Fastest linux distro.

[josephcohen]

Im not worried about the smallest distro but the fastest. Are the smaller linux distros that fastest?
And I dont need any of the effects.
Puppy linux is the smllest so would that also be the fastest?

[taurus]

Or you can install the minimal version and then install openbox if you need a window manager.

[Cap'n Skyler]

the small distros run in flash memory,so are faster.most linux distros are less bogged down with junk/bloatware.to a point the smaller will be faster/better...not sure where the cutoff point would be.and the old windows/linux speed arguments are the same as always.but i can say 810 is way better faster than vista on this comp. and the anti virus slowed it down and made it horrible too.
go 'buntu !!

[binbash]

smallest does not mean fastest.What makes a distro fast :

-A compiled kernel and system
-Size
-a light window manager
-at some cases : less bugs

Best distro for this ,is gentoo.

[ushimitsudoki]

I agree with binbash. You are going to have a hard time beating something like Gentoo for this.

Puppy Linux is not the smallest, BTW. Last puppy I grabbed: 94.4MB. Last Slitaz I grabbed: 28.6MB.

"fastest" and "smallest" (and most *est) criteria are not well-defined. You can speed up in one area and slow down in another. You can add/remove components to affect the size, and so on.

[kerry_s]

the fastest will be the 1 you have the most control over. arch will probably be the easiest to get speed without building everything. learning to tweak it is the long part. i got arch on a t20 700mhz 128mb ram, i got the boot time to around 30-40 seconds, fricken udev takes like 17ms, uhhh. anyways thats not bad for a laptop that old.

if your still new to linux, i'd advise you not to worry about speed at this point, just learn the linux.

[josephcohen]

What are some differences between ubuntu and gentoo and where can I download gentoo?

[ushimitsudoki]

Gentoo: http://www.gentoo.org/

The main technical difference between Gentoo and Ubuntu is that Gentoo is a source-based distribution. This means you compile everything that goes on your machine - including the Linux kernel. This requires a substantial amount of configuration, especially the first time you do it.

There is a large difference in the community expectations. You better actually do some research and read the documentation yourself before expecting help for one thing. If you think "Where can I download gentoo" is a good question, then you are probably not ready for Gentoo.

I run Gentoo on my laptop and like it a lot.

[josephcohen]

Gentoo: http://www.gentoo.org/

The main technical difference between Gentoo and Ubuntu is that Gentoo is a source-based distribution. This means you compile everything that goes on your machine - including the Linux kernel. This requires a substantial amount of configuration, especially the first time you do it.

There is a large difference in the community expectations. You better actually do some research and read the documentation yourself before expecting help for one thing. If you think "Where can I download gentoo" is a good question, then you are probably not ready for Gentoo.

I run Gentoo on my laptop and like it a lot.
Im running ubuntu 8.10 right now. And thanks. Ill stick to ubuntu.

[fuser312]

its any distro without gui

or if you want gui, may be the better Question is which desktop environment is fastest??

which is "Xfce".

[Whorehay]

A bit late, but...


the better Question is which desktop environment is fastest??

which is "Xfce".

Nothing against Xfce because I actually like it, but it's only the fastest if you compare it to KDE. I'd go with something even lighter, such as LXDE (http://wiki.lxde.org/en/Main_Page). I'm not counting Fluxbox and Co. because that scares away most people and in my personal opinion, it's just ugly.

Here are some screenshots:

http://lxde.org/sites/default/files/images/desktop_full.preview.png


http://lxde.org/sites/default/files/images/lxpanel_menu.preview.png


http://lxde.org/sites/default/files/images/lxappearance.preview.png

[josephcohen]

I didnt see that last post until now, a year later. haha.
You really think lxde is faster than xfce? I think id like to try it out.

I know you install xfce in debian by using


aptitude install xfce4
(or is it xubuntu-desktop?)

is it the same for lxde?

[NuclearStr1der]

Here is what I found to be the best / fastest / performance linux distro - Crunchbang, or #! .

Crunchbang is based off Ubuntu, and comes with a ton of pre-installed apps that are all lightweight alternatives of the more heavier apps (so Abiword instead of OpenOffice.org for example).

It uses the OpenBox window manager, but everything (including the menu) is set-up right outta the box. I mean, the thing boots up with less than 70MB of RAM after a default installation - plus, being based off Ubuntu you get access to everything Ubuntu has to offer.

http://crunchbanglinux.org/

Oh - and by the way, #! looks DAMN GOOD.

http://crunchbanglinux.org/wiki/_media/screenshots/9.04-dyne-theme.png?cache=cache&w=900&h=562

http://crunchbanglinux.org/wiki/_media/screenshots/9.04-clean-desktop.png?cache=cache&w=900&h=562

[wilee-nilee]

Browser puppy is like 50 something Mb with a desk top it has been the fastest I have used, without having to compile a OS about a 5 min full install

[Arup]

sidux with xfce is among the quickest as it uses latest kernel and is highly optimized for speed if you are comfortable with cli.

