I am currently using Ubuntu Studio 8.10 64 bit, and it's a bit slow booting because I have a lot of services.

What is the fastest booting linux (32bit) for web browsing, compiling c and c++ code etc. and a rt61pci driver. That's all I need. I'm happy to compile my own, but I need help to show which distro and which services.

I've tried DSL but it seems to be only suited for live CD, and even DSL's a bit feature rich. So if you see what I mean that DSL's too feature rich, then I'd like something even faster!

Thanks in Advance.

ps. I'm running AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 5000+ 2GB RAM, 500GB HDD

If speed is what your after I'd go with ArchLinux or Gentoo for example. Both install only a minimal system and you get to install every single package thereafter yourself.

In Getoo, after you unpack the stage3 file all you get is a basic system with some command line utilities, python, portage and the toolchain. That is, the basics you need to compile anything else.

From that point, what to compile and install is up to you. So you could just install the basic stage3 and then compile X and firefox if that's all you want. Or even skip X and compile elinks or w3m, and surf the net from the command line. As bare bones as it can get.

I'll add Debian to the list of minimal distros on which you build your own system. For what you are asking, I would also recommend using small WM (I use openbox and ratpoison for speed --- and I have gnome for "normal usage") and midori if it is stable enough on your distro or epiphany browser.

Apart from that, and strictly to improve the boot process, I remember an article on the LWN explaining how to boot in under 5 sec, provided you have a SSD. (Sorry, I cannot find it anymore, it is a few months old.) It consisted in compiling some modules into the kernel and some patches.

And, although I never tried it either, you can try initng.

Slitaz (30MB) can be very fast-uses a "cloud" feature....has a downloadable DVD worth of apps you can use as needed...quasi install like DSL.

Thanks for the help!

How much would a small SSD drive cost for boot files? I have SATAII port and an expressbay, and I wouldn't like to spend over £100 (US$147).
It seems an SSD drive would be able to make a quick boot.

I did try Gentoo, and it was confusing, but I did have the live CD and that's not very well documented. I'll do the minimal install stage 3 tgz then probably x and firefox and my wireless driver

Tried command line browsing on ubuntu (didn't like it) so I'll definitely need X. Gentoo seems the general choice for a minimal install, and if that doesn't work, then I'll use Debian.

Thanks again!

The only supported way to install Gentoo is by using the handbook and doing a manual install. The livecd installer never worked well, and anyway, if you are not willing to read the handbook, you don't qualify to use Gentoo because you won't be able to maintain it anyway.

I also forgot to say that I think that the thread is titled incorrectly. I don't think there's any "fast" or "slow" distro out there. It just depends on how you configure it, they all are just linux, after all. The thing with Gentoo is that it comes as basic as it can get. And you only compile and install whatever you need. You need to add any service manually as well. You incrementally grow it, instead of having to uninstall things.

And I agree with everybody: if you want to tweak your distro, you have time and are willing to read handbooks and man pages, Gentoo is the best option.

right, I've installed Gentoo. Finally read the handbook and got around (looked up a few words).

I had a little trouble with the Live CD adding a root user but 'forgetting' to add another user.
Solution : useradd -m -G <groups-here> -s /bin/bash <name>

Anyway, downloaded openbox (seemed the right WM for me) and compiled. No errors were thrown. Reboot. test it out with openbox-session and got this error:

What's all this about? How can I get libobrender.so.21 ?

I think I have to rename libobrender.so to libobrender.so.21
Is this the right thing to do?

--EDIT--

Found libobrender.so and libobrender.so.21 in /usr/local/lib
But how do I make openbox find it?

How did you install openbox? You did "emerge openbox", didn't you?

No, I didn't emerge openbox because I have no internet currently because my wireless driver isn't installing yet...

If you are going to use external packages there's no point in using Gentoo, and you can only expect breakage as this, and worse. Binaries need to run against the same version of libraries that they were compiled for. If not, then the ABI doesn't match, and you get errors like the one above. No amount of lib-renaming will make it run at all. They are just incompatible and can't link at binary level.

If you don't have a connection up and running, use emerge -pvf openbox (just an example) to get the urls. These can be saved on a text file that you can take to another machine to download them. After that, copy the tarballs back to the Gentoo box and put them inside /usr/portage/distfiles/. Now emerge will use the files from there instead of trying to download them.

What kernel do you use? Generic? Or did you try to build your own? If so, you may have forgotten to compile the wifi driver.

On Linux, you should always use the package manager to install anything, on any distro. Unless you really know what you are doing.

FIXED

I forgot to when running ./configure, I just ran ./configure when I should've run ./configure --prefix=/usr --sysconfdir=/etc so I made uninstall then reconfigure and installed using that command so it now works and openbox works! Just wireless driver to go now!