Yes, you are correct. Most distros can do a lean install, but archlinux' lean install is about 170M you then use pacman for everything else, and it really is the best package manager I have used.
You are also correct that it is more than than kernel and bash - glib, ncurses, binutils, filesystem utils, etc basically everything pacman would need to retrive other packages (it has ftplib embedded into it).
When I installed archlinux (www.archlinux.org), it installed a 2.4x kernel(2.6x also available), a bash shell (no gui), and an incredible package manager called pacman. From the bash shell and root account, one can pick and choose what they would like from archlinux database of open source software, everything from basic windowing (x.org, XFree86), desktops (gnome, kde), networking (xinetd), gnu tools (bintools), etc... all by typeing
bash> pacman {package name}
pacman does the rest (loads proper libraries, set config options, etc). This allows the user to customize their linux system with only the apps they need and like.
The only downside is that for large packages, a broadband connection is perferable.
Check it out! www.archlinux.org
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Yes, you are correct. Most distros can do a lean install, but archlinux' lean install is about 170M you then use pacman for everything else, and it really is the best package manager I have used. You are also correct that it is more than than kernel and bash - glib, ncurses, binutils, filesystem utils, etc basically everything pacman would need to retrive other packages (it has ftplib embedded into it).
When I installed archlinux (www.archlinux.org), it installed a 2.4x kernel(2.6x also available), a bash shell (no gui), and an incredible package manager called pacman. From the bash shell and root account, one can pick and choose what they would like from archlinux database of open source software, everything from basic windowing (x.org, XFree86), desktops (gnome, kde), networking (xinetd), gnu tools (bintools), etc... all by typeing bash> pacman {package name} pacman does the rest (loads proper libraries, set config options, etc). This allows the user to customize their linux system with only the apps they need and like. The only downside is that for large packages, a broadband connection is perferable. Check it out! www.archlinux.org