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[nubcnubdo]

What's wrong with this picture?
http://distrogue.blogspot.com/2007/05/linux-lite-small-distros-for-old.html

Did this blogger have a bad experience with VL or something? He left out the fastest distro on the planet.

[Masta]

Looks like a new guy on the topic of Linux, and on a blog for that matter. Obviously hasn't searched around. Anyone with any thorough experience would have at least used Google Search , where he might have found himself making the wrong statements 
This happens though 

[gamfa]

With VL at over 2GB to load up I don't think it falls into the "small, lite" area anymore..

[nubcnubdo]

VectorLinux 5.8 Standard             551 MB

Fluxbuntu                                    309 MB

Zenwalk                                       424 MB

SAM Linux                                    699 MB

DeLi Linux                                    131 MB

Absolute                                       676 MB

DSL                                                50 MB

Puppy                                             89 MB

Xubuntu                                       565 MB

[lagagnon]

...yeah , but those are just the sizes of the ISO files - the actual install after decompression is of course MUCH larger and gamfa is correct - about 2.2GB of space needed for a full VL5.8 Standard install, so in comparison to Puppy and DSL we are much larger. I have removed a lot of references to small and light on our website recently and have concentrated in speed, stability and security instead. I have also made it a lot more obvious what the minimum hardware requirements are for VL now...

[Masta]

...yeah , but those are just the sizes of the ISO files - the actual install after decompression is of course MUCH larger and gamfa is correct - about 2.2GB of space needed for a full VL5.8 Standard install, so in comparison to Puppy and DSL we are much larger. I have removed a lot of references to small and light on our website recently and have concentrated in speed, stability and security instead. I have also made it a lot more obvious what the minimum hardware requirements are for VL now...

Ah yes, that does make sense.
I guess we can't be considered a small sized, minimal distro anymore. But older versions of VL are still available for downloading, which do fit into that area (which was what I was thinking about when reading that link).

[saulgoode]

I am rather surprised at the inclusion of Zenwalk; it would not be my first choice for installing on an older computer (especially one with less than 512Mb of RAM).

Let me first clarify that Zenwalk is not designed for use on old hardware (for example there is no ISA (Industry Standard Architecture) bus support in Zenwalk). Zenwalk is designed to provide the optimal responsiveness that you can expect from a GNU/Linux operating system.

[nubcnubdo]

Ubuntu is the obvious choice for most people, but when that person is stuck on a 400MHz Pentium II laptop with 128MB of RAM, it might not be such a good idea. So, here are some small distributions that get the job done on old systems, too.

The hypothetical test box is what caught my eye, not so much the lite label. VL 5.8 Standard would be ideal for this laptop, or a desktop with similar specs. For a 400 MHz machine one would expect a 4.3 to 6.4 GB hard drive, surely not less than 3.2 GB.

I researched lite distributions for a friend with 133mhz/16mb ram/2.1GB hdd laptop. I recall the negative feedback for UbuntuLite, that it was so slow and bulky it was hardly "lite". During the research I came across a nice little distro named VectorLinux. I also did a close comparison of VL and Xubuntu on a P3/450mhz, and it was "no contest".

I would say, the most glaring error of the article was not mentioning Puppy.

[Triarius Fidelis]

I recently installed Standard 5.1 on my mom's old computer.

That thing has a 650 MHz processor and 64 MB RAM, and if it weren't for the fact that DDC probing mysteriously freezes the system with 5.8, I could have easily put that on instead.

The hard disk is 15 GB. I don't think the distro install size disqualifies VL as a light distro, especially when KDE et al. are strictly optional.