[zenfunk]

Anything with a "propper" desktop environment (LXDE, GNOME, XFCE, KDE) slows you down a lot.

If you really want a fast distro have a look at something with a simple window manager.

Puppy falls into this category and is very userfriendly. There are some Puppy variants that focus even more on speed- search the puppy forums for PULP or Turbopup.

It is said that Slitaz is fast too, but I don't have any first hand experience with it. It is very small though (about 30 MB- on the other hand it is not as complete as Puppy).

If you really are serious about speed then Crux Linux or Archlinux are for you.
A lot of speed tweaks can be found on kmandla.wordpress.com (http://ubuntuforums.org/kmandla.wordpress.com).

BTW, I checked out xubuntu a couple of years ago and found it to be almost as slow as GNOME. from what I heard in the meantime the situation didn't impfove.

Openbox is a fine lightweight window manager, but combined with all the other stuff that defines LXDE it is again too slow to run on, let's say a Pentium II satisfactory, IMHO.

On computers that old your options are IMHO narrowed down to Distros like Puppy and Slitaz or, if you are a ninja- Crux or Arch.

[josephcohen]

I have used #! before and it is amazingly speedy! a little to un user friendly for me to be honest. I also like, having an os that does actually run on the hard drive.

I think for a p4 ive got im gonna install debian and then install xfce.

does arch or gentoo have a synaptic package manager, or do you have to compile everything. I prefer to have something with a package manager. Otherwise it is just a pain too install anything that isnt pre installed.

[NuclearStr1der]

I have used #! before and it is amazingly speedy! a little to un user friendly for me to be honest. I also like, having an os that does actually run on the hard drive.

I think for a p4 ive got im gonna install debian and then install xfce.

does arch or gentoo have a synaptic package manager, or do you have to compile everything. I prefer to have something with a package manager. Otherwise it is just a pain too install anything that isnt pre installed.

#! Does run on the hard drive...
or were you referring to something else that doesn't?

[gatewayasteroid]

Im not worried about the smallest distro but the fastest. Are the smaller linux distros that fastest?
And I dont need any of the effects.
Puppy linux is the smllest so would that also be the fastest?

ZenWalk 6.2 ;)

[hitman9211]

I agree with binbash. You are going to have a hard time beating something like Gentoo for this.

[Hilko]

You must keep in mind that 'fast' is a relative term. What i mean is that one OS may boot fast or have a fast window manager or whatever. But in the end, how fast you can accomplish a certain task depends mostly on how user friendly the system is.

If you spend two days reading documentation and tinkering with some OS to get it working. And it opens a new window just a milisecond faster, how much time have you 'won' ?

If you wanna do things fast, I recommend to set some shortcut keys and take a look at gnome-do.

[3Miro]

If you want speed, you should probably start with a custom kernel and since all distros use essentially the same Linux kernel, there will no real difference there. You can probably recompile the kernel for the current distro that you are using, just Google around for HowTos. I got 10% improvement on heavy CPU tasks by playing with the generic Ubuntu 9.10 kernel.

Then you need to consider the DE and what you will be doing. If you have a CPU heavy job in the background and don't do anything, Gnome + Compiz gave less than 1% slowdown compared to no graphical stuff running at all.

If you are looking for a DE that will feel fast and responsive, but you will only YouTube and e-mail, then custom kernel will probably make little difference. Here is my experience with DE:

If you want shiny effects + speed, use KDE + kWin (much better then Gnome + Compiz).

If you want nothing fancy, just speed, use XFCE or LXDE (those are better than Gnome + Metacity and KDE + kWin - effects).

There are more basic DE than those, but then you will be making some sacrifices in terms of functionality. Windowmaker for example is lightning fast, but it tends to slow down upon opening some apps for the first time. Also, any DE will slow down if you have too many apps open at the same time.

Another thing altogether are the apps that you use. Thunar is faster than Nautilus, but has a few options less and Nautilus goes with Gnome and Dolphin with KDE, mixing will cause the system to slow down ....

To summarize, The question on which one is faster depends on the type of usage, apps and preferences for desktop effects and such. Try a few options and decide what works best for you.

[Martiini]

Fastest - puppy, CrunchBang, chakra, slax, slitaz ...
Anyone who claims gentoo, ubuntu, fedora etc. to be fast is off their head, even though I use Ubuntu