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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."

6 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 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.
  2. 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.

  3. 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)