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Big Things Come In TinyMe

linux.com — I take a sort of sick joy in using a computer as long as possible, so I've become interested in lightweight Linux distributions like TinyMe 2008.0 that help prolong the life of a computer. TinyMe is based on PCLinuxOS, but at about 200MB, it's considerably smaller than that 700MB distribution. The software included, such as the Openbox window man

Who dugg this? Made popular Oct 15, 2008

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  • BXRWXR, on 10/15/2008, -2/+30Ummm, about that headline...
  • inactive, on 10/15/2008, -4/+26I can't believe I'm about to say this, but: That's what she said.
  • lektroluv, on 10/15/2008, -2/+17Sounds like an awesome asian porn flick.
  • depro9, on 10/15/2008, -1/+13I install Ubuntu on countless computers every month & every time it does "just work".
  • desibabu, on 10/15/2008, -0/+5Slitaz - 24,8 Mb http://www.slitaz.org/en/get/ Almost half of DSL
  • Kenzan, on 10/15/2008, -1/+5That's what your Mom said.
  • erasei, on 10/15/2008, -0/+4A few months ago I went through about 12 different "small" distros looking for the right one to run my home automation software on an old 933mhz with 512mb ram. It has a 10gb hard drive, so it wasn't super critical that it have a tiny disk footprint.. a small cpu/ram footprint was more important.

    I ended up going with TinyME simply because it comes with all of the standard development cools, gcc, make, etc built in. Sure, it isn't 'rocket surgery' to install either, but it sure made life easier if you just want to test out a few things quickly. TinyME has been running 24/7 for the last 4 months (since install) as a private LAMP/home automation server with no real hit to the cpu at all.

    3 users, load average: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00
  • Barryke, on 10/15/2008, -2/+6Glad you did.
  • superjamie, on 10/16/2008, -0/+3Damn Small Linux was a good distro in the past, however its' insistence on staying with the 2.4 kernel is limiting its' applications as time goes on.

    Slitaz is a far better small distro, available on a 25mb iso, or the 47mb "cooking" beta version is also an awesome piece of software.
  • superjamie, on 10/16/2008, -0/+3Dugg for Openbox. It's such an excellent window manager, I run it on all my PCs.
    Check out Urukrama's guide for info, usable with any distro: http://urukrama.wordpress.com/openbox-guide/
  • Arramol, on 10/15/2008, -1/+4Honestly, what I need more than a light distro is just a light browser. Can anyone recommend a decently fully-featured RAM-friendly browser for Linux?
  • flarn2006, on 10/15/2008, -3/+5That's what she said.
  • FairDinkumMate, on 10/16/2008, -0/+2DSL is a great Distro and is very useful.

    That said, if you've tried TinyME you'll know that it keeps the PCLinuxOS philosophy of trying to make the Windows to Linux conversion easier. Try it out! This is a very user friendly distro for people used to windows & although it's far from the be-all and end-all of Linux distros, it certainly achieves it goal of being lightweight & 'intuitive'(read: items in similar places to Windows XP).

    It has some issues but most of the ones I've come across are related to usability rather than stability. The forums aren't as comprehensive as Ubuntu but Kevin Dulcimer(who I think 'built' the distro) is always around and very helpful in answering questions & resolving problems.
  • Pfkninenines, on 10/15/2008, -2/+4What about Damn Small Linux? 50Mb is quite a bit smaller than 200MB the last time I checked, plus if you're missing anything you can just get it through the update manager.
  • shotgunefx, on 10/15/2008, -2/+4I'm using Ubuntu for most of my linux needs these days, and I have to call *****. Ubuntu pretty much does "just work" out of the box, even on my laptops.

    This ain't a reflection on TinyMe at all, lightweight distros certainly have there uses and places. I've got a lot of older hardware were this would be quite handy. I'm also glad to see that it supports my Zeos (blast from the past!) Pentium step 0 66mhz. I might have to give it a whirl on it.
  • depro9, on 10/15/2008, -2/+4wow
  • BHSPitMonkey, on 10/16/2008, -1/+3Sorry, but "Me" is just not a suffix you use in the name of a good operating system, historically.
  • RadiatedAnt, on 10/15/2008, -1/+3long live exper1ence !! ohh wait...
  • ddarkjedie, on 10/15/2008, -1/+3I might try it out on my grandpa's old computer......
  • badfishmedia, on 10/16/2008, -0/+2I use TinyMe on an old Celeron 700 HP with 256 Megs of RAM which had been much slower when Win2000 was installed on it. I use it for web browsing, email and a little document editing. It works great, YouTube and Break videos included. Out of Xubuntu, Linux Mint XFCE, Morphix, Ubuntu and Fedora Live CD, TinyMe and Mint were the only two that found my old NAS drive and included the drive without me having to add it. (A few could not find it.)

