" is a turnoff. Security be damned.
Posts: 850
fatmac
Joined: 26 Jul 2012
#4
Not Debian based but I still like SliTaz, a 'micro' sized distro for old machines (& new), it uses Busybox instead of the GNU utils to keep its size down. (41mb)

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Edit: Live & installable.
Posts: 4,164
rokytnji
Joined: 20 Feb 2009
#5
I like
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Puppy Linux lately. It's a no brainer type of distro that just works OTB. I recommend it to senior citizens coming from XP sometimes.

I did a Ubuntu
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and installed/used Icewm/ Basically a learning session for me. 37MB live iso.


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Lately with all the XP hype FUD being swallowed by senior citizens with no clue on installing or configuring a operating system for their gear.
In other words, completely clueless computer users.

I find it a challenge to find that sweet spot that just is a point and click install, with usb automount on desktop (not file manager), with flash, skype, office, youtube, email (thunderbird usually), internet access (wifi or eth0 or dialup) with no thinking allowed during the install or run process. Mention grub to a old coot. His reply,"what's for dinner?" Mention"Open a terminal and give me a inxi report"? and you get a glazed eye look.

The videos like D.O. makes on youtube have bailed me out. People can understand moving pictures. Like Comic Books.
Geek speak like,"Did you install grub to mbr"? Which we take for granted. Get's a blank stare and a quivering lip from
a clueless user. I used to be that. That is why my posts are so baby talk like to other geeks.

I am trying to relate because I remember that feeling.
Posts: 71
zarg2
Joined: 16 Jul 2013
#6
I like to play with Tinycore on usb installs;it's pretty amazing and wicked fast. Precise Puppy is my"OMG this sytem is screwed up lemmee look at it" distro.

Pointlinux is a nice Mate2 stable debian distro.

Sparkylinux has a few nice features but also a lots of unwanted extra's
Posts: 9
fsmithred
Joined: 02 Oct 2011
#7
Antix - it's a lightweight, debian-based dist... oh, wait... you already know that. I'm impressed with the awesome low resource usage.

I haven't played around much with other distros since I switched to debian, so there's not a lot I can say here.

@jdmeaux1952: If you have any questions about the scripts, feel free to ask me. Following someone else's code can be confusing, even for a slightly-beyond-beginner like myself. Either post or pm me at the refracta forum or send email to my address, which you can find at the head of the scripts.
Posts: 1,139
masinick
Joined: 26 Apr 2008
#8
anticapitalista wrote:I thought this might be interesting. Just google for more info.

Refracta - A very lightweight Debian Xfce distro with cool scripts some of which we adapted for antiX

LinuxBBQ - A constant supply of uploaded iso flavours ranging from the the usual suspects desktops to the obscure. These guys would win the Merkel award for productivity! Try some of their flavours out.

AUSTRUMI - an old favourite of mine. Fast and light, ideal for running on a stick.

Add yours.
Well, in addition to our own distribution, which has been one of my favorites since I first learned about it in 2006, I really liked the very early versions of MEPIS from 2003, the year before Warren finalized on using KDE on the desktop instead of the lighter alternatives he experimented with when he first shared builds.

So the May 2003 edition of MEPIS was one of my all-time favorites because:

1) it was light enough to run live from CD, yet easy enough and flexible enough to install.

I later appreciated the full-featured versions of SimplyMEPIS, but not for lightness, but instead for their stability, which continues to mark the the name.

2) I really liked the first version of antiX in 2006, and I also liked the first version of antiX Core.

3) About three or four years ago, there was a really cool Debian Live project, where you could, on the spot, request a build from whatever repo you wanted. I did a number of builds from several versions. I liked it so much that I requested a custom build of Sid, and used it as the basis of the main system that I use to this very day.

To be honest with you, all of my true favorites come from a few years to several years back. As far as our own stuff, we've made versions more capable, but because the stuff from which the applications are built, even our works have grown over the years, so my real favorites are"out of the past". That's not our fault; that's just the way it is.

