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Topic: Top 5 Tiny Distros, Review

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jpeters

Group: Members
Posts: 804
Joined: April 2006

Posted: June 02 2008,20:11

Aside from reviewers' flaws and bias, the underlying message that rings true is:

1. DSL is a superb distro for older machines.
2. Its current importance is declining in a world of evolving software/hardware requirements.

This doesn't appear to be a criticism of what it does well, but suggests a (rapidly) declining user base.

I think Robert is correctly handling the situation with the upcoming tiny 2.6 version. There's no way to support both old and new machines with a <50mg distro *. More modern computers have much more ram, so that shoud be less of a concern (IMHO) than it used to be.

* note: kindof like inflation...it's not the number, but the relative value that matters.

humpty

Group: Members
Posts: 655
Joined: Sep. 2005

Posted: June 04 2008,14:31

There are fundamentaly two types of users; One who doesn't want to know what's under the hood and the other who does. They come from two camps of philosophy with equally valid arguments. And so the same goes for reviewers. Criticising the other camp is pointless.

It's when one implementation starts to let you down that you start considering looking for alternatives. Some people are avoiding Vista or Redhat for it's bloat, while others are avoiding to compile their own kernels from scratch. It all depends where along the scale you want to sit on.

mikshaw

Group: Members
Posts: 4856
Joined: July 2004

Posted: June 04 2008,21:01

I agree with the comments about the "review" being mostly useless and uneducated. You can't do a proper review of *any* distro, especially a mini distro, if you focus on looks and on how much has been "upgraded" since the last release.

The reviewer paints the biggest advantage of DSL (support for very old hardware) as if it were a disadvantage, and merely writes it off as obsolete.
While other small distros are "improving" by upgrading to bigger software packages and newer kernels, they are leaving behind the hardware that DSL continues to support. As long as that hardware has a use, DSL will have a use, and will continue to be the only distro that will work on those machines. The reviewer seems to see this as a flaw rather than understanding that it is one of DSL's primary goals, and therefore he is not qualified to make a fair comparison of it to the other distros.

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22 replies since May 23 2008,19:10

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Damn Small Linux Board » Non-DSL Topics » water cooler » Top 5 Tiny Distros