    Now that I think of it, PCLInuxOS--which TinyMe is based on, is not that slow on that Cel700 PC.

    TinyMe feels much more like a full sized OS to me that Damn Small Linux or Puppy Linux. Xubuntu and Linux Mint XFCE Edition seem more for slightly oldish PCs, like the top P3s or lower P4s.

    SLAX and SliTaz Linux are also great small distros with small ISO sizes.
  • hamobu, on 10/15/2008, -3/+5I used Ubuntu on 1 ghz/512 MB and it works without a hitch. Even the rotating cube works

    I also used xubuntu on 600 mhz/196 MB laptop and that works mostly without a hitch, except that firefox is slow when I have too many tabs open.

    I also used ubuntu on this laptop and it worked fine, but it was a bit sluggish.

  • obliviousfool, on 10/15/2008, -2/+3I tried TinyMe on an old PIII recently. After kicking it around for a week or so I went with Ubuntu. I did like the on-screen CPU and RAM usage do-dads though. Ubuntu (even though the install hiccupped several times on hardware issues) just seems faster for anything over 800x600 screen resolution, and it is just a web surfing box now anyway.
  • tourettes1992, on 10/15/2008, -2/+3That big thing tore up my tiny me.
  • nickisgod1, on 10/15/2008, -2/+3GKrellm2: 0 Conky:1
  • cheeseplease, on 10/16/2008, -0/+1I'll check it out. And dugg for "development cools". Gcc is pretty awesome.
  • whataboutdave, on 10/15/2008, -1/+2It's also an amazing distro.
  • theOster, on 10/15/2008, -1/+1ignoring all those above me..."that's what she said!"
  • mohan34u, on 10/16/2008, -1/+1Ya, me also, I'm also using Puppy in pendrive. wherever I go, I'm carrying it in my pocket.
  • rocksteady43, on 10/15/2008, -2/+2Damn Small Linux is an impressive project, if a bit ugly in terms of GUI. And for machines with 256 or 512 MBs of RAM, I'd recommend Xubuntu.
  • radio1mike, on 10/15/2008, -4/+3I am surprised no one has mentioned:
    1) Puppy Linux
    2) Damn Small Linux
  • cstrippie, on 10/15/2008, -9/+8Gotta agree - I tried TinyMe on an old P3 laptop (1ghz/512mb) and it rocked. The thing is attractive, and has the "just works" that Ubuntu claims to want, but never quite delivers.
  • inactive, on 10/15/2008, -3/+2There was just no way around it.
  • larsoncc, on 10/15/2008, -2/+1No, I'm going to need two men on this. That's what she said. No time! But she did. NO TIME!
  • hamobu, on 10/15/2008, -4/+3I find it easiest to with the most mainstream solution, and with linux that is Ubuntu.
  • Matt88, on 10/16/2008, -2/+1Me too.

    I have Puppy Linux on an old AMD box (P3 500mhz equivalent). It's smaller than TinyMe and packs in a lot of stuff.
  • theOster, on 10/15/2008, -2/+1i was a senior in high school and my sisters freshman friend gave me a card that said "good things come in small packages, will you come in mine" and it took me about a week before i figured it out. :(

    and before you laugh at me, have you *seen* a highschool freshman lately?? they're like 5 years old - they should still be learning their alphabet or something
  • DreadKnight, on 10/15/2008, -5/+2Linux distro makers go home!
  • IllBeBack, on 10/15/2008, -7/+4"Big Things Come In TinyMe"

    Mandatory: That's what she said!
  • FlareHeart, on 10/15/2008, -5/+1An easy way to display your RAM, CPU Usage, Network bandwidth and usage, etc. is to install an app called GKrellm2. It is a little desktop doo-dad that lets you see all of that. It is also small and doesn't take up much memory when it's running. I believe it is available for almost all of the platforms.
  • coldmolasses, on 10/15/2008, -7/+0more crappy linux diggs

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