Minimal distros compendium
by helmen from LinuxQuestions.org on (#5K0J5)
I love minimal distros but I have not yet found a site with a well populated and searchable database and instead I have to rely on personal knowledge.
So I want to make a list of distros that I know of that fall into this category, and I hope you'll let me know about others.
I'm looking for the perfect distro for my taste but I haven't found it yet, the features I prefer are:
- modularity: a system that cannot be customized is a dead system
- live: i love systems that start in ram because they are 1) faster 2) safer since you can avoid writing to disk (if you put the distro on a write-protected sd in practice even the command "sudo rm -rf /" does not scare you) 3) portable because you can use them on multiple pc's at the same time (even with the same memory, possible with tinycore and alpine inofficially) 4) robust because you minimize writes to disk
- rolling release: it would be nice to have a system to install multiple versions of the same package like gobolinux and to be able to downgrade packages like nyxos. But at least having up-to-date packages is important to me.
- backup: A good selective backup, is necessary to avoid saving things you don't want to save like firefox cache
- Good development organization: very useful to have scripted packages (like aur), building bots, collaborative platform...
- responsive community: How else do you solve problems?
- standard package format: so you have more packages
- light: a system that has only what is essential, once customized is much more responsive and reliable and I feel like I have more control of it.
I try to sort the list by the average size of the images.
tinycore 16-160 MB
Really nice distro, I've been using it for years. There are several versions and it is a very modular distro. The system they have built tends to simplicity and is really a pleasure.
Pros:
- really minimalist
- modular
- You can make selective backups that are simple archives
- simple mind and kiss
Cons:
- don't have a standard script system for creating packages
- it is not rolling
- because of the two previous cons, a lot of packages are lost with each new major release
- few developers (but very good ones)
- small community
- the official gui is not bad but to change the font size of the system tools you have to recompile them (if they haven't changed...)
Alpine 3-550 MB
My current distro, it is magnificent, it only has a couple of flaws but that are quite annoying.
Pro
- As modular as and more than tinycore, you can even uninstall packages at runtime without problems
- rolling releases with releases
- packages have a standard scripting system, in this case the distro resembles arch which is only a good thing
- selective backup similar to tinycore (but with a bug of owner possible to bypass)
- very professional organization
Cons
- musl instead of glibc, it should be an improvement but at the end of the day many programs don't work and the ones that work have to be compiled autonomously
- distro not too user friendly, it's made for competent people and the community doesn't help much (they don't have a forum, they answer little to the newsletter, they give little attention to tickets on gitlab, the chat is populated but it's more difficult to ask for help in a chat)
Slitaz 45-85 MB
I dont know this distro but I want to try it, so I'm going by what I read.
Pro
- a favorable ratio between space occupied and software included
- support for many different types of packages
Cons
- i understand they don't have a custom backup system so you have to be satisfied with persistence, but i'm not sure
Slax 270 MB
Another distro that I don't know.
Based on debian with which it shares packages.
Pro
- Modular
- seems to support backups in the form of packages but I don't know if you can discriminate what to save as tinycore or alpine
Cons
- ? outdated?
Porteus 330-410 MB
I don't know this distro either
Pro
- Modular
- many desktop managers provided
Cons
- ?
EasyOs 490 MB
This distro is promising but development is slow. It is made by the same creator of puppy linux but has many interesting features.
Pro
- Containerization, it contains a program isolation system made by the same author
- modular
- it seems to support backups that are versioned (but if I understand it you can't discriminate what to save)
- debian packages, several ways to repackage them
Cons
- experimental, I wanted to try it out but it didn't work
- the community is small, the forum has been closed and reopened in a section of puppylinux
- few developers
honorable mentions
distros that I exclude because they don't seem interesting to me for constant use but that deserve mention.
puppylinux: i don't know why but this distro has never attracted me, it has always seemed to me too messy and too little customizable
damnsmall: please no, in the past it was a historical distro but now it's outdated as death. The moral successor is tinycore which among other things shares the same (real) developer.
