Are there any advantages to using a lightweight distro on powerful hardware?
 

Hello all,

Just a quick question...

Are there any notable advantages to using something like Lubuntu, Debian LXDE or Arch on something like a quad core with 4-8GB RAM?

I know the distros are targeted at users with older hardware, but it seems to me that the less resources used by the OS would result in more resources being available in userspace amirite?

Your right! and just look at this wonderful community of support!

It's an equation:

Resources for users = Total resources - Resources used by the OS**

whether you see any difference depends on what you are doing.



**"Resources" include things like CPU speed, RAM, HD space, internet connection B/W

Actually there are Gnu/Linux distros aimed at backward compat to older hardware: example, Absolute Linux based on Slackware. But most distros are aimed to cater user needs --not necessarily for backward hardware. See for example Opensuse, Ubuntu, Mint, Redhat, Fedora etc. these are not aimed to older hardware but to provide cutting edge performance for both users with latest hardware and the bit less current; yet, it is impossible for those distros to run on a 466hz Celeron on a 16Mb RAM. To say that (ALL) Distros ARE targeted at users with older hardware is a complete mistake. In comparison rather, <as a matter of joke> saying that M$Windows v.($) is universally poor OS is a truism.


The utilization of user-space is not anchored on the size of RAM reserved by the kernel. This condition is a case to case basis depending on the software being called to require resources. Example, GWview (a Gnome image viewer) regardless of conditions raised by the kernel or the size of userspace normally commands 10MB from the point it starts.

If you have that big RAM resources and Quad Processors that means that you have 4 highways to process tasks and ample working space. You can run MSWindows v.($) fast enough on it: BUT with Slackware (Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, Suse, etc.) FASTER.

Hope that helps.

Congrats for a cutting edge hardware.

m.m.

Many thanks gents, I thought that would be the case but I wanted to run it by the hive to see if I was correct.

I think the question I should have asked is "Am I utilizing my available resources efficiently by only using a lightweight distro?" which again, I think I am.

Cheers guys

I use lightweight software on all my systems. All running Slackware with the i3 WM, dwb as browser and other than that mostly CLI applications, like Mutt as mail client, Ranger for file management and Newsbeuter for reading RSS. All my systems are powerful enough to run a full blown DE, except the Eee PC, which lacks CPU power for this (Celeron M 630MHz).
There are two main reasons for me to do that:
- I prefer keyboard over the mouse and most applications that have the ability to be totally keyboard driven are lightweight.
- I prefer snappiness. Firefox needs three seconds to start? To slow, dwb starts in the blink of an eye. KDE needs 6 seconds to start? To slow, i3 WM starts instantly (and is a tiling WM, which i prefer anyways).

So it does make sense to run lightweight software on powerful hardware, if you don't are keen on eye-candy and prefer functionality and speed over it.