On Sun, Oct 26, 2008 at 7:59 PM, Brian K. White
Rather, to me this all just sounds like you (collectively, or the OP) simply want some other distribution whos stated goal is to be tiny, or no distribution at all just put exactly what you want on your hardware.
The main purpose in removing all the dependency issues was so we can remove unneeded programs. Like in 11.0 Beta, I found out that someone thought that the yast-fingerprint module should be a required dependency so if you removed it - which I DID - then ALL the networking was dropped. What a load of BS. How many machines even have that kind of hardware? .001%? Probably less. Fortunately, it was fixed after I pointed the problem out. I've seen similar problems with stuff like irda, pilot, nokia phone utils, etc. For some reason, someone thinks that just because I want to use something like a PIM, I must have a nokia phone to use with it.
opensuse is perfectly functional for it's target, which is contemporary machines from laptops to servers. Contemporary as in todays opensuse on todays laptops. I still say it's absolutely retarded to complain that you can't install or run the latest _anything_ that aims to be full featured and generic (such as opensuse or windows for that matter) on 10 or more year old hardware.
So, I should be running it on my HP Dual P3/500 server with 256MB RAM? or my other lower end hardware. I shouldn't bother using it unless I have over 1GB RAM and a dual core proc? Come on, opensuse is a BALANCED distro. I have it on machines as slow as a G3/266(and it does run slow on it) to a 3.2Ghz Dual Core. Yes, KDE ran horribly on my PowerMac 6500 with it's 603ev/225 and 128MB RAM. But that wasn't the point. The point was to see if it WOULD run. I was able to use it very easily as a text mode system and play music with mplayer. Would I even try it on my Thinkpad 380XD with it's Pentium MMX233 and 96MB RAM limit? No. But, any machine faster than a P3/450 and 256MB can run it very comfortably. I know, I have it installed on a Thinkpad with a P3/450 and 256MB RAM. It runs KDE and Firefox reliably if not speedy, and plays movies just fine.
If you have hardware that falls outside the mainstream, then of course you need special software for it.
Liked what? There's distros targeted at really old hardware like DSL and puppy. But, I have no idea why I would need special software on a P3 machine.
The fault is not opensuse for being obscenely fat. It's not really. (sure it is in comparison to 10 or 15 year old systems) The fault is even thinking about running something large like a typical modern general purpose linux distribution on tiny hardware.
Again, what do YOU consider low end? I've been active with my low end systems, and I have very little problems. Of course, after you remove resource hogs like beagle and turn off unneeded desktop effects, you find out just how well older hardware runs.
If you can't stand a couple of libraries and a binary that you don't intend to use, then build your own distro or use one of the distros that specializes in extreme customization and optimization.
I've been looking into that. I'd love to be able to slim openSUSE down to run better on lower end hardware. Remember when we could get a 1CD install? Sure, there are LivedCDs now, but a 1 cd install with everything you really needed was great. Yeah, we had 3 cd personal versions and 5cd/dvd professional versions, but you could usually get a 1CD install disk from a magazine.
This is like me complaining that my truck is poorly designed because it doesn't fit everywhere my tiny little Miata does, nor get it's gas mileage, nor accellerate or corner nearly as well. Well duh??
This is pointless. You're comparing a car to a truck. opensuse is like the engine. It can power a 3 cylinder Geo or a big old cadilac. Might not get it going fast, but it will get it going.
If you don't want a large general purpose distribution, then don't install a large general purpose distribution.
Sound advice. So, where is the cutoff? And who decides? Haven't we had this debate before? Personally, I LIKE to refurbish older machines. Case in point - everyone raves about the new netbooks. For less than $100, I put together a Thinkpad X21, P3/700/384MB. Runs about as fast as some of the netbooks I have seen, but has a better keyboard, and better screen(taller anyway. most web pages are vertical). So, I saved a good bit of cash. Yes, it isn't AS small, but it's more usable, and the battery lasts over 3hours(and used at that), and it's very portable. That's what I call value.
I use imagemagic for some document scanning/faxing/printing/pdf stuff in my application, but I only ever use png, tiff3g, and pcl graphics formats. Damn opensuse for including all that unnecessary jpeg and bmp support in all those graphics tools!
At least you can remove the Gimp, openoffice, and a lot of those bigger apps. I will comment that SuSE has always had a larger install footprint. Back when I first started, I had a lot of 2GB SCSI drives. And a standard install of SuSE would fill 2GB. I've recently upped my root partitions on new installs to 10GB from 5GB. But, then again, I have 40 - 250GB drives in my laptops and larger in my desktops. So, drive usage isn't the concern it used to be. RAM usage it. So long as I can run comfortably with 256-512MB, I'm happy. It's not speedy, but then I'm not usually in that much of a hurry. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org