[ale] Minimal installs on low-end hardware (was RE: [semi-OT] A local lurker

[Jeff Hubbs]

Gentoo is rather hardware-age-agnostic. You can get around much if not
all of the compiling many people associate with Gentoo of the past if
you do a networkless installation. One problem you may run into,
however, is that the Portage system and its data files can eat up a
significant amount of space if your only disk drive is in the 2-8GB
range. A second drive for /usr/portage would help out a lot.

- Jeff

Brian D. Pitts wrote:
> Pope jonnyX <jonnyx at mindspring.com <mailto:jonnyx at mindspring.com>> writes:
> >Like most geeks, my non-techie friends give me computer-related things
> >that are "obsolete" (hence my need to purge before moving;
> >alas, the hardware was all snagged in under 24hrs, else I'd offer it
> >here). I recently acquired one of the old "butterfly keyboard"
> >IBM Thinkpads; it's a model 701c with a 486DX4/100 CPU, 24M RAM, 2G
> hdd,
> >lots of extra goodies. I'm thinking maybe a glorified terminal for a
> >Cisco-2511 hooked up to my routers & switches and/or maybe a config
> >"server". What minimal distros would y'all recommend, and
> why?
>
> http://delilinux.de/ 0.6 worked well for me on similar hardware.
>
> DeLi Linux is a distro made for old hardware. Machines from 386 to Pentium
> I with 8 to 32 MB RAM are considered as target systems. DeLi Linux uses
> lightweight software whereever it is possible. Nevertheless DeLi Linux
> provides a graphical Despktop with an office package, web browser, e-mail
> client, pdf viewer and games. But of course there are also the ususal
> tools for console and development tools, like gcc 3.3.6 and perl. A full
> installation of DeLi Linux needs not more then 350 MB hard disk space.
>
> DeLi Linux 0.7 is a complete rewrite from scratch. It?s no longer based on
> another distribution, but it uses some tools from Slackware and from Crux.
>
> The most important changes are:
>
> Based on uClibc 0.9.28 (instead of glibc). Glibc is pure bloat.
>
> Kernel 2.4.33.3. In earlier versions Kernel 2.2.x was used, but on
> high demand of users Kernel 2.4.x will be used from now on.
>
> A ?stripped-down? Xorg 7.1. This version of Xorg has only the basic
> features, which means no direct rendering or other ?bloat? features.
>
> A BSD-like ports system (borrowed from Crux). With this ports system
> users will be able to add easily new software to DeLi Linux using the port
> repositories from Crux.
>
> DeLi Linux is available for free at http://www.delilinux.de
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
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