Very lightweight Linux Distro for developing?

[h3rm3s]

Hello everyone!

 

I have a little question:

 

What is (in your opinion) the most lightweight Linux Distro that is suitable for developing (back-end, systems programming).

To go more in detail:

- A lightweight GUI (I don't want a terminal-only system, some for of GUI would be nice)

- No standard applications that Ubuntu comes with that I really don't use (such as: Font Viewer, Galculator, 3 different file managers and so on)

- A very small size (in the sense that the distro doesn't take up half of my hard drive)

- Please, don't say Puppy Linux, for some reason, I really don't like it

 

I'd like to apologize for not giving very clear guidelines. I think I'd like something such as Arch Linux, which is very customizable (I think), but I think Arch Linux is very weird to install, so I really don't like it.

 

Thanks!

[You_are_a_cunt]

Lubuntu and just get rid of the 4 apps that aren't really necessary in it?

[steezemageeze]

Manjaro Cinnamon Minimal edition. It's based on Arch, but you don't have to install it yourself through the terminal. The minimal ISO is very light on the packages, only ~500 or so IIRC, and I doubt the full ISO has that much more packages if you wanted them. Cinnamon is a light-ish desktop environment, so I don't think you should have trouble running it.

[steezemageeze]

2 minutes ago, revsilverspine said:

Lubuntu and just get rid of the 4 apps that aren't really necessary in it?

I feel like I'm the only one on this forum who doesn't like Lubuntu...

[You_are_a_cunt]

Just now, steezemageeze said:

I feel like I'm the only one on this forum who doesn't like Lubuntu...

I absolutely hate it, but it's the lightest distro I've used to far that didn't want to make me kill baby seals with a Low Orbit Ion Canon

[h3rm3s]

1 minute ago, steezemageeze said:

Manjaro Cinnamon Minimal edition. It's based on Arch, but you don't have to install it yourself through the terminal. The minimal ISO is very light on the packages, only ~500 or so IIRC, and I doubt the full ISO has that much more packages if you wanted them. Cinnamon is a light-ish desktop environment, so I don't think you should have trouble running it.

Thanks! Just a tiny question, how is the transition from apt-get to whatever package manager Arch Linux uses?

[h3rm3s]

1 minute ago, revsilverspine said:

I absolutely hate it, but it's the lightest distro I've used to far that didn't want to make me kill baby seals with a Low Orbit Ion Canon

What do you dislike about it? (just out of curiosity)

[steezemageeze]

1 minute ago, h3rm3s said:

Thanks! Just a tiny question, how is the transition from apt-get to whatever package manager Arch Linux uses?

Manjaro uses Pacman, just like Arch. It's not a bad transition really. Here's a guide for it: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Pacman

[h3rm3s]

1 minute ago, steezemageeze said:

Manjaro uses Pacman, just like Arch. It's not a bad transition really. Here's a guide for it: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Pacman

Thanks! That helps a lot!

[You_are_a_cunt]

1 minute ago, h3rm3s said:

What do you dislike about it? (just out of curiosity)

I've only used it in the context of it running off a USB pen drive, storing mostly everything in cached RAM (old drive-less laptop I use for shits and giggles from time to time).

The UI seems clunky, there's not much in the way of a control panel where I can set the wizz to bang just right, I could never get it to update properly and in my case it froze up like it was the middle of winter at the North Pole. 

My flatmate, on the other hand, runs it off an external HDD and he's had no performance issues to date. He uses it as a development platform for Uni and has been quite pleased with it.

 

I run a stripped, homebrew variant of Ubuntu and have taken some inspiration from Kali as to some of the utilities I have installed, plus some dev whatnots that I need (well, used to need, since I pretty much got out of the entire development game a while back)

[steezemageeze]

Just now, h3rm3s said:

Thanks! That helps a lot!

No problem! I tend to switch between Ubuntu/Debian and Manjaro frequently, and besides accidentally typing apt-get on my Manjaro machine, it's not a huge deal to get used to it

[h3rm3s]

1 minute ago, revsilverspine said:

I've only used it in the context of it running off a USB pen drive, storing mostly everything in cached RAM (old drive-less laptop I use for shits and giggles from time to time).

The UI seems clunky, there's not much in the way of a control panel where I can set the wizz to bang just right, I could never get it to update properly and in my case it froze up like it was the middle of winter at the North Pole. 

My flatmate, on the other hand, runs it off an external HDD and he's had no performance issues to date. He uses it as a development platform for Uni and has been quite pleased with it.

 

I run a stripped, homebrew variant of Ubuntu and have taken some inspiration from Kali as to some of the utilities I have installed, plus some dev whatnots that I need (well, used to need, since I pretty much got out of the entire development game a while back)

Oh! I see! Thanks! That clarifies a lot!

[h3rm3s]

1 minute ago, steezemageeze said:

No problem! I tend to switch between Ubuntu/Debian and Manjaro frequently, and besides accidentally typing apt-get on my Manjaro machine, it's not a huge deal to get used to it

Haha! I see! Actually, on a scale from 1 to 10, how hard is it to install Arch Linux via the command line? (I know that this is very subjective, but it might give me an idea)

[steezemageeze]

Here's a link to the Cinnamon Minimal ISO: https://sourceforge.net/projects/manjarolinux/files/community/Cinnamon/2016.02/cinnamon-minimal/x86_64/

[You_are_a_cunt]

1 minute ago, h3rm3s said:

Oh! I see! Thanks! That clarifies a lot!

doesn't really, but it's mostly down to personal preference.

