On Sat, 1 Jun 2013, Liam Proven wrote:
On 30 May 2013 21:19, Tothwolf <tothwolf at
concentric.net> wrote:
Memory wise, the kernel isn't /too/ bad, but
userspace stuff, both
memory and disk wise, modern Linux distributions are /terrible/.
Not *all* of them. Have you tried TinyCore?
http://www.tinycorelinux.net/
The base system is about 12MB:
http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=tinycore
There's a text-only 8MB version:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiny_Core_Linux
It isn't quite what I'm looking for. I've yet to find a currently
maintained Linux distribution that does what I need and isn't bloated in
userspace. I'm looking more for what a Linux distribution once was in the
late 1990s, with full (advanced) networking support, plus normal network
services, and still have a small userspace footprint (and low memory
usage). A GUI is non-essential and for both space and security reasons
(note all the recent X and X-libraries security bulletins) and I'd prefer
to be able to leave it out completely in many applications.
Are there /any/ currently maintained Linux distributions out there these
days that are geared towards embedded use where they don't blindly assume
multiple GB of memory and drive space? Surely I'm not the only one looking
for something like this?
The lack of i386 support with TC isn't very encouraging, either (they
state i486 as a minimum, which is the same as modern Debian, et al.) I
have boxes upon boxes of i386 stuff and I'd hate to at some point have to
create a separately maintained fork of the Linux kernel just to keep them
supported (everything from Intel 80386SX-16 to AMD 386DX-40, with and
without FPUs). The idea of using either an obsolete (and likely
unmaintained) Linux kernel or MS-DOS on them isn't terribly appealing.