I like SliTAZ. A few years ago I used it quite a bit, but I run all of my systems away from a wired interface point, so I really need systems that can run wireless out of the box; otherwise I have to physically carry my systems to a place where I can connect them directly to a wired Ethernet connection. That is inconvenient and I can't always do it, so systems that I have to install and retrofit wireless capabilities get put on the back burner, and that includes some of the small ones that I really used to enjoy!

Oh well, that's just the way it is for me right now. If that changed, what I'd be running and the frequency that I'd be testing may change too.
Posts: 4,164
rokytnji
Joined: 20 Feb 2009
#9
Well, my Acer ChromeBook just got here. 11 inch screen. Dumbed down boot up and wifi connect.
I'd swear a Windows refugee would love to have this.

No terminal. Apps Store, (we got a app for that).
I'm way too busy trying to activate XP on one of my 3 Netbooks so I can sell the netbook to get back what I spent on this ChromeBook
which was 119.00 with 4 gig of ram and dual core celerons with a 16 gig SSD internal hard drive.

I think a current Windows disk or certain paid for drm software would have cost me the same or more in comparison with this
netbook.

I am not plugging or adverting this thing. Just posting info. This thing is easy as all get out. Just no control.
I will be posting in later threads (later on in the next month) on what I can do on this thing as far as our distro
and MX-14 are concerned. There are backup ChromeOS bootable SD images online for this thing but like I said.



That is for a later date.

Edit: Ha Ha. Found a terminal of sorts using Ctrl+Alt+t . It is a online Chrome terminal named

Code: Select all

Welcome to crosh, the Chrome OS developer shell.

If you got here by mistake, don't panic!  Just close this tab and carry on.

top - 13:57:06 up  1:11,  0 users,  load average: 0.32, 0.52, 0.67
Tasks: 124 total,   1 running, 123 sleeping,   0 stopped,   0 zombie
%Cpu(s):  5.7 us,  2.3 sy,  0.0 ni, 91.9 id,  0.0 wa,  0.0 hi,  0.0 si,  0.0 st
KiB Mem:   3981724 total,  1449712 used,  2532012 free,    28208 buffers
KiB Swap:  5832600 total,        0 used,  5832600 free,   816240 cached

  PID USER      PR  NI  VIRT  RES  SHR S  %CPU %MEM     TIME+ COMMAND                                                                                 
 3356 chronos   20   0  674m 201m  72m S   7.0  5.2   5:14.86 chrome                                                                                  
 4818 chronos   20   0  490m  87m  46m S   4.0  2.2   1:56.33 chrome                                                                                  
   55 root     -51   0     0    0    0 S   2.0  0.0   0:07.83 irq/20-cyapa                                                                            
 2886 xorg       0 -20 52584  16m 6244 S   1.7  0.4   0:22.39 X                                                                                       
23117 chronos   20   0  911m  72m  29m S   1.3  1.9   0:02.21 chrome                                                                                  
18356 root      20   0     0    0    0 S   0.3  0.0   0:00.30 kworker/0:0                                                                             
    1 root      20   0 17948 2088 1328 S   0.0  0.1   0:00.30 init                                                                                    
    2 root      20   0     0    0    0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 kthreadd                                                                                
    3 root      20   0     0    0    0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.09 ksoftirqd/0                                                                             
    5 root       0 -20     0    0    0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 kworker/0:0H                                                                            
    7 root       0 -20     0    0    0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.02 kworker/u:0H                                                                            
    8 root      rt   0     0    0    0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.07 migration/0                                                                             
    9 root      20   0     0    0    0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 rcu_bh                                                                                  
   10 root      20   0     0    0    0 S   0.0  0.0   0:07.83 rcu_sched                                                                               
   11 root      rt   0     0    0    0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.02 watchdog/0                                                                              
   12 root      rt   0     0    0    0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.56 watchdog/1                                                                              
   13 root      20   0     0    0    0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.12 ksoftirqd/1                                                                             
   16 root       0 -20     0    0    0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 kworker/1:0H                                                                            
   17 root       0 -20     0    0    0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 khelper                                                                                 
   18 root      20   0     0    0    0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 kdevtmpfs                                                                               
   19 root       0 -20     0    0    0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 netns                                                                                   
   20 root      20   0     0    0    0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 bdi-default                                                                             
   21 root       0 -20     0    0    0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 kblockd                                                                                 
   22 root       0 -20     0    0    0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 ata_sff                                                                                 
   23 root      20   0     0    0    0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.01 khubd                                                                                   

