Hey guys, it's been quiet in here for a while, just wanted to report back.

I've been back and forth with Jemimah on Puppeee and Fluppy, and am eager to see what those will look like when they get to release 1.0.

However, after seeing the latest respin of Peppermint One, I've given it a try and I am quite impressed.
This has got to be the fastest booting, fastest running ubuntu out there. It gives you links to google docs and apps, which are reliable servers, but you can still install any other apps you like - after all, these are just launchers, not taking up much space (however, the inclusion of a launcher to the last.fm subscription service is puzzling... is this intentional to help fund the project, or has the main developer not noticed that one of his moderators/partners slipped in a paid service?).
Those were the pros. Cons: not quite as configurable as one would like, but they are promising that they are working on making it more newbie-friendly. also, the forum is for intermediate and expert users, where the views and requests from beginner users will get edited out by controlling moderators who would like the planet to learn CLI sooner than promoting ease of use - which is kind of against the main developper's mission statement - it'll be interesting to see how this develops. This having been said, it is very easy to use - unless you want to tweak something or change something. There are still a few minor glitches (as with any distro), such as, for example, if you uninstall something, it may not always disappear from the menu, and reorganizing a menu, or changing some settings, will require you to search in the tips and tricks in the forum to learn how to do it with the CLI.

As I write this, I just noticed that the new PCLinuxOS LXDE and Openbox have become available in the past hours. Good timing. I'll give those a try next.

May not be a "weak" netbook, but with netbooks coming out with 1GB of RAM, some upgrading them to 2GB, 160GB HDDs becoming standard, and Moblin/MeeGo telling you your Celeron isn't good enough, one is certainly made to feel that it is a feeble netbook by new standards.

WindozeXP: well, I care. Because I hate using up valuable RAM when I run it in Virtualbox. I have a softphone app that I can now run in a 128MB WindozeXP Virtualbox session on my 2GB main cure2duo laptop (and I use AutoCAD too). So I have lots of RAM left for more important stuff than windoze. :-) This way at least makes it more bearable when I have to waste RAM on Windoze for Legacy PCs.

To the gentlemen who suggested PCLinuxOS, I gave PCLinuxOS e17 a try, as well as Elive 2.0 Topaz, and both are extremely sluggish on my netbook - as a matter of fact, standard EasyPeasy flies compared to them. I read the hype, was looking forward to having the speed of LXDE with configurability and pizazz added... but it felt like trying to move forward when you're stuck in the mud - much slower than Gnome. For the other versions of PCLinuxOS, well, I can get Mint with Gnome or LXDE if I wanted that, or Peppermint with Openbox.

Which brings me to Peppermint's second respin of Peppermint One. It's menus are not configurable, there are a few minor bugs that can be resolved at the command line, the user forums are heavily censored by a couple of moderators with anger management problems and control issues, but in all, it boots fast and works pretty good. So Peppermint is a one thumbs up! :-) It detected and configured the WiFi pretty well. It doesn't have all the features of say Mint, but then again, it's lighter and faster... great on a netbook.

You have a well-chosen selection, thanks in large part to this forum. I do not recall seeing anyone having mentioned the Debian-based offshoot of MEPIS called antiX.

The lastest, antiX-M8.5, comes as base, i486 or i686 --
http://antix.mepis.org/index.php/Mai....php/Main_Page

i486 torrent -- http://www.linux23.com/torrent/antix...df388573cb30ba

I use the i686 version without any problem on PIII and P4 machines with 512mb RAM.

Slightly slower, but with a nice XFCE interface and good software selection (except brasero, which I dislike, and use <wodim> in lieu of), is Zenwalk 6.4

Happy Fourth!

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@Fred: you might be happy to learn that there is a new TinyMe 2010.
It is only at Beta right now though (RC1 they call it).

TinyMe 2010 is a spinoff of Unity (uses e17), which is a spinoff of Mandriva. However, TinyMe, using Openbox and not the sluggish e17 is much much faster, and the LiveCD was using only 72MB of RAM when running. It is a nice polished interface they have made out of it. Lots of bugs though. It did allow me to configure my WiFi rather easily... but once that was done, nothing else would run (and it was before that). I've posted the appropriate report in their bug tracker forum. I'll keep a close watch on this one. It looks promising... (if they can make it all sing in harmony).

TinyMe has a critical keyboard bug referred to in http://tinymelinux.com/forum/tracker/issue-30.html. Keyword: Dvorak

I tried using it and until KDulcimer gets it worked out, I will not do so again. On the other hand, Unity provides a great core distro from which to compile!

This bug is what led me to discover antiX -- great distro that works on just about anything! Viva anticapitalista!

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QNX and Haiku-os are likely to be fast but will have other issues.


See disto's made for it like MEEGO.

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I didn't read trough the whole thread, but thought I could share some of my own experience.

I have an aspire one D150. I'm running slackware 13.0 and it is working great. I don't think it boots as fast as easypeasy, but it is quite nice. Since I have a harddrive and not a flashdrive, it is easy to just do a full install, but that wouldn't work well if you have limited capacity. The webcam isn't working out of the box, and I haven't tried to get it to work either since I don't use it.

Fluxbox gives you speed and a great usage of the screen. It also low on resource consumption. Overall, if you're not afraid of slack and commandline, you could give it a go.

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OK, so let me get this straight:
you are recommending a distro that is even slower than an ubuntu-based one (but without the benefits of ubuntu),
you suggest it won't work well because of one of our criteria, limited capacity,
webcam doesn't work, but that should be OK for us because you personally don't use one...

WHAT???? Am I hallucinating? WHAT are you posting that for then? POLLUTION ALERT!


@jethro - meego is only suitable for atom and up - intel made sure it won't run on generic x86 as a competitive move. they seem to have made a netbook OS that, to be at it's best, wants a multicore laptop. great move einteins!

Ok, I wasn't quite clear. The bootup is a little slower, but the system it self is faster, and the screen is used better.

Oh, and read my first and last line one more time. I am sharing my experience, and if you wouldn't have a problem with the issues I mentioned, I said you could try it.

Take no notice, Timmi. He can't help it; Slackware does that to people.

Meego does work on x86 if it supports sse3.

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All equal hardware, I have always found slackware more responsive than ubuntu. Especially on older hardware.
Your drive space is the real limiting factor.
If you do try slackware, do not do a full install. You could probably keep a minimal slack install with just x and fluxbox in addition to the necessary packages around 3gb.

That said, I would try zenwalk.

I still think nfluxos fits the bill...here's why

1) choose slackware/debian/or ubuntu version(arch version is having issues with umount as livecd) the ubuntu boots/reboots in less than 30sec

2) all of them are sub 3GB hdd install

3) all feature fluxbox

4) all are made for older stuff and have lite apps

5) as for support; that would be me
and I've been here for awhile and aint' stoppin anytime soon with nfluxos

and you dont really need my support as the underlying distros all have great support

you actually have enough hdd space to have 2 distros installed
if you choose to install any of them holler back as the ubuntu is easy, and the slack one is manual but its easy too

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Might look at austrumi. http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=austrumi

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Yes... and.... WHAT processors support that???
Do you RESEARCH before arguing!

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