Josh Saddler - Latest comments on Alternative distros and tools: Fluxbuntu, TinyMe, SliTaz

In response to: Alternative distros and tools: Fluxbuntu, TinyMe, SliTaz

Lennon [Visitor] — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 23:53:31 +0000

Slitaz is really cool! i've got a pretty old machine (IBM T30), but ever since i installed Slitaz, its been working like a dream. i gues it feels young again!

In response to: Alternative distros and tools: Fluxbuntu, TinyMe, SliTaz

Josh Saddler [Member] — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 09:51:43 +0000

@baikis:

Wow, old post. The original entry was a year ago . . . you realize that, right? :)

Anyway, Xubuntu is a special deal; I think they have their own appearance control center. But if not, here's what you can do:

1. Install the corefonts package. I think Ubuntu calls it msttcorefonts or similar.
2. Go to Settings -> Appearance -> Fonts
3. Set your system font to "Verdana" - mine is 10pt.
4. Uncheck "Enable anti-aliasing"
5. Change "Hinting" to "Slight"

This may not work for you, as the freetype library I use in Gentoo is compiled on my local box. Freetype has some usage restrictions that do not permit the best font hinter (the bytecode interpreter) to be enabled on redistributed freetype packages. Meaning the ones supplied by Xubuntu and every other binary distro out there.

So you may have to compile and install your own freetype library on your local machine, being sure to enable the bytecode interpreter so that you get the best possible font shapes. With Gentoo, it's automatic, since we're a source-based distribution: we don't distribute binaries; the users build them on their own machines. So we're free of the usage restriction placed on freetype.

In response to: Alternative distros and tools: Fluxbuntu, TinyMe, SliTaz

baikis [Visitor] — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 06:23:39 +0000

how do you change font settings in xfce (xubuntu) to have this look 20080427-himerge1.png?

In response to: Alternative distros and tools: Fluxbuntu, TinyMe, SliTaz

Stone3408 [Visitor] — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 21:40:01 +0000

Slitaz is a great distro. I was ready to
can my oldest laptop as other linux
distros such as unbuntu were even too much.
this has given it a stay of execution.

In response to: Alternative distros and tools: Fluxbuntu, TinyMe, SliTaz

Prootwadl [Visitor] — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 22:20:22 +0000

Two smaller LiveCDs that you might want to check out are Puppy Linux and Austrumi. Both are fairly lightweight, both are independently created (not based on anything else), and both allow for installation to a hard drive or USB drive. SLAX might also be worth a look (based on Slackware).

In response to: Alternative distros and tools: Fluxbuntu, TinyMe, SliTaz

Gurduloo [Visitor] — Tue, 27 May 2008 19:58:40 +0000

I have an old Toshiba Portege laptop - PII 366Mhz with 92meg of RAM. I was unable to get any Linux distros to install except Deli - and I wasn't satisfied with the packages available for that one. So I ended up doing a very basic install of FreeBSD on it. I tried a couple of window managers and settled on Fluxbox. It's definately more work than most linux distros and compiling takes forever on such an old machine, but the laptop is working great. FreeBSD has a reputation for bad hardware support, but older hardware is turning to be no problem at all.

In response to: Alternative distros and tools: Fluxbuntu, TinyMe, SliTaz

Josh Saddler [Member] — Mon, 26 May 2008 23:34:57 +0000

@Thumos:

Thanks for the tips; I may give those a try. Long as they offer something besides Xfce, that is. Xfce used to be installed, but even that's too much these days.

SliTaz does indeed look really good. Performance-wise, it's good. But right now it doesn't have required packages, like certain office & presentation tools, nor is the nVidia driver available. I'm pretty sure I won't be able to get VGA-out or TV-out working unless I install the proprietary nVidia driver. There is a hackish solution (http://forum.slitaz.org/viewtopic.php?id=223) in progress, though.

@C.M:

That review is okay; the author used some fairly hefty distros and environments, though. Zenwalk and Xubuntu, in particular. And apparently TinyMe worked better for him than it did for me. I've tried Zenwalk, and I've no intention of going back to it any time soon. Poor hardware support and terrible configurators and package manager. Though the latter apparently got a huge improvement, according to some recent articles.

In response to: Alternative distros and tools: Fluxbuntu, TinyMe, SliTaz

C.M [Visitor] — Mon, 26 May 2008 12:04:03 +0000

Just found this quick review of small distros via OSNews. Might be worth a look too.

http://www.abzone.be/Review001_p001