I'm at it again...

I know, I know. I swore I was done this time. But that old wanderlust is upon me once again. I'm not really looking for a permanent distro (though I'd love to find one). Instead, I want a real challenge. I only have one requirement: it must reasonably simple to install a bootloader so I can boot up my Slackware partition when I need to get some work done. Otherwise, anything goes. Here's some of what I'd like (a bit different from my quests in the past):

• Heavy emphasis on minimalism and the CLI above all else. I want something insanely lean and manual.
• A decent number of packages available.
• If it uses binary packages, I don't care whether it handles dependencies. If it is source-based, I want the system to handle deps.
• Binary packages are preferred, but I can deal with source-based.
• While I prefer vanilla packages (ie not Debian), I will accept distros with any base.

Here are some distros I don't want (because I've used them, not because they're bad): Slackware, Arch, SliTaz, *BSD, Gentoo. Also don't recommend LFS.

I'm especially interested in CRUX, Lunar, and BasicLinux.

All thoughts (even "you're insane") are appreciated.

Source Mage, Linux from Scratch, Gentoo

cardinals_fan said: and BasicLinux.

Salvage a 486 from a dumpster and install basicLinux. You won't regret it.

cardinals_fan said: Here are some distros I don't want (because I've used them, not because they're bad): Slackware, Arch, SliTaz, *BSD, Gentoo. Also don't recommend LFS. jrusso2 said: Source Mage, Linux from Scratch, Gentoo

](*,)

CRUX or BasicLinux.

CRUX is fantastic and, IMO, underrated. With your wandering and experience I don't think you'd have a lot of trouble with it. It gets my nod for your next experience.

OK - you're insane. :)

Most of the characters from UF went to the Gentoo forums and use either Arch or Gentoo.

Why don't you just design one yourself?

Now that's a challenge!

A total one off custom that has only one repository and it's on your machine.

That sounds so sweet!

What about AntiX? AntiX has a small footprint and is pretty fun to work with.

tty linux. its minimal. in fact only a simple terminal and you have to build the rest your self. i have played around with it for 60 minutes but no danish keyboard layout. it has a web browser and a terminal and it is a download size 8 mb .

I think one could make a decent living treating people with L.I.A (Linux Installation Addiction):lolflag:. Maybe just try a server edition of one of the top ten?

Based on your description, the first thing I thought of was Arch. Then Slackware. Most people I know stop their distro-hopping (or at least seriously slow it down) after trying Arch or Slackware. But you mentioned you'd already tried those two and are still looking.

So to look at it from a different angle, what is it that those two distros *didn't* have that you are still looking for?

Bob

P.S. I cured my L.I.A. by moving to Arch with the Openbox window manager. And it's a very slim install. No panel, no graphical login manager, no automounting of anything, etc., which means that I do much manually via the command line thus satisfying me with a regular *"I'm in full control!"* buzz :P

have you tried vista business yet?

cardinals_fan said: I know, I know. I swore I was done this time. But that old wanderlust is upon me once again. I'm not really looking for a permanent distro (though I'd love to find one). Instead, I want a real challenge. I only have one requirement: it must reasonably simple to install a bootloader so I can boot up my Slackware partition when I need to get some work done. Otherwise, anything goes. Here's some of what I'd like (a bit different from my quests in the past):

• Heavy emphasis on minimalism and the CLI above all else. I want something insanely lean and manual.
• A decent number of packages available.
• If it uses binary packages, I don't care whether it handles dependencies. If it is source-based, I want the system to handle deps.
• Binary packages are preferred, but I can deal with source-based.
• While I prefer vanilla packages (ie not Debian), I will accept distros with any base.

Here are some distros I don't want (because I've used them, not because they're bad): Slackware, Arch, SliTaz, *BSD, Gentoo. Also don't recommend LFS.

I'm especially interested in CRUX, Lunar, and BasicLinux.

All thoughts (even "you're insane") are appreciated. There is one I heard of called TinyCore. Barely used it, but it is 10 megs, so it sounds like you.

http://www.exherbo.org/ http://enlisy.com/en/enlisy/index.php?title=About http://nixos.org/nixos/

chucky chuckaluck said: have you tried vista business yet?

What are you? some kind of masochist?