It's a decent Linux distro, but I'd rather deal with stripping the bloatware out of Ubuntu

[steezemageeze]

Just now, h3rm3s said:

Haha! I see! Actually, on a scale from 1 to 10, how hard is it to install Arch Linux via the command line? (I know that this is very subjective, but it might give me an idea)

I'll be honest, I've never managed to do it. I almost got it one time, but I accidentally set my keyboard layout to QWERTZ on accident and gave up. It really depends on you, your computer, and how well you follow directions

[h3rm3s]

1 minute ago, revsilverspine said:

doesn't really, but it's mostly down to personal preference.

It's a decent Linux distro, but I'd rather deal with stripping the bloatware out of Ubuntu

Ah okay, but (and this might just be because I didn't really take enough time to research it) there doesn't seem to be a very fast way to cleanly remove an application. Coming from windows, I'm used to the Windows file system, and used to the control panel where I can select an application, and say "remove". Or search the application in my program folders, and remove the folder.

But in the Linux file system applications seem to be scattered around /bin, /etc, /var and so on. I also don't seem to find any nice way to remove an application, except for 'sudo apt-get remove *package*' but I usually don't know the package name of standard application. (I know I really sound like a Linux noob, which I am)

[h3rm3s]

4 minutes ago, steezemageeze said:

I'll be honest, I've never managed to do it. I almost got it one time, but I accidentally set my keyboard layout to QWERTZ on accident and gave up. It really depends on you, your computer, and how well you follow directions

Oh, that doesn't sound very user-friendly, maybe I should spend some time doing some research. But I'll certainly look into Manjaro. Thanks!

[You_are_a_cunt]

55 minutes ago, h3rm3s said:

Ah okay, but (and this might just be because I didn't really take enough time to research it) there doesn't seem to be a very fast way to cleanly remove an application. Coming from windows, I'm used to the Windows file system, and used to the control panel where I can select an application, and say "remove". Or search the application in my program folders, and remove the folder.

But in the Linux file system applications seem to be scattered around /bin, /etc, /var and so on. I also don't seem to find any nice way to remove an application, except for 'sudo apt-get remove *package*' but I usually don't know the package name of standard application. (I know I really sound like a Linux noob, which I am)

bloatware in Ubuntu can be removed via the app store thingy

[steezemageeze]

1 hour ago, h3rm3s said:

Oh, that doesn't sound very user-friendly, maybe I should spend some time doing some research. But I'll certainly look into Manjaro. Thanks!

It's a learning experience in my opinion, but you're right. Arch is a great distro, but it is very difficult to get set up. I'm sure I'll eventually give it another shot, but I'm happy with Manjaro for right now. It gives me everything I want out of Arch, without the BS.

 

47 minutes ago, revsilverspine said:

bloatware in Ubuntu can be removed via the app store thingy

He's right, and if you want to stick to Ubuntu but with minimal packages, you could try Ubuntu minimal as well. I suggested Manjaro because you mentioned Arch, but if you'd like to try Ubuntu Minimal, I'd suggest watching this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U42Ln3k7VK0

[h3rm3s]

31 minutes ago, steezemageeze said:

It's a learning experience in my opinion, but you're right. Arch is a great distro, but it is very difficult to get set up. I'm sure I'll eventually give it another shot, but I'm happy with Manjaro for right now. It gives me everything I want out of Arch, without the BS.

 

He's right, and if you want to stick to Ubuntu but with minimal packages, you could try Ubuntu minimal as well. I suggested Manjaro because you mentioned Arch, but if you'd like to try Ubuntu Minimal, I'd suggest watching this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U42Ln3k7VK0

Thanks!!! That's very useful! I'm going to consider both options, but I'm leaning more towards Manjaro, since I do not know as much about it, so I'm curious.

[steezemageeze]

1 minute ago, h3rm3s said:

Thanks!!! That's very useful! I'm going to consider both options, but I'm leaning more towards Manjaro, since I do not know as much about it, so I'm curious.

It's always fun to experiment

[KuJoe]

CrunchBang is nice (or anything with OpenBox). DamnSmallLinux is usable, I keep it on a thumb drive and I have some VMs with it for testing.

[steezemageeze]

2 minutes ago, KuJoe said:

CrunchBang is nice (or anything with OpenBox). DamnSmallLinux is usable, I keep it on a thumb drive and I have some VMs with it for testing.

#! is a dead distro though. I'd recommend the "continuation" of it, BunsenLabs, over the original at this point, or ArchBang if you want Openbox. I also think DSL is a bit more stripped down than the OP is looking for.

[KuJoe]

1 minute ago, steezemageeze said:

#! is a dead distro though. I'd recommend the "continuation" of it, BunsenLabs, over the original at this point, or ArchBang if you want Openbox. I also think DSL is a bit more stripped down than the OP is looking for.

Oops! I meant CrunchBang++ because I forgot CrunchBang went the way of the dinosaur.