I've got a newer machine, any good reason to go light distro?

[SomeGuyDude]

I'm curious. Since I got Arch rolling pretty nicely, I'm now tempted to redo it with LXDE just to lighten the load even more, scrap compiz and whatnot and see what it's like to have a snappy system.

Here's thing: my notebook is just over a year old, has a Core2Duo proc, 2GB of memory, a big hard drive, and doesn't really have a problem with heavier distros. I never go much above 30% memory usage under Ubuntu using Compiz, AWN, and pretty much anything I feel like.

What advantage does a light Arch install, experimenting with Crunchbang or whatever, offer me? Better battery life is really all I can think. I like the -idea- of these systems, but I'm having a hard time defining what bonus it has for a machine that has resources to spare.

[cardinals_fan]

I find most light window managers easier to work with. They have less "in your face" bloat.

[Sorivenul]

Response time and the learning experience of using a different distribution are the main reasons I can think of.

If you never go above 30% memory usage with what you say you run, then using programs with even smaller footprints can only help that. View it as a test to minimize the amount of memory you use. There are always ways to squeeze just that much more performance out of any machine, old or new.

[jrusso2]

Use what you like but I have Linux running on a 3 ghz Core2duo with four gigs of ram, and I use KDE and its instant.

[snowpine]

I find I am more productive/less distracted when using a lightweight interface like Openbox or Fluxbox.

[wolfen69]

I find most light window managers easier to work with. They have less "in your face" bloat.

please explain what "in your face" bloat is. when i hear that, windows comes to mind. nothing is in my face when i fire up ubuntu except my screen.

[lukjad007]

please explain what "in your face" bloat is. when i hear that, windows comes to mind. nothing is in my face when i fire up ubuntu except my screen.
I never understood that either.

[basenvironment]

less resources used for a desktop environment means more resources available for the apps you run...

[wolfen69]

less resources used for a desktop environment means more resources available for the apps you run...

if i only had 256 ram, i might be worried, but with 2gb ram and 4200 dual core, every os runs fast. i'm not in that much of a hurry that i need something to open a millisecond faster than gnome can.

[lukjad007]

True, but what does "in your face" mean? Ads? Complains from the computer demanding to get more RAM?

[wolfen69]

my definition of in your face is windows when you boot up and are greeted by 6 programs opening up at the same time and nag screens. i have none of this with any linux.

i

[zmjjmz]

Sheer speed is a good reason.

[cardinals_fan]

please explain what "in your face" bloat is. when i hear that, windows comes to mind. nothing is in my face when i fire up ubuntu except my screen.
True, but what does "in your face" mean? Ads? Complains from the computer demanding to get more RAM?
If I were to start up the default GNOME on Ubuntu, it would have a few icons in the system tray - using my memory, and getting in my way. There would also be a number of layers of GNOME apps running: the panel, sessions manager, nautilus, etc.

If you like that stuff, that's fine. But for me, it gets "in my face" and in my way.

[lukjad007]

I guess one look at my screenshot will tell you my answer. :D

[cardinals_fan]

I guess one look at my screenshot will tell you my answer. :D
A little of me just died on the inside ;)

One look at MY screenshot might tell you something:

http://xs232.xs.to/xs232/08400/2008-10-05-115634_1280x1024_scrot155.png.xs.jpg (http://xs.to/xs.php?h=xs232&d=08400&f=2008-10-05-115634_1280x1024_scrot155.png)

[mohitchawla]

I don't think there is a good reason to go for a lightweight distribution considering your hardware specifications.

But I have always liked to optimize distributions for my hardware (and now in the process of using LFS). Its then I look for inspiration from lightweight distributions. You get to know their secrets, their handling of boot scripts, choice of window managers, versatility and drawbacks too. Basically you get to know how much tweaks are possible in your Linux system and of course, the tremendous satisfaction you get when you are successfully able to get your system up and running in less than 'n' seconds. :)

[handy]

I've always thought compiz & the like are a waste of resources & a threat to reliability (at least on some systems). I know, some people feel better due to the visual effects...

I like the control offered by the Arch way, which personally I find is enhanced dramatically by using Openbox, as opposed to having Gnome or KDE installed, as those two are so complicated by comparison to Openbox.

The speed improvement is noticeable on my (Athlon 3500+ 64bit / 2Mb) machine, but it is not enough of a difference to be the reason why I don't use Gnome anymore.

[chucky chuckaluck]

i guess it's a little like asking "if i'm dumping my '85 honda civic for a bmw, do i still need a stick?" i guess when resources are no longer a concern, it comes down to what you prefer rather than what is practical. when i still had my old desktop, i was using openbox and dillo and as many terminal apps as i could figure out how to use. once i got my laptop, i started using firefox and opera, but i found i still preferred just a wm and terminal apps for a lot of things. (i'd so much rather use cplay than amarok, or the like, for example.)

[lukjad007]

A little of me just died on the inside ;)

One look at MY screenshot might tell you something:

http://xs232.xs.to/xs232/08400/2008-10-05-115634_1280x1024_scrot155.png.xs.jpg (http://xs.to/xs.php?h=xs232&d=08400&f=2008-10-05-115634_1280x1024_scrot155.png)
So... Barren... Feel... Cold.... Must.., add.... quicklaunchers!

[crimesaucer]

I guess one look at my screenshot will tell you my answer. :D

so many toolbars!

[crimesaucer]

So... Barren... Feel... Cold.... Must.., add.... quicklaunchers!

Don't you mean.... must add cats?

[snowpine]

There is something beautiful and efficient about a minimalist system. My desktop computer (Openbox) has no panels or icons of any type. If I didn't have wallpaper, it would look like a blank screen. Everything is accomplished with right click or hotkeys.

