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Closed 11 years ago.

I have few years of exp on linux, mainly ubuntu (dual-boot). Now i am shifting to windows, and installing linux in VirtualBox (PUEL). I am looking for a light-weight distro for development machine setup. Thought of using debian-unstable-minimum, and installing build-essentials, openbox(or a little more feature light-WM, ps recommend), ssh-server, ethereal, iptables, nmap(maybe), vim, python3. That is all what i can think of now mainly.

Options I can think of --

Debian-unstable minimum, and then using apt-get to do the rest. Is there also recommended version of ubuntu-lite. I read Ulite is not good, some-others are also not that good.
ArchLinux, reading a great deal about it. Wikipedia says it is mainly a binary-based distro, but everywhere on net/community only talk about its source-based approach. If it is binary I think I can have a quick setup. (For guest-OS-ArchLinux guys in VBox ) is your guest-additions working fine in archLinux.
FreeBSD 8, is it possible for minimum install. And recommended.
Recommendations for other i686 optimized linux, if any, or lets say i386 is also fine, as will only use it for coding.

For system admins -
I would like to know if ArchLinux keeps the potential to penetrate companies for production systems, and replace redhat/debian/bsd in servers for hosting apps/portals.

Addition: Just a thought- is there any distro which helps you to be a better programmer/developer/analyst, in terms of the way things should be done. I dont know if I am over-generalizing it :).

Answer 1

some-others Checked crunchbang? If you are not particular about needing the power of apt-get, you can also check-out zenWalk or Vector.

Answer 2

My work machine is a 3Ghz 4G Windows 7 box, on which I am running a 1G Debian VM under VirtualBox, it is a bit slower when accessing the HD but it is perfectly usable. I installed off the usual ISO image, and used apt-get to get the rest. Basically, I don t think on even semi-modern hardware you will need to go for a cut-down install to get a good user experience, (unless you particularly want to) to run just one VM. It runs the full GNOME desktop, Emacs, half a dozen terminals, Iceweasel web browser and the OCaml and Haskell compilers just fine. Make sure you install the VirtualBox extensions, they make a big difference to the interactive experience.

FWIW I have never gotten FreeBSD to work properly under VirtualBox, perhaps if you need that you would be better off with VMware, which does.

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