If you like Arch and Slack, then you will like CRUX too. It's very manual, and can almost be described as 'crude', but beautiful in a way.

steveneddy said: What are you? some kind of masochist?

whip me, beat me, make me write bad checks.

cardinals_fan said: I know, I know. I swore I was done this time. But that old wanderlust is upon me once again. I'm not really looking for a permanent distro (though I'd love to find one). Instead, I want a real challenge. I only have one requirement: it must reasonably simple to install a bootloader so I can boot up my Slackware partition when I need to get some work done. Otherwise, anything goes. Here's some of what I'd like (a bit different from my quests in the past):

• Heavy emphasis on minimalism and the CLI above all else. I want something insanely lean and manual.
• A decent number of packages available.
• If it uses binary packages, I don't care whether it handles dependencies. If it is source-based, I want the system to handle deps.
• Binary packages are preferred, but I can deal with source-based.
• While I prefer vanilla packages (ie not Debian), I will accept distros with any base.

Here are some distros I don't want (because I've used them, not because they're bad): Slackware, Arch, SliTaz, *BSD, Gentoo. Also don't recommend LFS.

I'm especially interested in CRUX, Lunar, and BasicLinux.

All thoughts (even "you're insane") are appreciated.

I know you wrote "no Gentoo", but honestly, all of the above sounds like Gentoo. I understand the idea of wanting to try something that you haven't tried before, though. I just have the feeling that after all your travels, you will end up with Gentoo on the box. :)

As you may know, you can install Gentoo from Slackware, so there's no need to download any images and burn yet another CD. You can either add Gentoo to your bootloader for Slackware or install a bootloader for Gentoo and add Slackware to that. Chainloading is also a possibility. (I often do that.)

In spite of being source-based, you can limit the amount of compiling you have to do. As you likely recall, it does take some time to get Gentoo setup (compiling xorg-x11 takes a while on my old hardware), but once you get the system the way you want it, you don't have to compile new packages all the time. In my case, I keep an eye on the security announcements and I upgrade any affected packages ASAP. For everything else, I only update the system about once a week.

I run a minimal setup with the base system, a WM, and a few light applications. Upgrading once a week only takes an hour (or less). For the rare cases where it's longer than that, I just watch a movie or a hockey game or something. ;)

steveneddy said: OK - you're insane. :)

Most of the characters from UF went to the Gentoo forums and use either Arch or Gentoo.

Why don't you just design one yourself?

Now that's a challenge!

A total one off custom that has only one repository and it's on your machine.

That sounds so sweet!

I agree, build it from the ground up, make your own package manager, and have only the software you want in the repos. Then make a livecd from it. Hows that for personalized? :p

jrusso2 said: Source Mage, Linux from Scratch, Gentoo

I think Lunar covers the SourceMage front. LFS and Gentoo are addressed in more detail below.

zmjjmz said: Salvage a 486 from a dumpster and install basicLinux.

You won't regret it. I'm both fascinated and repulsed by Basic. It's truly ancient and archaic, but it's also Slackware at heart and the minimalism is impressive.

steveneddy said: OK - you're insane. :)

Most of the characters from UF went to the Gentoo forums and use either Arch or Gentoo.

Why don't you just design one yourself?

Now that's a challenge!

A total one off custom that has only one repository and it's on your machine.

That sounds so sweet! I am planning on doing LFS, but it seems more like a summer project. I have plenty of time to kill now, but maybe not that much.

hrod beraht said: Based on your description, the first thing I thought of was Arch. Then Slackware. Most people I know stop their distro-hopping (or at least seriously slow it down) after trying Arch or Slackware. But you mentioned you'd already tried those two and are still looking.

So to look at it from a different angle, what is it that those two distros *didn't* have that you are still looking for?

Bob

P.S. I cured my L.I.A. by moving to Arch with the Openbox window manager. And it's a very slim install. No panel, no graphical login manager, no automounting of anything, etc., which means that I do much manually via the command line thus satisfying me with a regular *"I'm in full control!"* buzz :P Arch and Slack are both very good. Slackware is my overall favorite distro. Arch is awesome, but I found myself lusting for a bit more... of what, it's hard to say in words.

chucky chuckaluck said: have you tried vista business yet?

Paying and pirating are both out, so maybe not ;)

lukjad007 said: There is one I heard of called TinyCore. Barely used it, but it is 10 megs, so it sounds like you.

I've tried TinyCore. It has potential, but BasicLinux handles that role better for these purposes.

