On Sun, 6 Nov 2011 02:08:16 +0000 "Justin Krejci" <jus at krytosvirus.com> wrote: > > Jason, I figured you'd be a fan of OpenBSD with their strict adherence to code correctness and removing wasteful code and code with unfriendly licenses (proprietary code, GPL, etc) from their base OS which leaves a generally smaller footprint in terms of resource utilization. > I've tried BSD, and I didn't like it. I couldn't figure out how to dual-boot Linux and BSD, as BSD has a peculiar partitioning system I couldn't figure out. PC-BSD actually felt heavier than any Linux distro I had tried, even Ubuntu LTS and Linux Mint 9. (This was before I tried Ubuntu 11.04.) So it didn't seem to be worth the trouble of using it. If I absolutely had to learn to heavily tweak an OS to get the everyday functionality I wanted, my top choice would be Debian. At least I have successfully installed a firewall/server computer with minimal Debian. Of course, my opinion is biased by the fact that most of my Linux experience has been with Debian-based distros. (Damn Small Linux was based on KNOPPIX, which was based on Debian. antiX Linux, MEPIS Linux, Ubuntu, and Mint are all also part of the Debian side of the Distroverse.) I've been using Debian-based distros because more distros are based on Debian than any other base distro, and the hardware support is b etter. That said, since I like Linux so much, I'm not that motivated to get up and running with BSD. I'm guessing that BSD today is in a similar position as Linux in the late 1990s. (I didn't start using Linux until early 2007.) In my opinion, Linux Mint Debian Edition offers the best balance between lightweight performance and user-friendliness. It replicates the feel of the traditional Ubuntu-based editions of Linux Mint without the Ubuntu overhead. In fact, LMDE with GNOME (which I'm trying out now in VirtualBox) feels faster with only 512 MB of RAM than Ubuntu and Linux Mint 11 with GNOME did with 2 GB of RAM. It actually doesn't require that much space and RAM to provide a user-friendly interface. Puppy Linux, antiX Linux, and especially SliTaz Linux are still proving that even today. Puppy Linux and antiX Linux work well on computers as old as the Windows 98 era. SliTaz Linux works well on computers as old as the Windows 95 era. I'm surprised that the ROX Pinboard desktop isn't more popular. All of these lightweight distros use it. In fact, I think Puppy Linux has the best menu system and desktop of any distro I've used. If it had as large a repository as Debian, Ubuntu, Slackware, Arch, etc., it would be the perfect distro. -- Jason Hsu <jhsu802701 at jasonhsu.com>