Distro with the smallest install size? / Spare comp ideas

marsf · n00b Joined: 02 Mar 2003 Posts: 10

Hello all.

I'm looking at getting an old Pentium 133 of mine up and running with Linux. However, I only have a very small hard drive to use with it. I am looking at 426Mb of disk space. It also only has 32Mb of RAM.

Does anyone know which distributions fit on this size disk? I think Debian will, and Gentoo is out of the question by other user's accounts (unless the Gentoo install gets some extensive tweaking, something I don't have time to do myself). Linux From Scratch would work, but that is the system that I used before Gentoo, and I would like to stay away from it if possible.

The system doesn't have to be stand-alone. Would it be possible to simply mount my current gentoo /usr directory over the network? Or would system differences cause too much havoc?

Or would it be possible to use the machine as a terminal server? It would be nice to set up openMosix and some NFS mounts, but I don't know if the hard drive would provide too little swap space to make openMosix feasable.

If anyone can help or has some interesting ideas feel free to post them.

Mars

brad · n00b Joined: 29 Nov 2002 Posts: 6

A distro is just a packaging of existing software. So all the linux distros use the same software base -- kernel, OS libraries, and application software. The main difference b/t distros are filesystem layout and packaging methods. Neither of which really affect space that much.

I would recommend gentoo since you can explicitly choose for programs to be compiled with space optimizations (see CFLAGS and gcc). It's been awhile since I've seen how much I could pack onto a small disk, but you could definitely get the base system (including development). It is likely that you could fit one more large package or a slew of smaller ones also. By large I mean X with a small window manager, a web server, or a DBMS (eg, mysql or postgres).

It really depends on what you'd like to do with it. I like to use my old computrers for things like gateways/routers and print/file servers. I also like to string 'em up to test various network protocols and distributed algorithms I work with, but that may be just me..

marsf · n00b Joined: 02 Mar 2003 Posts: 10

True, but the base packages make all the difference.

The smallest Gentoo base systems I have heard mentioned so far have been between 500 and 700 megabytes. Compare that to Redhat, Debian and others that are around the 250-350 Mb range for a very basic intall. Or LFS which can go under 100Mb (but I would prefer to stay away from LFS).

It would be nice to use Gentoo, but getting it into the 250Mb range might prove troublesome.

If someone has made an uber-small install guide, similar to what you can get out of an LFS system, I would like to hear about it. It would probably need a lot of custom USE flags, as well as cleaning out the /var/tmp, /usr/portage/distfiles, and stripping the debug code out of all the executables.

Mars

Mindstab · Posted: Thu Mar 13, 2003 12:31 am Post subject: OpenBSD

If you don't mind straying a bit from linux, try a BSD, my recomendation, openbsd. Tiny base install... even the ports come additionally.

gsfgf · Veteran Joined: 08 May 2002 Posts: 1266

another vote for BSD
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drakonite · l33t Joined: 02 Nov 2002 Posts: 768 Location: Lincoln, NE

Has anyone mentioned Slackware yet? Slack is great, especially for building a system where being bloated isn't an option.
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AngusYoung · Posted: Thu Mar 13, 2003 3:57 am Post subject:

What about these ones here:
1. Zipslack: http://www.slackware.com/zipslack/
It's a slackware based distro ...
2. Vector Linux: http://www.vectorlinux.com/Features.htm
Don't know nothing about this one, except that FULL install requires 435Mb of disk space
3. Kurumin: http://www.guiadohardware.net/linux/kurumin/index.asp
Download it here: ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/Incoming/kurumin-1.1.iso
It's a Brazilian distro, based on Knoppix.

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bmichaelsen · Posted: Fri Mar 14, 2003 2:00 am Post subject: knoppix

Knoppix boots and runs completly from CD. It's debian-based and has a good collection of packages (My downloaded version started up with KDE3.1) - might be the solution, if you have limited disc space. The new version also allows to save configuration files.

http://www.knoppix.net/

Greetz, Björn

P.S.: It DID run KDE3.1 on a K6-200 with 64 MB RAM - from CD!

gsfgf · Veteran Joined: 08 May 2002 Posts: 1266

knoppix really relies on K which won't run good on his system. The otyher wms are porely setup/broken. ex: i tried to boot it w/ gnome to see what it looks like sinve i've never used it. It was broken on knoppix 3.1. However, Knoppix is still a great distro, but not for a small com.
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cpwins · Posted: Fri Mar 14, 2003 11:44 am Post subject:

I think you can do Debian on 50 - 100 MB if you don't install X.

Gentoo doesn't sound like a good choice to me, the portage tree takes up quite some space and compiling takes forever on a P133.

You can also use NFS to mount a remote filesystem as root (/). In that case the only thing you need to put on the hard drive is a kernel image.

Agitator[RoX] · n00b Joined: 10 Mar 2003 Posts: 27 Location: Kalmar/Sweden

http://www.linuxlinks.com/Distributions/Mini_Distributions/

Perhaps something there that is to your liking?
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hook · Posted: Fri Mar 14, 2003 4:54 pm Post subject:

i vote for slackware ...i ran it on a 486 on a little more than 200MB of space. ...with pretty much everything i needed (including kde, amongst other wm!)
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anvesaka · Posted: Sat Mar 15, 2003 3:46 pm Post subject:

kraylus · l33t Joined: 07 Jun 2002 Posts: 648 Location: ft.worth.tx

i know suse 6.2 used to have an install option for a base system that weighed in just under 150mb or so. slack has something like that too. if it were me, i would say slack for sure. check out the slack book for detailed instructions on installing a mimimal version of slack and what's included with it.

i've used freebsd in the past, and i can vouch for the awesomenicity of it as far as a webserver and other such things. installing linux binary compatibility works good too. i used to host counter-strike servers on my p233 w/ 128mb ram that would outperform 2k servers of a much higher calibur. freebsd for me though is a bit more difficult to use. mostly because im not near as familiar with it as i am with linux and because the people in #freebsd on undernet are complete assholes

so go slack. you won't be disappointed.

ryan
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