Hi...

AFAIK the only lightweight Linux distro out there, that retains the K.I.S.S. principle is a rolling release Model, Arch.

Are there any non rolling release Distros similar to Arch in every other aspect...?

Is Crux Linux a rolling release also...?

BRGDS

Alex

S-------e.

Hi

I 1i3k S-----a-- a lot, but it is not as minimalistic as Crux or Arch...

You can make it as minimalist as you want. There has been a few threads in the Slack forum about minimal installs.

how small do you want ?
what do you want to do ?
what will this distro run on ?

more information please

Hi

1). 1 Gig would be enough... but this is not strict limit... some of my apps when installed are about 1 Gig size... i am just refering to the system itself...

2). Number crunching, 3D Graphics design, some web browsing, some youtube, spreadsheet, text processing,

3.) an Intel core i5, 8 Gigs RAM, 500 GB HDD, Nvidia GForce 9600 GT.


I would like the ability to run a single upgrade once a new release of the distro is out, without b0rk1nG my system, so I consider having some builds of packages in a folder at home, ready to be compiled into the new kernel as modules. ( wireless, GPU Driver ) this is why i generally leave /home/* in a separate partition...

Arch is very much what i like, except for a minor detail... not so small... running an upgrade breaks lots of stuff from AUR... AUR in itself is very complete, but it does not have mechanisms to cope with a massive upgrade ( pacman -Syu ) so there i go, buildng lots of stuff...

This is why i do not like Arch rolling release paradigm...

AFAIK Crux is very arch-like, but has no AUR... means that i would have to build all my stuff from source...

Slackware can be very much Arch/Crux like if one goes for a tag-file install...

slackware im pretty sure can be set up to be as if not more bare bones as any other system.

What about Unity Linux, based on Mandriva, is a rolling release. Its default desktop environment is Openbox. It's also available as both a 32-bit and 64-bit Live CD.

It may not be the same as Arch but does looks interesting.

http://unity-linux.org/

This is what I know about Crux from having it installed at one time.
1. No it's not rolling release, they have release cycles similar to Slackware.
2. Install is minimalistic, during the initial install Xorg is considered optional. After initial installation X only uses TWM window manger. The only other window manager available after the initial install is openbox and have to configure config files by hand to get openbox to work.
3. Crux uses a cross between a package system similar to Slack and a ports system similar to Gentoo to install additional software, but IMHO is not as user friendly.
4. Configuration files are edited by hand to get things to work.

I think the point is that the OP wants a system that *comes* this way, not something where you have to prune your way down to a minimal system, and yes, Arch is definitely one of those kinds of systems.

EDIT:

Actually, you'd have to compile from source *anyway*. All the AUR does is provide PKGBUILDs and any other pre/post-install scripts/files to build/install the application from source automatically, very similar to *BSD ports.

then i would suggest crunchbang or archbang.

Try Debian it comes close to Arch in minimalism.

I've installed crux 2.7 awhile back

I think the 'keep it simple' part in my viewpoint means not building crux from ground up like LFS and Gentoo.

The only thing you need to build is the kernel. After that you install program(s) using crux's ports system.

Soon enough, I can beat that: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...mputer-872662/
Less then 1.5MB in size with only ~6MB of ram required to boot.

you may also be interested in dragora. it's of quite similar ilk in many respects.

another that might interest, is hadron.

and i'm not sure if this would interest the op, but may interest others, exherbo, kinda like gentoo, but with paludis.

oh, and how about parabola. if you want something like arch, but not arch, it doesnt get much closer than that, because parabola IS arch, but with all the proprietary stuff taken out.

i'll also add that slackware is perfectly suited to minimal base installs, without having to gut out loads of auto-installed stuff in some bloated core. (without any significant effort, i had my nice minimal desktop slack installed on a 1.337gb partition with room to spare... though, not enough room for compiling new stuff, that i did elsewhere. ^_^ i think it was maybe even <700mb on the hd... damn, coulda put that on a cd without compression nicely.)

... i keep thinking i am neglecting to mention an important other one here too... :$ [edit: i'm on crux at the mo... maybe that was the one i was thinking of]

(found this thread searching for whether crux could be run as a rolling release... i hope this isnt considered some thread-necro offense. ... we can always do with more updates of this sort of info methinks. ~ scary warnings in red letters above the reply box, eep! this is timely and relevant for this, right?)