MisfitI38 said: If you like Arch and Slack, then you will like CRUX too. It's very manual, and can almost be described as 'crude', but beautiful in a way.

Sounds promising.

RedSquirrel said: I know you wrote "no Gentoo", but honestly, all of the above sounds like Gentoo. I understand the idea of wanting to try something that you haven't tried before, though. I just have the feeling that after all your travels, you will end up with Gentoo on the box. :)

As you may know, you can install Gentoo from Slackware, so there's no need to download any images and burn yet another CD. You can either add Gentoo to your bootloader for Slackware or install a bootloader for Gentoo and add Slackware to that. Chainloading is also a possibility. (I often do that.)

In spite of being source-based, you can limit the amount of compiling you have to do. As you likely recall, it does take some time to get Gentoo setup (compiling xorg-x11 takes a while on my old hardware), but once you get the system the way you want it, you don't have to compile new packages all the time. In my case, I keep an eye on the security announcements and I upgrade any affected packages ASAP. For everything else, I only update the system about once a week.

I run a minimal setup with the base system, a WM, and a few light applications. Upgrading once a week only takes an hour (or less). For the rare cases where it's longer than that, I just watch a movie or a hockey game or something. ;) Portage always seemed kind of clumsy to me. Compared to my experiences with pkgsrc, emerging stuff wasn't quite as clean or elegant. I can't really say why I felt this way, but it's a distinct memory.

pelle.k said: http://www.exherbo.org/

http://enlisy.com/en/enlisy/index.php?title=About http://nixos.org/nixos/ Exherbo doesn't strike me as ready yet. Neither does Nixos, although that concept is very interesting. Same for Enlisy.

exploder said: What about AntiX? AntiX has a small footprint and is pretty fun to work with.

AntiX is a good system, but it's not particularly manual.

cmay said: tty linux. its minimal. in fact only a simple terminal and you have to build the rest your self. i have played around with it for 60 minutes but no danish keyboard layout. it has a web browser and a terminal and it is a download size 8 mb .

Interesting.

67GTA said: I think one could make a decent living treating people with L.I.A (Linux Installation Addiction):lolflag:. Maybe just try a server edition of one of the top ten?

Systems such as Ubuntu and openSUSE don't fit my definitions of "simple".

GoboLinux, Zenwalk, Vector SOHO.

ryaxnb said: GoboLinux, Zenwalk, Vector SOHO.

Gobo is interesting, but not for me. I've used both Zenwalk and Vector; they're good, but not very minimal or manual.

About my previous choices: Gobolinux:

• Funny filesystem
• Manual-oriented (no GUI networking tools)
• Interesting ideas
• Very different

Zenwalk

Vector

<new one> OpenSolars 2008.11 *Why not?

*"real" UNIX *ZFS.

• Based on Slackware
• Manual-oriented
• Minimal
• Good package management.
• Based on Slackware
• I believe it has a compile-assist tool, as well as slackware-packages and a system on top of that
• Fairly manual-oriented
• Not that hard
• Slackware made more usable and *very* fast.
• Note: although not very manual. It is very fast and is slackware based, so it can be as manual as you want.
• Slow, but manual-oriented
• uses different compiler

ryaxnb said: About my previous choices:

Gobolinux:

Gobo is indeed a very interesting system. Perhaps a bit too interesting :D

• Funny filesystem
• Manual-oriented (no GUI networking tools)
• Interesting ideas
• Very different

ryaxnb said:

Zenwalk

Zenwalk is about as far from manual as you can get. It preinstalls a number of GUIs and emphasizes easy usage out-of-the-box.

• Based on Slackware
• Manual-oriented
• Minimal
• Good package management.

ryaxnb said:

Vector

I used Vector for several months. It's a very good system. However, it isn't quite in the same league as CRUX or Lunar when it comes to manual customization.

• Based on Slackware
• I believe it has a compile-assist tool, as well as slackware-packages and a system on top of that
• Fairly manual-oriented
• Not that hard
• Slackware made more usable and *very* fast.
• Note: although not very manual. It is very fast and is slackware based, so it can be as manual as you want.

ryaxnb said:

<new one> OpenSolars 2008.11 *Why not?

*"real" UNIX *ZFS. I've used OpenSolaris 2008.05 extensively. It's good but heavy. 2008.11 uses proprietary NVIDIA drivers > v. 169 and has a bulky GNOME configuration by default.

