Which Linux distro OS takes up the most space on a machine? What are some ditros that take up larger amounts of space that others. Which distros are at the top of the list for taking up space? This is simply a question for my curiosity.

Thanks!

Hi,

I'd like to see where this is going as well, since I'm "into" older hardware anyway...
My system : 80 Gb hard drive, 19.6 used, 14 Gb is in the home, that leaves 5.6 for the OS...

Let's compare notes

Thor

I'm not sure how you would get to a good answer for this question. If you really, really, want a big install, you have to select all sorts of optional stuff and go away from the default install, and where then do you stop?

Does the question just concern default installs (when, in effect, it might just be a question about how much stuff you can manage to pack on to a DVD, if that's your medium of choice, or maybe a CD if that's what you've decided to use)? Or does it include everything that you can get from 'official' repos? Or do you include things like third party repos, which must be what you'd do if you really wanted 'everything'?

And then the difference between the different versions of distros, where available? Do you only count the 'single GUI' versions (which....kde must be a biggie, but maybe Gnome challenges it, these days, certainly compared with the lighter weight GUI options, and given that KDE/Gnome include their own Office Suites (which you probably won't use, because you'll have probably installed Open Office/Libre Office, or both, in order to push the size up even further) or do you want to include installing all of the GUIs that you can find, even though you can't really use all of them at once.

So something like Bodhi (ok, so you'd want Bloathi to push the size up, but there doesn't seem to be a Bloathi that is updated to the latest 2.x Bodhi, so would that be tolerable???) has an inherent compactness advantage, in as much as there aren't alternative GUIs so you can't install lots of GUIs (and Enlightenment is compact compared to KDE/Gnome).

This is just a guess, based on no what so ever facts; but Slackware seems to install an awful lot of stuff by default compared to other distros; so if i had to guess, i'd say Slackware...

Linux Mint asks for at least 5 GB of space for installation. The DVD edition has various media codecs, multiple media players, IM clients, etc. I would image that would be one of the "heaviest" out there.

One other distro that comes to mind is Chakra. One, it is KDE based distro and includes 'quite a few' applications. So, I expect this would be another candidate.

Maybe Sabayon? From their wiki:

http://wiki.sabayonlinux.org/index.p...bayon_Linux.3F

I admit to never hearing this one.

www.distrowatch.com usually has stats on each install.

Linux like other OS's have ways to try to conserve disk space. If one took that all out they might be able to create the largest. The reverse is something like MenuetOS.

I'd say Hanthana or Ultimate Edition are the largest. I keep an 8GB partition for testing new distros, and I had to test these live: they were much too big to install. Very handy for those who don't have broadband, of course. Nobody seems to keep track of this, since most who care about how big a distro is are trying to find a small one.

Debian. 53 CDs or 8 DVDs.

http://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/6.0.6/i386/iso-cd/
http://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/6.0.6/i386/iso-dvd/

ouch!!!!

In Debians defense, you defiantly don't need all them.
I actually purchased the Squeeze dvd set, and inserted each dvd during install (being such a noob), and it doesn't even install stuff from all the dvds, they're just there for people whom have dial up connection or something so they can have a offline repository.

To make that more clear: Even if you want you can't install all software from all the Debian DVDs. It won't let you, since there is software in there that can't be installed when specific other software is installed without breaking the system.
Besides that, not all on that DVDs is even installable, since they also contain the sources.

The question is not very precise.

1. If you use btrfs or similar f/s, then space used will be higher.
2. If the question is about packages, then Debian has the maximum number of installable packages.
3. If the question is about largest among 'default install', then it is difficult to answer.
4. If the question is about largest among 'default minimal install', then Debian loses out.
5. If live cd/dvd/usb drive installs to disk are considered, then knoppix ?

almost any can be made "smallish" or "largish" depending on just WHAT one installs
a bare bones rhel "/" might take up 2 gig on a server

DSL under a gig
and a few "special" custom installs for older 90's hardware will fit on a 256 meg drive

or

install EVERYTHING

most installs tend to be from 6 gig to 12 gig
somewhere in that range

windows 7 + windows office 2012 ONLY those two
will take up 40+ gig