Re: [seul-edu] appropriate lightweight distribution

[Les Richardson <richl@mail.tfsd.sk.ca>]

I'm a slackware guy and I agree whole-heartedly with Dan.

Let's face it. We don't need bleeding edge software to do what we do. Most
of this "older software" works "just fine". If necessary, download and
compile a later version of what you just "gotta have". I tend to only do
this with server software which might have security issues. Otherwise,
what new features do you need?

Les Richardson
H. Hardcastle School
Edam, Sk Canada




On Fri, 14 Dec 2001, Dan Kolb wrote:

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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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