So, I'm looking for a Linux distro that's generally pretty light, but not a ton of work out of the box. I want to use something like a Debian Minimal Installation, but I'm not sure if that's the route I want to take.

The main thing I want to have is a distro that is extremely fast and lightweight, yet has a lot of potential. One of the things I'm tired of is having either a system that has a ton of stuff out of the box, which is nice because it has drivers, etc. included, but offers less powerful UI customization. i.e. Ubuntu. On the other side of the spectrum, there are things like Arch Linux which lets you pick out everything yourself, but I'm not really looking for that kind of ridiculous customization.

So I'm pretty much looking for something with the out-of-the-box potential and usability of Ubuntu, but with a serious amount of customization. I liked the idea of Slackware, but I mainly didn't like the lack of package manager. Also, Slackware has a bit too much going on right when you get it setup the first time.

Any advice is appreciated! Thank you in advance Linux community!

Have a look at Salix. It's a slimmed-down Slackware offshoot, with slapt-get as a package manager.

AntiX core or Base Install. Full iso weighs in at 2Gig on hardrive after install, You pick.

http://antix.mepis.org/index.php?title=Main_Page

I run 64bit full iso on a IBM M57 Tower.

No need to switch distros, as Ubuntu already has this capability:

http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/minimal

Debian would also be an excellent choice.

1 members found this post helpful.

Funny that people keep saying that slackware does not have a package manager. It has one. The only difference is that it doesn't do all the fancy stuff that some other package managers do.

Cheers.

Wonder why Vector never seems to get noticed here much?

I would consider one of the different choices of ubuntu like xubuntu or lubuntu.

Maybe some of the ones made for laptops and netbooks.

What is the issue for lightweight? Is this a resource issue or speed issue?

You might be able to live with Puppy or Slitaz, maybe even DSL.

Consider #Crunchbang.

I have liked Slax too.

Peppermint shows up but I didn't care for it too much.

Might look at Macpup.


For some hardware issues this is a bit old but still some ideas. http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/10-...-your-netbook/

Because those fancy things that the others have is what people want. Main reason I only use Slackware for a few months before I grow tired of it. Manual dependency resolution sucks.

What is your definition of light weight?

Low processor overhead? Low idle memory usage? Minimal disk usage?

Depending on what you mean by "light weight", the suggestions will vary greatly. Remember, Linux is not Windows, lots of installed programs and high disk usage does not mean it will run slow. What makes it run slow is when your memory usage gets near the limits, when your disk usage gets near the limits, and DEs with fancy graphics that eat your CPU when you just want to move a window.

FTFY.

1 members found this post helpful.

Okay. So let me give everyone a proper update. I've been trying out ArchBang for the past couple days as a friend recommended it to me. I suppose I should have said minimalistic instead. It's not that I need less performance. I just like a system that doesn't have a bunch of extra software that I'm just going to select manually myself anyway. A good example is Gnome. I like to use Gnome 2 as I have a lot of themes and things regularly with it. So I guess my best bet is to just stick with a Debian minimal unless someone has a better option that will suit my needs

50mb Damn Small Linux : http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/

look at here you have 12mb linux;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightwe...x_distribution

Thanks for the update... did you try any of our suggestions?

While I'm using Slackware right now, I don't consider it lightweight. It comes with a lot of software, and sure, you can select which packages to install to somewhat limit what you get, but it can be difficult to refine the install without some trial and error. If you end up with too much unwanted software, you can use pkgtool to remove stuff.

You might consider trying Bodhi Linux. It uses the lightweight Enlightenment desktop and comes with very little software, though supposedly software is easy enough to install. Give it a look at DistroWatch.

I am using Bodhi Linux and it's really lightweight. not like the others suggested in this thread.

All right. So I finally came to the conclusion on what I wanted. I ended up settling on a Debian minimal installation using the MATE desktop, considering I love using the Gnome 2 themes. I installed just about everything with the exception of the kernel and package manager manually to make for a truly customizable experience. After doing all of this, I've just found that taking an empty universal core system and building it up is really the way to go. As it always proven right, if you want something done right, do it yourself.

Here's a shot of the desktop: