How to install minimal linux and which distribution?

Question

I am a windows guy and don't know much about linux, but I want to learn linux from inside out (commands, shells, installing software, etc).

But one problem is I only 6 GB of hard disk space free. Which linux would fit with my space requirements? I have fedora 12 dvd, but I don't think even minimal install would fit in 6 GB.

Also, I will need proper installation steps/guide for the particular distribution.

Answer 1

You could try DSL (http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/)

From their web-page:

Damn Small Linux is a very versatile 50MB mini desktop oriented Linux distribution.

Damn Small is small enough and smart enough to do the following things:

• Boot from a business card CD as a live linux distribution (LiveCD)
• Boot from a USB pen drive
• Boot from within a host operating system (that's right, it can run inside Windows)
• Run very nicely from an IDE Compact Flash drive via a method we call "frugal install"
• Transform into a Debian OS with a traditional hard drive install
• Run light enough to power a 486DX with 16MB of Ram
• Run fully in RAM with as little as 128MB (you will be amazed at how fast your computer can be!)
• Modularly grow -- DSL is highly extendable without the need to customize

For maximum usability, I'd recommend something like Xubuntu though. According to https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation/SystemRequirements it requires 2GB of hard drive space.

Answer 2

have you considered http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/ ? I don't know how it is for learning though. If you can get a bigger hard drive, I'd recommend slackware for learning. It's probably possible to build a minimal slack install that will fit in 6 GB, but it's been a while since I've looked into such a thing.

Answer 3

Another option is andLinux which runs under Windows as a Windows application. This makes it easy to install. It is based on Ubuntu and you can install software packages into it in the usual way.

Hard disk space: 2.5 GB (XFCE version) / 4.5 GB (KDE version)

Answer 4

The best way I learned Linux was installing Crux (http://crux.nu/). I made my current firewall/router with Crux. Has been running non-stop for 4 years. Same kernel ever since. Hasn't been hacked.

Answer 5

Another option would be Linux From Scratch

Answer 6

Disks are incredibly cheap now, and your goal is to learn Linux "inside out". Unless you're broke, the best solution might be to just buy a 500mb external drive for $30 on sale and install there.

Answer 7

Can you afford to scrap the whole computer? Are those 6 GB the whole filesystem?

If yes, my first move would be to install Ubuntu, normal version, and that should work well.

If ever it is too disk-space consuming, switch to a smaller distro, but this should do the trick. However, since you want to introduce yourself to linux, I would highly recommend an easy and widespread distribution, thus Ubuntu.

Answer 8

6 GB is plenty for trying out Linux.

If you don't install a fancy graphical shell like KDE/Gnome, you only need 1 or 2 GB. With a GUI shell, it might be 4-5, but still quite doable.

Just do a minimal install of Debian or Ubuntu, then install additional sw as needed. The nice thing about Linux distros is that you get to pick what you need.

Answer 9

I'd say, Gentoo. LFS may be a little laborious, and at the end you'll not have the desktop you're used to. Gentoo is how I learned it (after failing with BSD), it's excellent if you have "medium" to "much" experience with Windows. Some DOS experience, preferably with the 'edit' (DOS editor) command too, is a real advantage btw!

Gentoo also offers ways of trimming it down (if you disable 'doc' UseFlag, meaning no documentation, and disabling some others). Also, 6GB means no KDE and Gnome. You might want to opt for LXDE instead, it resembles Windows a bit and is leightweight. I'd recommend Opera instead of Firefox to save some extra space, and certainly AbiWord and Gnumeric insteaf of OpenOffice. Use a tiny swapfile as well, it saves some extra space.

DSL, Slackware and TinyCore are great distro's, but you will not learn very much, as the 'why' is missing in the manuals (though Slackware gets you almost there). Automatic dependency resolution is also something you'll almost definitely want, hence Gentoo.

Gentoo has pretty good documentation, and step by step guides.

Here's the handbook. Google for "Gentoo nano basics guide" to learn how to use Gentoo's standard text-editor.

If you need help with Gentoo, let me know!

Answer 10

Well here's something you can try.

Install VMWare's (FREE!!!) player. This is software that will allow you to run 'virtual machines' from inside windows. Real ez to do and if you mess up, who cares... Just start over :)

To get started using the free player, you will need to here. This is a free website that will 'create' the basis of the virtual machines and esstentially give you all of the options as the full VMWare Workstation software.

Download the Fedora 14 NetInstall iso. You will use this to 'install' fedora on your virtual machine running inside windows. When you install fedora, you will be asked what 'type' of system you would like to install. If you pick the 'minimal' install method, you will be able to fit a WHOLE ton of stuff on there. A screenshot is below (shows my disk usage, less than 600MB and < 70MB ram usage) and I have a full text browser, irc client, ssh, cifs mounting tools. No X Windowing System and no gui, but PLENTY of space if I really wanted it.

Answer 11

what about ubuntu

You can try their windows installation since this is what you know about for now:

http://www.ubuntu.com/desktop/get-ubuntu/windows-installer