Sorry if this is a rehash, but I'm wondering if there's a good (what's the best) CLI based Linux available. Not something like Tom's Root Boot, something more along the line of SuSE/Mandrake/etc., that's cutting edge without the overhead. For example, I can install one of the above distros, not load X, but then I end up with a couple disks full of stuff I'm not using.

I know this sounds kind of nuts, but at the same time, I'm interested in how the "basic" side of Linux is improving. We all know Linux/GUI is right there, if not past MS windows in capability, and Bash rocks, but what about the applications? Are there "gui-ish"/curses cd burning programs that are as easy to use as the ones in X, and so on?

Thanks.

If you want want a command line distro that's less than 100 mb, try ZipSlack. It's a reduced Slackware that's intended to be run from an Iomega Zip disk, but can be installed to a hard drive. See http://www.slackware.com

If you're really curious about how linux is put together, apparently Linux From Scratch (LFS) and Gentoo are good educational distros, but I haven't tried either (too time consuming).

About curses based programs: there are many under active development. I ssh into my linux boxes frequently, so I prefer the console programs.

CD burning: the best tools are the command utilities: mkisofs (to create ISO9660 files for burning), cdrecord, cdda2wav (to rip audio CDs) and cdrdao (to create SVCD/VCDs). I greatly prefer these commands over GUI front-ends. Browsing: I actually like links, and use it often. File management: Midnight Commander mc is a classic, but extremely useful even when you're in a GUI desktop environment. Newsreader: slrn is faster and more stable than pan. E-mail: mutt. Text editing: the usual suspects of vi, emacs etc. Spreadsheets: this category is where the console apps are weak. Most of them don't seem to be under active development. Gnumeric rules, but you need the Gnome libraries and X. Multimedia: you can actually run Mplayer from the console.

Actually, I was going more towards the "redundant" (favorite word tonight, sorry folks--it's been one ot those weeks) distributions. I've been using Linux since 1997, so being a newbie isn't something I'm too worried about. However, I was asking more for a distro that's CLI-only, that still has nice menu style command line stuff that a newbie could use (or a Point of Sale; POS sounds too harsh) clerk could use. Hence, the 'curses' reference. Slackware is great, and slackware gurus are powerful entities in their own right, but I'm more curious if there is a CLI/(N)Curses distro out there. Debian/Slackware/LFS/Gentoo, etc don't really count. I mean more something that's newbieish without X.

You can run either Redhat or Mandrake without running X. linuxconf used to be the CLI configuratin tool but I dont' think its included any more in the latest releases. Trustix is an excellent CLI only distro based on redhat but documentation is sparse for the beginner and no all in one config tool like linuxconf.

SuSE is easily installed without X and yast2 still works fine in curses mode.

If you want an all-curses interface, you would probably be curious about cursed GTK+, which is a ncurses-based library front-end for gtk+ apps.

Use some simple shell scripts to create a menu to easily start needed tasks for casual users.

Dont install the XWindows system simple,
Any distro will do then, like redhat, u can choose what u what to install in the custom installation mode

whats cli

command line interface

Try Slackware or Slackware variant Vector . I will advice use use Vector first.
Thanks