Linux Distro hunting

January 25, 2010

I’m looking for a new Distro to run on my old PCs at home.

Previously I’ve been running Puppy Linux on it, which so far has been okay, but it doesn’t come with some packages I want installed out of the box (mainly Python).

Basically the bases I need covered are,

Low profile, able to run in small amount of RAM
Fast booting
Python
Firefox 3.x, Opera 10.x or Chromium browser
Mplayer or similar for video playback

So the contenders so far are,

Vector Linux

Speed, performance, stability – these are attributes that set VectorLinux apart in the crowded field of Linux distributions.The creators of VectorLinux had a single credo: keep it simple, keep it small and let the end user decide what their operating system is going to be. What has evolved from this concept is perhaps the best little Linux operating system available anywhere. For the casual computer user you have a lightning fast desktop with graphical programs to handle your daily activities from web surfing, sending and receiving email, chatting on ICQ or IRC to running an ftp server. Power users will be pleased because all the tools are there to compile their own programs, use the system as a server or perhaps the gateway for their home or office computer network. Administrators will be equally as pleased because the small size and memory requirements of the operating system can be deployed on older machines maybe long forgotten.

CrunchBang Linux

CrunchBang Linux is an Ubuntu based distribution offering a great blend of speed, style and substance. Using the nimble Openbox window manager, it is highly customisable and provides a modern, full-featured GNU/Linux system without sacrificing performance.