On Fri, 15 Feb 2002, Hoyt wrote: > http://www.linuxjournal.com//article.php?sid=5818 > > > A good reason to look at a "lightweight" Mandrake? > Interesting article, but I'm not sure I agree with everything in it.
Some of the points that I thought interesting were: minimized kernel -- Some facility like FreeBSDs automated kernel rebuild on install could be useful here. The other option, which most distros do anyway, is to choose a pre-compiled kernel to install. My default Mandrake modules directory is about ~14M. Since most of these are loaded as modules there is probably little effect on the runtime size if it was configured differently. iptables without server services -- The default config seems to already support NAT with everything else denied -- but then I haven't re-installed my firewall in ages.. TinyX instead of X11 -- I think it's a misconception that X iteself is the culprit. X is large, but most of the perceived bloat is from the wm itself. He also mentions things like statically linking konqueror and other applications in the belief that it would save memory. This is an odd statement, because unless there's *no* duplication of calls, this would increase memory usage. The main difficult I have with this is the target platform that he thinks is appropriate for "schools, families, developing countries, public and private offices with almost null budget". In Jamaica, Guyana, and parts of the Caribbean the basic machines are often Pentium class or better. This may seem difficult for some to believe, but a huge market for out-of-date (in the US) machines exists and Pentiums are now several generations gone. I'm not certain that countries where people are stressing because their children's tummies are getting bloated because they have no food will care about providing Internet access. That leaves us with schools and public/private offices. The question here is whether or not it's financially sound to invest time/resources (not money) in getting the target system to work. I think the idea is well intentioned, and the concepts are useful in paring down existing software, but I question the market for such a distribution. Thanks for pointing out the article.
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