looking for a lean distribution
 

i am currently running redhat 8, and i want to install a different distro. i've read about many, Slackware, Debian, Free and OpenBSD, and others. i want something pretty minimal and programmer friendly. what would you recommend?

This is a really silly question if you haven't already tried a minimal Red Hat install.
While I enjoy Debian for it's easy minimal install plus whatever you want, this is really possible with any Linux distro. And there are pluses to using something you are already familar with.
If you are talking no X you can always experiment with a no X start up for a while.

Otherwise I might recommend Debian or Slack.
:)

Minimal? How about LFS, doesn't get much more minimal than that (well, gentoo with a bootstrap...)

Cool

hmm... i would have to suggest Slack (trimmed down).....

I think we need to define minimal here. Are we talking in terms of disk space or are you more interested in something that won't use up a lot of memory,etc.?

Good point, since tomsrtb is what, 1.44MB ;)

Cool

Re: looking for a lean distribution
 

I don't know where the confusion comes from, but *BSD isn't Linux.

Vector comes to mind...I haven't tried it mind you, but it seems lean enough to run on older machines so it should suit no?

sorry i should of been more descriptive. i realize that i could of just reinstalled red hat with less packages, but i was looking to try out something new to see what else is out there. i spend most of my time on linux writing code, whether it be in c or perl or shell scripts or whatever. the only X programs i really use are xmms and Mozilla, so i was wondering if any distros came by default with just the bare minimum as far as package options.

I'm running Slack 8.1 on a 160MB disk, but it isn't nearly as lean as it
used to be. No reason you can't trim it down through. I install things
package by package to keep a little control.

I'm not a big Linux user -- only using it for servers -- but it seems there's
a push to make it full featured to attract new users and this is why the
distributions are getting fat.

well i just reinstalled redhat... it seems as tho it is hard to make a lean OS if you want to be able to see anything other than text. my install size was 1300 mbs, i was hoping for something much smaller. perhaps i can explain what i want and someone could offer me a suggestion...

i dont need a pretty environment. but i do want to be able to run graphical applications such as xmms, mozilla, and gimp. i dont need anything like Nautilus to move my files around, i 'd rather do that in the terminal. basically i want everything textual, except the programs i mentioned above.

Theres this distribution called peanut linux...its pretty lean.

found the answer, fluxbox

oh yes....
behold the joy that is fluxbox. kde and gnome cause a big chunk of the bloat and complication i think you are talking about. and no one start yapping about minimal KDE configs and crap.

oh and be sure to download some dock apps!!

FYI, Flux is not a distribution, but rather a window manager available on most (*all) distro's.

Cool