• Slow, but manual-oriented
• uses different compiler

Thanks for the suggestions anyway :)

cardinals_fan said: I know, I know. I swore I was done this time. But that old wanderlust is upon me once again. I'm not really looking for a permanent distro (though I'd love to find one). Instead, I want a real challenge. I only have one requirement: it must reasonably simple to install a bootloader so I can boot up my Slackware partition when I need to get some work done. Otherwise, anything goes. Here's some of what I'd like (a bit different from my quests in the past):

• Heavy emphasis on minimalism and the CLI above all else. I want something insanely lean and manual.
• A decent number of packages available.
• If it uses binary packages, I don't care whether it handles dependencies. If it is source-based, I want the system to handle deps.
• Binary packages are preferred, but I can deal with source-based.
• While I prefer vanilla packages (ie not Debian), I will accept distros with any base.

Here are some distros I don't want (because I've used them, not because they're bad): Slackware, Arch, SliTaz, *BSD, Gentoo. Also don't recommend LFS.

I'm especially interested in CRUX, Lunar, and BasicLinux.

All thoughts (even "you're insane") are appreciated. You might have fun with Minix 3 http://www.minix3.org

cmay said: tty linux. its minimal. in fact only a simple terminal and you have to build the rest your self. i have played around with it for 60 minutes but no danish keyboard layout. it has a web browser and a terminal and it is a download size 8 mb .

Yeah, TTY is one of my favorite distros. It's perfect for my old laptop.

Try GNU/ HURD with an L4/Viengoos kernel.

Now THAT one is a challenge!

How about one of the OpenSolaris derivatives, I don't know if you've used them before but an example would be MilaX, light weight system built off opensolaris meant for installation on a usb drive or cd. Others would be Schillix (don't know too much about never used it before), BeleniX (probably not for you, described as "OpenSolaris and adds a whole variety of open source packages"), or Nexenta (OpenSolaris kernel combined with the GNU application userland).

Mr. Psychopath said: Try GNU/ HURD with an L4/Viengoos kernel.

Now THAT one is a challenge!

Oh, Gawd. By even MENTIONING GNU/Hurd in this thread, you've automatically earned the title of "Jerk". :lolflag:

cardinals_fan said: I think Lunar covers the SourceMage front. LFS and Gentoo are addressed in more detail below.

I am planning on doing LFS, but it seems more like a summer project. I have plenty of time to kill now, but maybe not that much.

Arch and Slack are both very good. Slackware is my overall favorite distro. Arch is awesome, but I found myself lusting for a bit more... of what, it's hard to say in words.

.

Ah, Lunar was the one I was trying to think of but I couldn't come up with it that day.

Skripka said: Oh, Gawd. By even MENTIONING GNU/Hurd in this thread, you've automatically earned the title of "Jerk". :lolflag:

Hey now, that's not entirely fair, I actually do support their development quite a bit.

And it's ridiculously complicated to set up in some cases.

Figured I would let you know that I am working on building a distribution that is exactly what you are looking for.

Until I have it's first release finished, you may want to try tty linux.

fistfullofroses said: Figured I would let you know that I am working on building a distribution that is exactly what you are looking for.

Until I have it's first release finished, you may want to try tty linux.

Homepage? Name? Info? I'm interested :)

init1 said: You might have fun with Minix 3

http://www.minix3.org

Yeah, TTY is one of my favorite distros. It's perfect for my old laptop. MINIX is fun.

Mr. Psychopath said: Try GNU/ HURD with an L4/Viengoos kernel.

Now THAT one is a challenge! Sadist ;)

C!oud said: How about one of the OpenSolaris derivatives, I don't know if you've used them before but an example would be MilaX, light weight system built off opensolaris meant for installation on a usb drive or cd. Others would be Schillix (don't know too much about never used it before), BeleniX (probably not for you, described as "OpenSolaris and adds a whole variety of open source packages"), or Nexenta (OpenSolaris kernel combined with the GNU application userland).

MilaX has interested me for a while. I might try it out.

fistfullofroses said: Figured I would let you know that I am working on building a distribution that is exactly what you are looking for.

Until I have it's first release finished, you may want to try tty linux. I'll try it out once you're done :)

I installed CRUX. So far, I'm having fun and learning some interesting stuff.

CRUX is a great system, and I think I learned a few things from using it. However, it isn't any faster than my SliTaz or Slackware systems, so I'll probably try something else. I really hate waiting for things to compile...