Favourite mini-sized Linux distro?

[Prometheus]

Just idle curiousity, here. I'm guessing a substantial chunk of us here are the sorts to carry a USB flash-drive on their keychain (or their watch, or in their bag, or whatever) just in case it's needed. I mean, you do, don't you, right?


What's your favourite tiny-sized Linux distribution for this purpose?


I rather like SliTaz GNU/Linux (screenshots here), myself. It's about 30MB, and has a GUI and all the amenities you'd expect. Moreover, it can be installed to a FAT32 flash-drive, so that there's no need to partition the drive if you want to continue to be able to use it with any OSes that you happen to come across without running into unexpected issues.

 

[slaeshjag]

Since space isn't an issue to me (hey, a 4Go thumbdrive's almost free these days...) I have one in my backpack with a standard Deb 6.0 with dwm, surf etc. all configured like on my workstation. Uses about 2Go with all the applications I accidently put on it. When I actually need to transfer files, I either use my pandora or put them on my server (when I actually come across a box that can't read ext2/3). I mean, if I got a 100/100 connection, I better use it

 

[vadsamoht]

I've heard good things about both DSL and Puppy Linux, but have used neither. I'm currently triple-boting Mint, Wolvix, and WinXP on my PC, with a 4GB Ubuntu USB for backup.

 

[DavidBowman]

I like Puppy Linux (Lucid Puppy in particular). Very polished for being so light weight, but I never really need a slim installation as I'm past the days where I'm fixing anyone's computer for a living.


I might have to fire this one up just to take a look, Prometheus.

 

[vadsamoht]

I like Puppy Linux (Lucid Puppy in particular). Very polished for being so light weight, but I never really need a slim installation as I'm past the days where I'm fixing anyone's computer for a living.


I might have to fire this one up just to take a look, Prometheus.

A bit OT, but I repair a lot of computers, and I found this quite appropriate.

 

[Prometheus]

but I never really need a slim installation as I'm past the days where I'm fixing anyone's computer for a living.

Haha, so am I, thankfully. Although admittedly I never did so for a living. I keep my SliTaz installation to hand in case I need to deal with any of my own machines, or in case I need it for some other reason (such as travelling without a computer, and needing access to some stuff I commonly use). It's a good use for those tiny 128MB promotional flash-drives (which still crop up every now and then, in my experience), I think.

 

[Mr Rob]

I always take the easy approach and end up having a Ubuntu install on a flash drive whenever I need to boot into one. You don't need to do anything with partitioning, and you can still use the remaining space on the device for anything else.


As for DSL, I currently have in our office an Intel Pentium (no, not a Pentium II, III, or 4) with 20 MB of memory running DSL. It hosts an SSH server and Folding@Home. It's an elegant computer, from a more civilized age.

 

[Prometheus]

I always take the easy approach and end up having a Ubuntu install on a flash drive whenever I need to boot into one. You don't need to do anything with partitioning, and you can still use the remaining space on the device for anything else.

Can you access the contents of the home directory when connecting the drive as a storage device* with one of these installs, yet?


*(One of the things that I like about SliTaz on a FAT32 drive is that you can grab your stuff out of your home directory on any machine that can read FAT32-formatted drives, without needing to actually boot it up. This has come in handy for me a bunch of times, especially when I've used it to get writing done.)

As for DSL, I currently have in our office an Intel Pentium (no, not a Pentium II, III, or 4) with 20 MB of memory running DSL. It hosts an SSH server and Folding@Home. It's an elegant computer, from a more civilized age.

Wow, that is cool. Believe it or not, I've never tried Damn Small Linux... :blink: I really must get around to that. I have an old machine (but not as old as the one you mention - it's a Pentium II at 233MHz, with 60MB of RAM, which is the maximum it can take) running a now-outdated version of Puppy Linux, and it's just a bit too sluggish still. I haven't tinkered with it in a while.

 

[DavidBowman]

A bit OT, but I repair a lot of computers, and I found this quite appropriate.

Yeah, that's about right. Though I've never switched back to Windows as my OS on my home machines once I switched to Ubuntu. There are some annoyances that come up that I don't get from Windows, but the annoyances on Windows far outweigh the ones in Linux, at least for me.

 

[Mr Rob]

Can you access the contents of the home directory when connecting the drive as a storage device* with one of these installs, yet?


*(One of the things that I like about SliTaz on a FAT32 drive is that you can grab your stuff out of your home directory on any machine that can read FAT32-formatted drives, without needing to actually boot it up. This has come in handy for me a bunch of times, especially when I've used it to get writing done.)

When I stick the USB device into a Linux box (and probably all Unix boxes) it's a simple matter of mounting the rw part. Using the USB creator in Ubuntu they make a compressed persistent data file that can be mounted using the 'mount -o loop' command -- similar to mounting an ISO. From Windows? Probably need to find some third party thing to mount it.


I really just use the flash drive as an easy way to install Linux, or to debug a box; I rarely use it for anything else. I also have Linux most of the boxes I have; duel boot Windows if needed.

 

[XxionxX]

I am not a power user like most of you, but I am very happy with my puppy Linux USB. It's really zippy on my work computer (pentium2 2gb ram) and I can even do my basic learning of C++/SDL really easily. I love browsing the web with it (the native Windows OS hangs for 5 mins at a time randomly)and it has been really friendly to a newer Linux user like me.

 

[Austin25]

Well, for my flash drive there's Knoppix. For extreme smallness there's Damn Small Linux.