Choosing a very basic Linux distro with minimal boot time?

Question

I've had Ubuntu for a year now, like it but it doesn't match my needed configuration for my old laptop. So...

I am using Linux mainly for webapps so I don't care much about user interface. What I need is a distro which is small enough to install on a SD memory card (or USB) since I am removing the hard drive, all my data is in the cloud. I also want it to have as short boot time as possible.

I tried Puppy Linux and it seems ok but it had preinstalled looots af small apps I don't need, I would really like to have a distro with minimal preinstallations and add them on my own.

So what are my choices and why would you recommend these?

Answer 1

try crunchbang linux

Answer 2

Well, there are a few "obvious" choices: DSL (Damn Small Linux), Puppy Linux and Feather Linux. There are really small ones.

Apart from those, if you're willing to a little bit of tinkering, Arch can be very nice (not so small by default but can be made pretty tiny).

And the last, but not the least, Google OS ?

Answer 3

SLAX is also very small (about 200 MB) and highly customizable.

Answer 4

How about building your own using Suse Studio?

You can either try stripping down a full distro or build up from a very basic version, you will be able to access everything in the OpenSuse repositories, enabling to add just about anything you need.

Answer 5

Get the ubuntu minimal installation cd from here
Run this post installation script from here for the gnome essential apps

Answer 6

Try Google Chrome/Chromium OS. It is open source, based on Linux, and was designed for your exact requirements.

You may have to search for a build, though, as it is still in beta (like all google's other products).

Answer 7

Basic Linux 3.5 is the answer for old laptops. You can fit it on 2 floppy disks. Like DSL, BL3 uses JWM as the default, but you must build a bit more from the ground up. It is built around an old kernel, but it works well as a rescue or salvage OS. Good luck with this, whatever one you choose!

Answer 8

I've always preferred ArchLinux

Answer 9

With gentoo you can make any system you want. A year ago I used x86 version on Pentium 120MHz with 64Mb RAM. Just install gentoo xorg-server, jwm and anything you want.

Compilation is very time consuming but you can previously compile everything in some virtual machine or use distcc .

Answer 10

Consider SliTaz, which is only ~35 MB in size and can boot from removable media entirely into RAM, which makes it extremely fast.