Image

Edit: Found out copy/paste/select all on webpage is 2 finger tap. There are no left/right mouse swirches next to the touchpad.
Posts: 850
fatmac
Joined: 26 Jul 2012
#10
For anyone interested, a new release of SliTaz is due out this Thursday.
I've been running 'cooking' which is what it is based on & not had any problems.
Posts: 604
thriftee
Joined: 27 Feb 2009
#11
I've been messing with anitX, Debian Wheezy, Manjaro, Puppy Precise, and DebianDog lately.

I just couldn't get the screen to work with DebianDog. Other problems too, but without a screen it doesn't matter. Had to give up. They have person and 1 thread supporting it that's 175 pages long with no ability to search.

Puppy Precise 5.7 works, but the whole save file thing kind of bothers me. There are advantages to it, but also disadvantages. I wasn't attracted by the look/feel, either, but that's just"fluff", and could be fixed, but is it worthwhile to fix? I'm just talking about things like icons and colors there, but those do take time just to find better things to fix with, even. It did run pretty light.

Manjaro is pretty good. Its based on arch but avoids arch's user unfriendliness and they are doing updates in rolling releases rather than every man for himself, which left me screwed with arch. It remains to be seen whether the rolling releases will really work though. Need a good way to back it up and restore it in case it doesn't. Manjaro isn't light enough, but I was able to get the OpenBox edition down to about 60 mb in use by replacing OpenBox with IceWM, taking things off panels and making them into taskbar apps, and by stealing antiX code to make it work nicely. Its pretty stable, but not perfect.

Debian is a rock. Things that are supposed to work, do. Forget about light, though. But it does work. Debian Jessie is so nice, but lacks the stability, now.

I will check out some of the ones recommended. I seem to lack focus on purpose or destination lately, and so haven't found any right or best path.
nadir
Posts 0
nadir
#12
I don't care much for distros which are a simple respin of debian with a configured gui anymore (like crunchbang, etc). It is easy enought to do such oneself.
Distros like antrix or refracta which give me something i don't know yet are more interesting (in both cases: they are lightweight, and as far antix is concernced: it comes with apps i don't know). But else i don't see the point in such distros. For me, if people use them it is none of my business.

I looked at dragora. It is a gnu.org recommended distro, but it's intersting anyway. You compile from source, but it works rather well and hence it is rather lightweight too.
I also looked at gentoo. It is ok, but too much work for my taste.

Else? Dunno. Like said: I gave up on such. Debian is easy and comfortable and has a good policy. And it is stable as a rock (as long you use Sid. If you use stable it is stable as dead-boring __{{emoticon}}__ ). It is also a longtime project, chances are high it will still be there in five years.

The short version of this post:
dragora is the only one i would care for besides debian itself.
Posts: 4,164
rokytnji
Joined: 20 Feb 2009
#13
@ thriftee. For live cd backup no brainer free cd iso. It is a no brainer clonezilla.

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Right now posting from a Live CD of Upup Raring. My AntiX 13 testing 14.4 is under the weather on this T23 so running live cd to gather any needed text files for trouble-shooting. It is pretty filled up with some neat stuff.

I rate it right up there running a Parted Magic or Knoppix CD for a good live session or even a frugal install.



I could put inxi in here if I wanted but just running live for trouble shooting purposes.
I am not going to install it on this testing laptop.

I will leave the 256MB ext3 save file and boot it off cd though. It saved my bacon on this broke but figured out what broke AntiX 13.2/14.4 testing install. Not a lot of space to take up for autoconnect wifi and gtk-youtube-viewer , plus all the other goodies.
Posts: 1,445
skidoo
Joined: 09 Feb 2012
#14
really cool Debian Live project, where you could, on the spot, request a build from whatever repo you wanted
the live builder is still available ~~ start here
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and click the"Build" link
or dive right into the webform
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Posts: 65
balloon
Joined: 27 May 2014
#15
wattOS which was Ubuntu base changed to Debian base before and was released:

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When did this development,"seem to perform reference of antiX" of the user some said.