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Old 02-14-2010, 11:01 PM   #1
lostinpurdy
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Looking for a lightweight distro with huge binary repo


Hello, I've been using different linux distros for some time now and one thing that I really hate is that one distro lacks the packages in it's repo that another distro has and wise versa. I did mess around with different gentoo based distros where I find pretty much everything in their ports system but the whole dependency hell and having to unmask packages and mess with use-flags just makes me want to throw up, so here's what I'm looking for: I'm looking for a preferably lightweight distro which uses a binary (or source, or both) based package system that provides automatic dependecy resolution and uses one or multiple repos that contain everything that Debian, Fedora, Slackware, etc.. combined have. Any suggestions?

PS: I hate BSD because it doesn't support any of my ati and nvidia cards. Vesa yes, 3D accelaration no.

Last edited by lostinpurdy; 02-14-2010 at 11:17 PM.
 
Old 02-14-2010, 11:58 PM   #2
phobozad
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As far as having a huge database of packages, you can't beat Debian. You can make it as lightweight as you want depending on what options you select when installing.
 
Old 02-15-2010, 12:00 AM   #3
MS3FGX
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Debian easily has the largest package repository of the ones you listed there, so it isn't much of a competition.

Ubuntu probably has the largest total number of available packages, but it certainly doesn't count as lightweight. Unless you used one of the spin-offs that use a lighter WM and a less intensive set of stock packages. That way the OS will be a little more nimble, but you still have access to the large Ubuntu repositories.
 
Old 02-15-2010, 08:53 AM   #4
snowday
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You can't really go wrong with Debian.
 
Old 02-15-2010, 09:19 AM   #5
reed9
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Quote:
I'm looking for a preferably lightweight distro which uses a binary (or source, or both) based package system that provides automatic dependecy resolution and uses one or multiple repos that contain everything that Debian, Fedora, Slackware, etc.. combined have. Any suggestions?
I'm not sure any distro is going to have all the packages that these combined have. That's asking a lot. As said, Debian has the largest repos, but often not up-to-date. You could try Sidux, which is rolling release and based on Debian Unstable, so it has pretty current packages, and still has access to Debian's deep repos.

Or you can try Arch, which has a good amount of packages in the official repos, and then has teh Arch User Repository for user contributed build scripts, which nicely rounds out the official repo. It's rare not to find what you need there.
 
  


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