Finished Ubuntu Minimal Install

Just finished doing my first Ubuntu minimal install, started from command line login, tried different desktop enviroments, etc.

I actually settled with gnome, it's only takes up 20mb's more memory than lxde, and is much better than xfce4 because xfce4 didn't have a xfce4-core package, where as gnome has gnome-core. Nautilus is also a great file manager, couldn't get either xfce4 or lxde to auto play a dvd.

Now I have a great minimal install that only takes up 146mb of memory after boot, out of 2gb. 7% is not bad at all.

So I was wondering what to do after this. This install is great, it's light and fast, but should I try other distros that are designed to be built from the ground up? For example, is Arch Linux built from the ground up better than Ubuntu built from the ground up?

 

Try them all! Once I get my laptop, and desktop for that matter, back on the road again, I'm going to use my desktop as a testing station for Linux/BSD Distro's. I tried Arch but, didn't have enough time to play around with it/install desktop environments etc. Anyway, have fun! and Most of all, enjoy it!

 

yeah, try them all.....I ended with openSUSE because it's rock solid with KDE4, and was born of the great Slackware...but I'm running on high resources with hardware which is what I want....minimal install you might check out CrunchBang/Debian Statler release...I've booted the livecd and it seemed solid as an Alpha. Of course Arch if you like to put together Leggo's...

 

Well I'm kind of a pragmatist with this sort of things, not interested in distro hopping when Ubuntu suits my needs fine, I was just wondering if Arch Linux is faster and a better overall pick as a minimal install =D

 

yea..ubuntu has suited me fine too.. I have gone and tried out other distros for S and G's..but always go with Ubuntu

 

I might go back to Ubuntu on this Vostro cause of the LTS...be the last one on this machine.

My Precision, openSUSE I guess.

 

yup..def. waiting on the LTS too 7 more weeks.....
i know what i'll be doing that day though

 

I can't really answer your question, but the great advantage of Ubuntu is its ease of use. If I wanted to build something minimal I'd think of using Debian.

 

I cannot wait! WOOOO.
I'm taking that day off school so I can download it and install it.

 

haha..serious? that's awesome possum XDXD ...would u be able to get away with that mmm..though school is important.u may want to reconsider..

 

^^ Yes, I'm deadly serious! Of course I'd be able to get away with it, "Mummm, I feel sick " ha. School is important, yes, but I've already missed a whole term with doing only a few pieces of work, so whats one day gunna do. Or I might just download it before I go to school, and come home and install it afterwards? Hmm, I dunno yet

 

LOL.. "mom..i feel sick" always worked for meez! hahaha..XDXD
anyways..well if you've missed that much.....then maybe a day with ubuntu won't be so bad ..idk up to you to tell ya the truth when i was younger i woulda prolly dun it!

 

BAHAHHAAA. LOLLLL. that's funny. I just checked my diary, and we have a College Assembly, bleh, maybe I will take a date with Ubuntu... ha.

 

ick! hahaha!..yea def a date with ubuntu sounds good..do itz! unless you feel you will get more outta college assembly XDXDXD
besides other commitments i have to take care of i will be doing that as well !

 

haha, i hate assemblies esp when the principle gets up and drones on about useless stuff, like how he used to travel the world and help out people, one time he went to england to help a friend fix his door. haha.

 

Thanks, that's more like what I wanted to hear about. Have you tried both Debian and Ubuntu from minimal installs? Does Debian perform remarkably better?

By 'perform' I mean does it perform the necessary Desktop OS duties, and does it do it with low memory footprint. The main reason I'm looking for this minimalism is so that I can use one distribution across all the machines I have (from Pentium III's to C2D's).

 

i used to use ubuntu minimal, but i've since switched to arch. it's not much harder to set up, and it certainly doesn't take much longer, but it feels cleaner. maintenance is simple, all the major configurations are done by editing rc.conf, and, best of all, arch is a rolling release distro.

 

Now that's the kind of comparison I wanted to hear =D. Does Arch feel any faster? What is your memory usage like?

 

just so you know, i use kde (though not the full version). memory usage is around 500-600mb (out of 2gb total) and swap is never touched.

speedwise, arch seems a bit faster. there are fewer daemons, less is installed by default, and packages are optimized for i686 and x64 architectures. in fact, i tried wmii and didn't notice any difference in terms of performance; arch is pretty fast.

if your concern is minimalism, go with arch. it's more flexible; you can configure it however you want. example: if the packages aren't minimal enough, you can easily edit them (pkgbuild files) to get rid of dependencies you don't want.

 

I don't have a need for minimal installs at the moment, so I was comparing a full Ubuntu install with a standard Debian netinstall. Debian is noticably snappier and with a few extras installed uses about 110MB (from 640MB) after boot. Basis setup is easy enough, but Debian are pretty strict about free software so a lot of stuff has to be installed seperatly and this can be fiddly and time consuming.