Hi everyone, On Mon, Jul 6, 2020 at 10:26 PM <m...@distasis.com> wrote:
> On Thu, July 2, 2020 2:07 pm, Israel Dahl wrote: > > @Laura thanks for wanting to help! I think our goals overlap well, and > > could do with more hands on deck. My main goal for ToriOS is to make > > things easy to use, and look fairly nice on as old of hardware as > > possible. > > I'm still working on/trying to find lightweight alternatives that will > work better on older systems than a lot of the typical programs offered. > I really like how ToriOS makes good use of the FLTK GUI. Will be trying > to put together patches on some of the FLTK programs I use and upload them > soon. There are only about 3 or 4 other distributions I know about that > specifically try to make use of FLTK programs (including NanoLinux, > TinyCore Linux, 4Mlinux). > I'm sure there is no other distribution that could actually beat ToriOS. Keep in mind that ToriOS is using a modern base to help old machines to work. I've tried tons of distributions. So many. One of the reasons why I decided to start ToriOS project is because these distributions which I have tried, didn't give me what I was looking for. > > I'm also looking into SDL based applications and trying to determine > whether it's better to use the latest version of SDL (which takes more > resources) or try to continue to work with SDL 1.2.15. I'm trying to > backport some helper libraries to 1.2.15 now, but I'm also looking at > adding SDL 2.x support to some SDL 1.2.15 applications. Would be > interested in hearing opinions from others on which SDL version they > prefer. > > This is beyond my knowledge so no comment. > > I really want to join forces with all the small distros to form a common > > base, or some way to share all our niche programs. I think this would be > > the most helpful! > > I think the main distribution that actively tries to reach users with > older machines is Puppy Linux. They have several custom programs as well. > They also have several tools to build distributions automatically > including one that uses Debian as a base. However, there would be some > differences with how ToriOS does things such as the package manager and > making more use of the root user. One of my favorite distributions that's > based on Debian is AntiX. Don't know if we can share any resources with > them, but AntiX works very well on older hardware. It has some nice > custom software that works well on low resource machines too. Plus, it's > systemd free for those who don't like systemd being so inclusive and > trying to do several jobs instead of one job well. The philosophy of ToriOS is to KISS. Keep EVERYTHING as simple, as easy, as short as possible. > Would be interested to > see some statistics on whether systemd or its alternatives work better on > older computers, but my guess is that it's going to depend on the > hardware. One other advantage is that it has several tools for doing > respins in ISO or flash drive format. The other small Linux distributions > I've looked at are working with the musl C library instead of glibc. I > recently heard from the developer of Cucumber Linux. He's stopped that > project and is now working on fidelix but it's oriented to server use and > uses pkgsrc (which he said is working out very well). If we switched to > musl, the system would be more lightweight and would allow for static > compilation. However, you'd lose compatibility with Debian unless you > could pull off something similar to what Bedrock Linux does. Some of the > lightweight programs that the musl based distributions use might be > helpful though. Also, Debian does allow for installation of the musl > compiler along with the standard gcc/glibc compiler. Might be interesting > to see if packages or programs compiled with the different C libraries > could coexist in some easier way. There are also options like TinyCore > Linux. However, I wonder how well that works for older computers since > it's geared to using as much RAM as possible. > Too complicated, I'm afraid. This will set us back to where we started. We want to go in different directions. I'll share my ideas soon! > > I think ToriOS and AntiX are the main distributions I know when it comes > to targeting older systems and remaining Debian based. Also, many > distributions are moving away from 32 bit support and offering only 64 bit > support. ToriOS is better than AntiX ;-) > Might be worth looking into how likely it is that Debian will go > this route as well and what to do in case that happens. I've noticed > several forums mentioning issues with getting a modern browser that works > in 32 bit as well. No doubts! > That could be a serious issue at some point and > already is with some other distributions. > Indeed. > Sincerely, > Laura > http://lmemsm.dreamwidth.org > > > -- > Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~torios > Post to : torios@lists.launchpad.net > Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~torios > More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp > -- Remember: "All of us are smarter than any one of us." Best Regards, Ali/amjjawad <https://wiki.ubuntu.com/amjjawad>
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