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Running a Linux Live KDE Desktop In 210MB

Posted by Soulskill on from the perfect-for-those-trips-to-the-'90s dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Slax 7.0 is a Slackware-based Linux distribution that can provide a Live USB/CD environment complete with the KDE4 Plasma desktop in just 210MB of space. Slax can also be customized with other software modules to provide lightweight Linux installations for varying tasks. For those curious how this lightweight Linux distribution has pulled off the feat of being small and fast, Slax creator Tomá Matejícek wrote a technical article explaining the Slax internals with booting a modern Linux desktop in just ~200MB."

14 of 106 comments (clear)

  1. Impressive by kthreadd · · Score: 3, Insightful

    But it's also a bit sad that 210 MB is considered tiny.

    1. Re:Impressive by datapharmer · · Score: 5, Interesting

      not all of us consider that tiny. There are still a few programmers out there who recognize that doing everything high-level using huge libraries isn't necessarily the only option for a modern os. My favorite are there guys: http://www.menuetos.net/ Not linux, but definitely cool.

      --
      Get a web developer
    2. Re:Impressive by craigminah · · Score: 3, Funny

      You probably had trouble coding back in the day due to all the pterodactyl attacks.

    3. Re:Impressive by robthebloke · · Score: 2

      My speccy 48k does that in 16kb rom space. Not saying the two are directly comparible, but it sure does make 210Mb sound somewhat less impressive....

    4. Re:Impressive by smash · · Score: 3, Insightful

      a GUI without networking support, a javascript engine, composting window manager, an easy to develop for windowing toolkit, etc, etc.

      Time moves on. More levels of abstraction require more resources but make more powerful apps possible without the programming being too hard to bother.

      RAM is cheap. Programmer time is expensive...

      --
      I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
    5. Re:Impressive by Sedated2000 · · Score: 2

      I've been following MenuetOS for years now. I love the fact that it can run uncompressed on a single floppy. It has a fairly modern UI and can do a lot of the same tasks that most major operating systems do, but in a far smaller footprint. It's also very fast. It makes me feel like any other operating system is just being wasteful.

  2. I agree by tlambert · · Score: 2

    And most of it ends up getting spent in memory for unnecessary eye candy.

  3. "Running"? by aliquis · · Score: 2

    Running to me would mean "load into RAM" rather than "stored on a plastic disc."

    I wanted to see what this was about if it was running in 210 MB of RAM because that would be a bitch to use from my experience but it wasn't running it all.

    A live image with KDE4. Whoop-di-fucking-do.

  4. Poor editing yet again by macraig · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Reading both the title and summary, it was completely unclear whether "space" refers to random access memory or mass storage. They're not yet one and the same, though you wouldn't know it from reading this summary.

  5. If you don't need X Window, it could even smaller by the_humeister · · Score: 2

    Besides, what self respecting geek uses a GUI???

  6. Re:Why? by Osgeld · · Score: 2

    here is the situation I run into often. User / mom / me has a computer that windows or the hard disk itself has just taken a nasty smelly splatter shit on and wont boot, you need to get in there gather files and settings cause its just good practice before screwing someones machine up. You reach for a linux distro, and you have a modern mint which takes ~20 min to boot from a dvd, or this (I often use DSL) which can get you into a file manager within seconds.

    Now if the last thing you want to be doing all night is dicking with a computer, you sure as heck dont want to be sitting there doing nothing while some overbloated OS bogs its way off of CD or USB just so you can drag n drop from A to B.

  7. Flashback by AC-x · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Speaking about minimal bootable OSs, I just had a flashback to this 1.44mb bootable QNX tech demo, which includes a GUI, network stack and javascript capable browser (also check out the vintage slashdot screenshot at the bottom)

  8. who cares by Vince6791 · · Score: 2

    with multicore cpu's, gigabytes of ram, usb flash stick greater than 16gb, nobody needs to run 200mb linux live distro we can run 4gb+ and we wouldn't see any major hits to performance. I have run small distros to large distros on netbooks and laptops just don't see the benefit of using something as small as this one with no libreoffic or other apps included. This is no longer the 90's or 2000's, we can fit a big ass distro on a usb flash disk with all the software we need.

  9. small AND customizable by sdnoob · · Score: 2

    slax is a nifty little slackware-based distribution that is easily customized -- just copy the extra modules you want automatically added to your flash drive. previous versions have been a go-to for me whenever i need to boot up quick to copy stuff off an ailing system before it takes a dump.

    used to be a suse studio-like web-based customizer, dunno if they'll do that again for version 7. but i hope they at least do a new popcorn edition (with xfce instead of kde).