On 01/25/2014 11:51 AM, berenger.mo...@neutralite.org wrote: > > > Le 25.01.2014 03:17, tom arnall a écrit : >> I am looking for the fastest Linux distro for the following purposes. >> >> >> System: >> >> Dell latitude D630 >> dual core >> 2g memory >> >> >> most used applications: >> >> icewm >> gnome-terminal >> vim >> perl >> chrome browser >> transmission >> >> >> Currently I am running ubuntu 12.04. I am unhappy with the speed of it. >> >> Any info/suggestions will be greatly appreciated. > > We can not reply to your question, because it is incomplete. > > All distros make a choice between: > * time the user have to spend to install, configure and maintain, > * user's knowledge, > * freshness of packages ( with problems of too recent or too old > softwares, indeed ) > * effective speed of the system. > > Debian is interesting, and maybe the best choice for my needs, because > it allows me to tinker a lot to have a minimal system. Install it > without any option at first, then on your first run, just use aptitude, > disable "automatically install recommended softwares" and select the > tools you need one by one. > If you wants it on your desktop, for simple uses which are not critical, > testing is very good: less outdated than stable, and I have seen less > breakages than in unstable, and those breakages are probably due to the > fact I am a dependency nazi. I send every package I do not know why they > are on my system in the void, which can happen to break features I need, > but I have seen lot of powerful computers running so slowly compared to > my netbook... > Also, if you want speed, forget about classic DEs: unity, gnome, kde are > not built for speed, they are built to be easy to use. You want speed? > You have to take time to discover exactly which features you need, and > to select softwares which does not implement features you do not need. > My personal choices: > opera ( web browsing ), lxterminal, i3-wm ( if you are a keyboard lover > and have more than one screen - or only small ones - then you *need* it > ) , mpd, mpc, ncmpcpp, galculator, vim, transmission, skype, mumble, > clang, git, meld, dia and ssh, aptitude, lilo, and some games. Probably > some other minor tools, too, for programming. > This selection implied lot of time spent into removing bloated stuff > like file explorers, in testing ( I spent the most time testing web > browsers, text editors, terminal emulators and window managers ). > Using a mix between stable and testing on my desktop (I need at least a > computer to be usable everytime ), and unstable/experimental on my netbook. > > If you have plenty of time and knowledge, you can try LFS ( linux from > scratch ) or gentoo. But since you come from Ubuntu, I very doubt that > it can be recommended to you. Those distros* needs a deep knowledge of > internals of your computer. They'll require you to compile everything** > so you will be able to select the exact optimization options you want > and the precise instruction set of your processor. > You will earn some CPU cycles ( I *did not* said that this will be > measurable )... but will spend hours to get them. Those options are the > fastest distros you could have. It will also give you the really last > version of softwares, since it is built from source directly, so you can > even choose to build from development repositories. > There are some other source distros around: source mage, sorcerer, > funtoo... > > Then, you have some distros like archlinux, which needs a little less > knowledge, but still lot of time. Arch is a rolling release distro, with > the problems it gives: when you update your system, you *have to* read > the notes, or it can break everything. Some will say I troll, and some > others will give you real stories about such failures. > AFAIK, fedora needs far less time and is more stable, but since I was > never really interested by it, I can not give you any opinion about it ( > I have at least tried to install each other I speak about here ). > > And you came from Ubuntu, which, with some others like mint, is only > built to give an easy to use system, with almost no administration > tasks. You can not have something tailored for your needs with such > mind, but you won't have any brain damage to choose between alternatives > for your software, or by trying to configure them. > On this list, we probably have ours brains a little damaged, especially > people which used Debian in it's first days ;) freedom can hurt, you know. > > So, really, you did not asked your question correctly. > How many time do you have? > How many knowledge do you have? > Do you need shiny, very recent softwares? > Do you prefer stable stuff or fast ones? > > To conclude this long mail, I will give you a link: > http://www.zegeniestudios.net/ldc/index.php > > This is a website which will asks you the same questions as me, plus > some others, and which will give you some hint about what distro could > be the good one for your needs. Just note that it is not really a very > recent test, and it have been made by humans and so results contains > opinions.
Just for the fun of it I took the test. As 'graphical installer' was one of my requirements, Debian was not recommended. Reason: It does not have a graphical installer ?!?!?! > You can also use distrowatch to read a little about the distros it will > advice you to use, and/or wikipedia articles about them. > This way, you will have an idea of the picture, and may be able to have > a not too bad choice. > > *: note that LFS is not a real distro, but a book about how to build > your own distro > **: I have read that, for gentoo, there are now some packages with > binaries, so not really everything... > > -- K.D.J. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/52e3b764.9040...@t-online.de