Kolibri: but it is not linux
So I want to make a list of distros that I know of that fall into this category, and I hope you'll let me know about others.
I'm looking for the perfect distro for my taste but I haven't found it yet, the features I prefer are:
- modularity: a system that cannot be customized is a dead system
- live: i love systems that start in ram because they are 1) faster 2) safer since you can avoid writing to disk (if you put the distro on a write-protected sd in practice even the command "sudo rm -rf /" does not scare you) 3) portable because you can use them on multiple pc's at the same time (even with the same memory, possible with tinycore and alpine inofficially) 4) robust because you minimize writes to disk
- rolling release: it would be nice to have a system to install multiple versions of the same package like gobolinux and to be able to downgrade packages like nyxos. But at least having up-to-date packages is important to me.
- backup: A good selective backup, is necessary to avoid saving things you don't want to save like firefox cache
- Good development organization: very useful to have scripted packages (like aur), building bots, collaborative platform...
- responsive community: How else do you solve problems?
- standard package format: so you have more packages
- light: a system that has only what is essential, once customized is much more responsive and reliable and I feel like I have more control of it.
I try to sort the list by the average size of the images.
tinycore 16-160 MB
Really nice distro, I've been using it for years. There are several versions and it is a very modular distro. The system they have built tends to simplicity and is really a pleasure.
Pros:
- really minimalist
- modular
- You can make selective backups that are simple archives
- simple mind and kiss
Cons:
- don't have a standard script system for creating packages
- it is not rolling
- because of the two previous cons, a lot of packages are lost with each new major release
- few developers (but very good ones)
- small community
- the official gui is not bad but to change the font size of the system tools you have to recompile them (if they haven't changed...)
Alpine 3-550 MB
My current distro, it is magnificent, it only has a couple of flaws but that are quite annoying.
Pro
- As modular as and more than tinycore, you can even uninstall packages at runtime without problems
- rolling releases with releases
- packages have a standard scripting system, in this case the distro resembles arch which is only a good thing
- selective backup similar to tinycore (but with a bug of owner possible to bypass)
- very professional organization
Cons
- musl instead of glibc, it should be an improvement but at the end of the day many programs don't work and the ones that work have to be compiled autonomously
- distro not too user friendly, it's made for competent people and the community doesn't help much (they don't have a forum, they answer little to the newsletter, they give little attention to tickets on gitlab, the chat is populated but it's more difficult to ask for help in a chat)
Slitaz 45-85 MB
I dont know this distro but I want to try it, so I'm going by what I read.
Pro
- a favorable ratio between space occupied and software included
- support for many different types of packages
Cons
- i understand they don't have a custom backup system so you have to be satisfied with persistence, but i'm not sure
Slax 270 MB
Another distro that I don't know.
Based on debian with which it shares packages.
Pro
- Modular
- seems to support backups in the form of packages but I don't know if you can discriminate what to save as tinycore or alpine
Cons
- ? outdated?
Porteus 330-410 MB
I don't know this distro either
Pro
- Modular
- many desktop managers provided
Cons
- ?
EasyOs 490 MB
This distro is promising but development is slow. It is made by the same creator of puppy linux but has many interesting features.
Pro
- Containerization, it contains a program isolation system made by the same author
- modular
- it seems to support backups that are versioned (but if I understand it you can't discriminate what to save)
- debian packages, several ways to repackage them
Cons
- experimental, I wanted to try it out but it didn't work
- the community is small, the forum has been closed and reopened in a section of puppylinux
- few developers
honorable mentions
distros that I exclude because they don't seem interesting to me for constant use but that deserve mention.
puppylinux: i don't know why but this distro has never attracted me, it has always seemed to me too messy and too little customizable
damnsmall: please no, in the past it was a historical distro but now it's outdated as death. The moral successor is tinycore which among other things shares the same (real) developer.
Kolibri: but it is not linux