What kind of programs can I toss to slim down Linux for a slower machine? I want full functionality of the system with no fluff. It's fairly responsive as it is, but I, as much as anything, need to save hard disk space. I can't install another hard disk because of another story altogether I'm trying to solve, so I won't go into it here. Two packages I need to toss that I haven't found is my USB manager (don't seem to be Hotplug) and the Ochi1394 driver. I don't have either port on this machine. Other than that, if I can toss it, I want it gone.

I'm not sure tossing packages makes your system faster. Does it? How? If you aren't running them, they're just taking up disk space. That doesn't effect responsiveness.

What window manager are you using? Icewm, fluxbox, blackbox make a huge difference.

Some people say running older, smaller kernels gives a boost on really old hardware. I don't know if that's true.

Many times, one of the best ways to speed up the system is to make sure you don't have any processes that you don't need running at startup.

There's two things I'm wanting to do here. I'm wanting to free up disk space by bashing packages I don't run, and (more importantly) I'm wanting to waste, like the USB drivers and stuff since this system has no USB, among any other service or whatever that runs that I have no need for.