Re: fastest linux distro
On 01/25/2014 11:51 AM, berenger.morel@neutralite.org wrote:
>
>
> Le 25.01.2014 03:17, tom arnall a écrit :
>> I am looking for the fastest Linux distro for the following purposes.
>>
>>
>> System:
>>
>> Dell latitude D630
>> dual core
>> 2g memory
>>
>>
>> most used applications:
>>
>> icewm
>> gnome-terminal
>> vim
>> perl
>> chrome browser
>> transmission
>>
>>
>> Currently I am running ubuntu 12.04. I am unhappy with the speed of it.
>>
>> Any info/suggestions will be greatly appreciated.
>
> We can not reply to your question, because it is incomplete.
>
> All distros make a choice between:
> * time the user have to spend to install, configure and maintain,
> * user's knowledge,
> * freshness of packages ( with problems of too recent or too old
> softwares, indeed )
> * effective speed of the system.
>
> Debian is interesting, and maybe the best choice for my needs, because
> it allows me to tinker a lot to have a minimal system. Install it
> without any option at first, then on your first run, just use aptitude,
> disable "automatically install recommended softwares" and select the
> tools you need one by one.
> If you wants it on your desktop, for simple uses which are not critical,
> testing is very good: less outdated than stable, and I have seen less
> breakages than in unstable, and those breakages are probably due to the
> fact I am a dependency nazi. I send every package I do not know why they
> are on my system in the void, which can happen to break features I need,
> but I have seen lot of powerful computers running so slowly compared to
> my netbook...
> Also, if you want speed, forget about classic DEs: unity, gnome, kde are
> not built for speed, they are built to be easy to use. You want speed?
> You have to take time to discover exactly which features you need, and
> to select softwares which does not implement features you do not need.
> My personal choices:
> opera ( web browsing ), lxterminal, i3-wm ( if you are a keyboard lover
> and have more than one screen - or only small ones - then you *need* it
> ) , mpd, mpc, ncmpcpp, galculator, vim, transmission, skype, mumble,
> clang, git, meld, dia and ssh, aptitude, lilo, and some games. Probably
> some other minor tools, too, for programming.
> This selection implied lot of time spent into removing bloated stuff
> like file explorers, in testing ( I spent the most time testing web
> browsers, text editors, terminal emulators and window managers ).
> Using a mix between stable and testing on my desktop (I need at least a
> computer to be usable everytime ), and unstable/experimental on my netbook.
>
> If you have plenty of time and knowledge, you can try LFS ( linux from
> scratch ) or gentoo. But since you come from Ubuntu, I very doubt that
> it can be recommended to you. Those distros* needs a deep knowledge of
> internals of your computer. They'll require you to compile everything**
> so you will be able to select the exact optimization options you want
> and the precise instruction set of your processor.
> You will earn some CPU cycles ( I *did not* said that this will be
> measurable )... but will spend hours to get them. Those options are the
> fastest distros you could have. It will also give you the really last
> version of softwares, since it is built from source directly, so you can
> even choose to build from development repositories.
> There are some other source distros around: source mage, sorcerer,
> funtoo...
>
> Then, you have some distros like archlinux, which needs a little less
> knowledge, but still lot of time. Arch is a rolling release distro, with
> the problems it gives: when you update your system, you *have to* read
> the notes, or it can break everything. Some will say I troll, and some
> others will give you real stories about such failures.
> AFAIK, fedora needs far less time and is more stable, but since I was
> never really interested by it, I can not give you any opinion about it (
> I have at least tried to install each other I speak about here ).
>
> And you came from Ubuntu, which, with some others like mint, is only
> built to give an easy to use system, with almost no administration
> tasks. You can not have something tailored for your needs with such
> mind, but you won't have any brain damage to choose between alternatives
> for your software, or by trying to configure them.
> On this list, we probably have ours brains a little damaged, especially
> people which used Debian in it's first days ;) freedom can hurt, you know.
>
> So, really, you did not asked your question correctly.
> How many time do you have?
> How many knowledge do you have?
> Do you need shiny, very recent softwares?
> Do you prefer stable stuff or fast ones?
>
> To conclude this long mail, I will give you a link:
> http://www.zegeniestudios.net/ldc/index.php
>
> This is a website which will asks you the same questions as me, plus
> some others, and which will give you some hint about what distro could
> be the good one for your needs. Just note that it is not really a very
> recent test, and it have been made by humans and so results contains
> opinions.
Just for the fun of it I took the test.
As 'graphical installer' was one of my requirements, Debian was not
recommended. Reason: It does not have a graphical installer ?!?!?!
> You can also use distrowatch to read a little about the distros it will
> advice you to use, and/or wikipedia articles about them.
> This way, you will have an idea of the picture, and may be able to have
> a not too bad choice.
>
> *: note that LFS is not a real distro, but a book about how to build
> your own distro
> **: I have read that, for gentoo, there are now some packages with
> binaries, so not really everything...
>
>
--
K.D.J.
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