Best "tiny" distro - Crunchbang, TinyMe, Antix...?

[brack]

Ok yesterday I tried CrunchBang and U-lite on my real machine Celeron-566/319Mb RAM/15Gb HDD. CrunchBang live cd startup was VERY slow, I was able to make a sandwich for myself while waiting. After I saw livecd I started the installation but succeeded only by installing cli ubuntu + CrunchBang install script found on CrunchBang site. Installation took about an hour and then everything was working. CrunchBang showed itself slugish as I expected and yutube was unwatchably slow. After a few tests with different versions of flashplayer and successful hang of system, I downloaded 8.04 mini cd and install script from U-Lite site. Installation of U-lite took longer than CrunchBang and I had to tweak U-Lite a bit by replacing GDM with Slim, now it starts up faster. Some disappointments:

• Opera now takes up to 100% of CPU instead for 80% with IceBuntu based on 7.10
• experienced some problems with pcmanfm initial configuration but quickly solved it
• Dont see desktop icons by default

What would be the negatives without positives?

• computer is fast enough
• a lot of familiar applications from gnome Ubuntu
• nice and easy GUIfide configuration
• can watch Youtube in acceptable quality

I think maybe my results are such because 8.04 generally faster than 8.10? If i'm right then I should soon throw my old computer away. However, IceBuntu based on 7.10 feels faster but, even Opera took less resources, I couldnt watch Youtube.

[manilaph]

i noticed the super-long install of the crunchbang livecd too. i think it is a bug which i read about at the crunchbang forums.

the install seems to stall when it is installing "languages..." at around 84% into the installation.

has anyone tried www.moonos.co.cc yet?

it is supposed to be fast but i have not tried it yet.

[brack]

It looks like lxpanel in u-lite takes 6Mb of memory which is even more that openbox. I have deleted one of the panels but the size reduced only by 1mb so, it takes 5mb still more than openbox itself. Are there any other solutions, I mean alternative panels? IceWM maybe not so enhanced but it has builtin panel and all construction takes about 6Mb which is twice less than openbox+lxpanel. there is something to think about.

[chubble10]

Try "Damn Small Linux"

[Mehall]

I use Crunchbang on anything that will run it, unless I'm messing about with a new distro for fun.

If it won't run it? Puppy ftw, since it is more extendable than DSL, yet runs just as fast. (Hell, you can even get OO.o 3.0 onto Puppy!!!)

EDIT: In case nobody answered,

As well as Distrowatch being geared towards US distro's, Crunchbang only really gained it's popularity since about December. If you look at the 3-month rather than 6-month you'll see it's SHOT up the scale (whereas it's actually lost points in the last 7 days ): )

I am a vehement supporter of Crunchbang, because it is a modern distro that can do everything you need it to, looks great, and doesn't steal all your power just for the bare OS like Gnome/KDE do (and don't get me wrong, I like KDE)

I'm using #! on my laptop, and it's a fully modern PC. My only gripe with it is that it's not got a 64-bit final release yet (there IS one in testing, however) and thats not too much of an issue given my laptop MoBo came maxed at 2GB (won't take any more ): )

[manilaph]

I agree, Crunchbang gives full-functionality plus a lightweight desktop environment. And a big plus is that... it is based on Ubuntu.

Right now I am installing the Debian 5.0 Lenny XFCE_LXDE cd on my wired pc. Just to get the feel of LXDE.

I would think that I would rank them(in my opinion --- functionality + speed):

1) Crunchbang
2) LinuxMint Fluxbox CE
3) MoonOS
4) Xubuntu and LinuxMint XFCE
5) AntiX
6) TinyMe

The rest... DSL, Puppy, Slitaz are just too small.

If you noticed, the top 4 are all Ubuntu-based.

[brack]

The rest... DSL, Puppy, Slitaz are just too small.

I believe too small is good for me, I really love when the system is flying. Cannot start Puppy running on virtualbox though. Have no idea what is wrong but xorg just wont load, the machine hangs on that point

[Mehall]

I believe too small is good for me, I really love when the system is flying. Cannot start Puppy running on virtualbox though. Have no idea what is wrong but xorg just wont load, the machine hangs on that point

Did you try vesa mode rather than the other one?

I've honestly had few to no issues with Puppy and I highly reccomend burning it to disc.

If you use it in a comp with 250MB of ram or more, it loads completely to ram and is blindingly fast.

If you have less than that, it's as fats as your average Live cd is, but you can forget it's old hardware!!

[bhishan]

Arch Linux might be the one for you.

[Mehall]

When using a "tiny" distro, I want old hardware support, yet Arch doesn't support 586's at all. Puppy does and, while not optimised, ubuntu should run.