[cardinals_fan]

So... Barren... Feel... Cold.... Must.., add.... quicklaunchers!
Quicklaunchers are for those who have not discovered the beauty of dmenu ;)
There is something beautiful and efficient about a minimalist system. My desktop computer (Openbox) has no panels or icons of any type. If I didn't have wallpaper, it would look like a blank screen. Everything is accomplished with right click or hotkeys.
I have that when I use Openbox or Xfce. The dwm bar thingy (panel is just the wrong word for it) is so nice that I'm using it.

@topic: Even if you don't use a light distro, a lightweight WM can be very rewarding.

[lukjad007]

Don't you mean.... must add cats?
Don't get the reference.

@cardinals_fan
dmenu... Never heard of it.

[cardinals_fan]

@cardinals_fan
dmenu... Never heard of it.
The horror! Dmenu is nothing more than the best way I've found to launch apps on any WM. You can check out their homepage (http://www.suckless.org/programs/dmenu.html) and read this page (http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Dmenu) on the Arch wiki. Urukrama has a guide for *box users here (http://urukrama.wordpress.com/2008/02/07/using-dmenu-in-pekwm-and-openbox/).

[snowpine]

The horror! Dmenu is nothing more than the best way I've found to launch apps on any WM. You can check out their homepage (http://www.suckless.org/programs/dmenu.html) and read this page (http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Dmenu) on the Arch wiki. Urukrama has a guide for *box users here (http://urukrama.wordpress.com/2008/02/07/using-dmenu-in-pekwm-and-openbox/).

Dmenu sounds pretty neat; does it work in SliTaz?

[cardinals_fan]

Dmenu sounds pretty neat; does it work in SliTaz?
Yes. Just download/install it.

[wolfen69]

.

[zmjjmz]

am i the first person to challenge chuckies avatars? it's always of a little girl. shame on him/her

Are you fiddled's wife then?

[handy]

There is something beautiful and efficient about a minimalist system. My desktop computer (Openbox) has no panels or icons of any type. If I didn't have wallpaper, it would look like a blank screen. Everything is accomplished with right click or hotkeys.

I have a black screen, using Openbox with a black pypanel, conky time & date in top right corner & desktop/control in top left corner.

Emelfm2 for file management, Firefox, VLC...

[basenvironment]

if i only had 256 ram, i might be worried, but with 2gb ram and 4200 dual core, every os runs fast. i'm not in that much of a hurry that i need something to open a millisecond faster than gnome can.
I didn't mention speed at all.

I want my environment to provide a few basic things and to not use a lot of resources. That way, the resources (cpu & mem) are available for whatever software I want to use. Regardless if I would ever run out or not. I do not want a lot running all the time because I may not want to use any of that and it would be using resources I could use for something else.

example - When I want to know the weather I will start an app that tells me the weather instead of always using resources to display the weather in my panel.

Some people like for a computer to be like a web portal with everything right there and available, others like a search box where they decide what they want to look at, and others may like a blank page...

My laptop has 1gig of memory but when my computer boots it uses less than 32mb of it, but it provides everything I need/want so why use more for stuff I do not want/need.

[mips]

I guess one look at my screenshot will tell you my answer. :D

And people say KDE looks 'busy'...ouch.

[silve]

battery life will be better, but how much better it will be counted in minutes... (less than 10 max of the max 15 mins)

Ubuntu (http://www.linux-archive.org/ubuntu-user/)

[crimesaucer]

Don't get the reference.

@cardinals_fan
dmenu... Never heard of it.

You had said this about cardinals_fan's Opera browser:

".....So... Barren... Feel... Cold.... Must.., add.... quicklaunchers!...."


Than I guess I was trying to be funny about your Firefox Theme that had the cats all over the toolbars: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/104


when I said this:

".....Don't you mean.... must add cats?....."


you know, cats instead of quicklaunchers.....


I guess it was a lame joke, I'm sorry.

[lukjad007]

No, it's funny. I was sick with a cold and my funny radar was on the blink. :)

Thanks for the joke.

[lukjad007]

The horror! Dmenu is nothing more than the best way I've found to launch apps on any WM. You can check out their homepage (http://www.suckless.org/programs/dmenu.html) and read this page (http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Dmenu) on the Arch wiki. Urukrama has a guide for *box users here (http://urukrama.wordpress.com/2008/02/07/using-dmenu-in-pekwm-and-openbox/).
I'll have to try it some day.

[tgellen]

Have to say I come from the "old school" i.e. Amiga, where you didn't have to wait very long for your computer to be functional. A 10 second boot time off harddrive, apps launching practically instantly. Good times.

Last year I bought a dual core laptop, originally with Vista, which had a "speedy" 90 second bootup and apps, e.g. Firefox with 5 addons, took 30 - 60 seconds to load. Forget that.

Now it runs Openbox and LXDE (from the LXDE PPA) on Hardy and is much better. Still not booting in 10 seconds ;), takes about 30 seconds to boot and Firefox with the same addons starts in less than 2 seconds. That's more like it.

It doesn't have to be completely minimal but I now feel like I'm getting the full effect of the hardware I've paid for.

[lukjad007]

And people say KDE looks 'busy'...ouch.
Well, I've never used KDE much, so I cannot comment, but I like GNOME and will be sticking with it. I just really like having the sense that I am in control.

[cardinals_fan]

Well, I've never used KDE much, so I cannot comment, but I like GNOME and will be sticking with it. I just really like having the sense that I am in control.
Interesting. I have always found GNOME difficult to customize to my liking, so I switched away from a desire for more control. It just goes to show that everyone likes something different :)