Re: [seul-edu] appropriate lightweight distribution

[Dan Kolb <dankolb@ox.compsoc.net>]

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On Thursday 13 Dec 2001 23:58 pm, Roger Dingledine wrote:
> Consider looking at http://tiny.seul.org/ for a slackware variant that
> we've heard good things about. Slackware is traditionally better for
> slower machines, because it has older (and thus smaller and faster)
> versions of things. Of course, you'll want to get the new versions of
> the productivity applications for users. :) But a 2.0 kernel will be
> just fine for you, for example.

*Wrong!* Slackware doesn't have older versions of programs, at least, the 
newer ones don't :-) If you follow the slackware-current tree, a lot of new 
releases are available within a couple of days of them being released (KDE 
2.2.2, Emacs 21.1, as examples). I think it even had XFree 4.1 available 
before RedHat had.

Slackware is still better for older machines because it doesn't have an X 
based setup routine, and also doesn't install hundreds of useless packages 
(even when selecting minimal install).

Slackware 4 would be reasonable for 486 machines - it's running libc5, and 
has a decent range of software available. For the mid-range Pentium 'classic' 
machines, Slackware 7.0 would be good - X should work with a minimal window 
manager (possibly even AfterStep/IceWM). Don't try and run StarOffice with 
less that 64Mb RAM (SO 4 managed okay with 32, but was very, very, very 
painful to run in 16).

I'm not sure what word processor to (personally) recommend for the Pentiums - 
you could possibly try using LyX (GUI front-end to LaTeX).

Dan
- -- 
dankolb@ox.compsoc.net  
 
- --I reserve the right to be completely wrong about any comments or
  opinions expressed; don't trust everything you read above--  

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