[SOLVED] Need light-weight Debian based distro with best resource utilisation
Linux - DistributionsThis forum is for Distribution specific questions.
Red Hat, Slackware, Debian, Novell, LFS, Mandriva, Ubuntu, Fedora - the list goes on and on...
Note: An (*) indicates there is no official participation from that distribution here at LQ.
Notices
Welcome to LinuxQuestions.org, a friendly and active Linux Community.
You are currently viewing LQ as a guest. By joining our community you will have the ability to post topics, receive our newsletter, use the advanced search, subscribe to threads and access many other special features. Registration is quick, simple and absolutely free. Join our community today!
Note that registered members see fewer ads, and ContentLink is completely disabled once you log in.
If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact us. If you need to reset your password, click here.
Having a problem logging in? Please visit this page to clear all LQ-related cookies.
Get a virtual cloud desktop with the Linux distro that you want in less than five minutes with Shells! With over 10 pre-installed distros to choose from, the worry-free installation life is here! Whether you are a digital nomad or just looking for flexibility, Shells can put your Linux machine on the device that you want to use.
Exclusive for LQ members, get up to 45% off per month. Click here for more info.
Distribution: Windows 10, Debian and derivatives, Mint, Whatever I find new and interesting
Posts: 57
Rep:
Need light-weight Debian based distro with best resource utilisation
Hello everyone!
I'm an intermediate Linux user. I need a distro which is light weight, but extremely good with resource utilization.
At this moment I'm running ffmpeg for video encoding on Windows, on my laptop ( AMD A8 6410 @2GHz, 8GB RAM). While it runs it always shows 100% cpu is being used. I want to use it in a Linux platform with an OS which is very optimized for how it uses the resources present. Power consumption is not an issue since laptop is always on charge and is rarely moved ).
Say Arch ( which I've hard has a very good ram usage ), lubuntu ( lightest debian based along with Ubuntu ) , puppy ( not so sure about it being good for heavy usage ), etc. Any suggestions please.
I don't know of I could explain myself well enough, but I will be very thankful if you people help me out and if anything is unclear, do ask.
Thank you.
P.S. - please tell about tags which I can give for this post.
Video processing is never going to be a light-weight operation, but I'd have thought that your CPU should be up to it. Any Linux will probably make fewer demands on the CPU, and 8GB is ample (unless those videos are full-length, HD films!)
If you want a Debian-based distro, then I'd look at
> AntiX (MX version rather than the original AntiX): light but not too bare.
> Ubuntu Studio, if you are particularly interested in videos and/or music. That has been made light-weight so as to maximise the resources available for jobs like video editing.
Distribution: Windows 10, Debian and derivatives, Mint, Whatever I find new and interesting
Posts: 57
Original Poster
Rep:
Quote:
Originally Posted by DavidMcCann
Video processing is never going to be a light-weight operation, but I'd have thought that your CPU should be up to it. Any Linux will probably make fewer demands on the CPU, and 8GB is ample (unless those videos are full-length, HD films!)
If you want a Debian-based distro, then I'd look at
> AntiX (MX version rather than the original AntiX): light but not too bare.
> Ubuntu Studio, if you are particularly interested in videos and/or music. That has been made light-weight so as to maximise the resources available for jobs like video editing.
I said Debian based since I know it's package installers, nothing else. The processing that I would basically do is compression of episodes mainly around 23 to 40 minutes, but sources will be mainly 720p/1080p. What I want is an OS which will need less resources to itself but can allocate as much as any program demands, say ffmpeg. So that the program runs in it's fastest possible way given the resources. Yes, a CLI based system would be perfect but I am not that good at using it truth be told. And can you like say anything about Arch, can it really utilize the RAM on the best way possible as it's homepage claims ??
Distribution: Windows 10, Debian and derivatives, Mint, Whatever I find new and interesting
Posts: 57
Original Poster
Rep:
Quote:
Originally Posted by rokytnji
With or Without systemd?
Sorry but I have never used systemd before, all I know is that internally it helps services and programs being processed right. What will be your say about using or not using systemd.
I said Debian based since I know it's package installers, nothing else. The processing that I would basically do is compression of episodes mainly around 23 to 40 minutes, but sources will be mainly 720p/1080p. What I want is an OS which will need less resources to itself but can allocate as much as any program demands, say ffmpeg. So that the program runs in it's fastest possible way given the resources. Yes, a CLI based system would be perfect but I am not that good at using it truth be told. And can you like say anything about Arch, can it really utilize the RAM on the best way possible as it's homepage claims ??
i don't know that archlinux "claims" anything.
anyhow, what you want is a CLI installation, because an X server with window manager and whatnot WILL eat a SIGNIFICANT part of your resources, which could be used for transcoding otherwise.
once you have arrived at that wisdom, it doesn't matter so much which distro you use. why not debian (it's usually called a netinstall, because you install only the base system from the cd and have the option to install a gui via internet).
if that still isn't lightweight enough, you can try to strip the system down even more. say, all you want it to do is transcoding, then 90% of what even a CLI install contains is not needed. but, compared to gui or not, the impact of these changes is rather small.
PS:
don't let jamison20000e's replies confuse you. you will learn to just scroll over them soon enough.
Distribution: Windows 10, Debian and derivatives, Mint, Whatever I find new and interesting
Posts: 57
Original Poster
Rep:
jamison20000e vague []#your surname here
Please enlighten us with what you meant with those links and "much......."
@ondoho
Yes definitely a bare bone CLI would be the best but I do have check the output files with vlc, send them over the network to other OSes viz. Android and Windows, check integrity, internal errors in frames etc, this I'll need a proper GUI, and also with nemo/dolphin with samba, thus base CLI isn't an option.
Yes definitely a bare bone CLI would be the best but I do have check the output files with vlc, send them over the network to other OSes viz. Android and Windows, check integrity, internal errors in frames etc, this I'll need a proper GUI, and also with nemo/dolphin with samba, thus base CLI isn't an option.
but do you have to do that on the same machine that is doing the transcoding?
fwiw, i have all my media files on my homeserver, and no gui installed - i ssh in from my desktop and watch the files directly.
in any case, if you reallyreallyreally need that gui, i guess a netinstall plus
apt-get install openbox
is a safe, simple and lightweight alternative.
Distribution: Windows 10, Debian and derivatives, Mint, Whatever I find new and interesting
Posts: 57
Original Poster
Rep:
Quote:
Originally Posted by ondoho
but do you have to do that on the same machine that is doing the transcoding?
fwiw, i have all my media files on my homeserver, and no gui installed - i ssh in from my desktop and watch the files directly.
in any case, if you reallyreallyreally need that gui, i guess a netinstall plus
apt-get install openbox
is a safe, simple and lightweight alternative.
What will you recommend for the base , Arch(I like doing it's setup, so a bit inclined there), Debian(only proper recommendation here yet) , anything else ???
LinuxQuestions.org is looking for people interested in writing
Editorials, Articles, Reviews, and more. If you'd like to contribute
content, let us know.