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From: pH on 12 Apr 2010 23:11
Hi Everybody.
Well, I have a new 320GB hard drive to replace my old 72GB one.

I thought I might as well upgrade as well. I'm dial-up so have been
pretty static over the years.

I currently run Mandriva 10.1 Official.
I have a Shuttle w/ 512MB of memory. I very seldom go into
swap...maybe a few mb now and then so it's been very adequate for my
needs.

I would like some recommendations for some similar weight
distributions.

I am thinking of:

Mint XFCE 8.0
Debian
Slackware
Centos

Pureheart in Aptos.
From: unruh on 13 Apr 2010 01:33
On 2010-04-13, pH <pureheart(a)pacbell.net> wrote:
> Hi Everybody.
> Well, I have a new 320GB hard drive to replace my old 72GB one.
>
> I thought I might as well upgrade as well. I'm dial-up so have been
> pretty static over the years.
>
> I currently run Mandriva 10.1 Official.
> I have a Shuttle w/ 512MB of memory. I very seldom go into
> swap...maybe a few mb now and then so it's been very adequate for my
> needs.
>
> I would like some recommendations for some similar weight
> distributions.

So why not stay with Mandriva 2010.0


>
> I am thinking of:
>
> Mint XFCE 8.0
> Debian
> Slackware
> Centos
>
> Pureheart in Aptos.
From: J G Miller on 13 Apr 2010 07:24
On Mon, 12 Apr 2010 20:11:21 -0700, pH wrote:

> I would like some recommendations for some similar weight distributions.

Without knowing what your needs and preferences are, it is very difficult
to make a meaningful suggestion.

> Mint XFCE 8.0

If you are wanting to try something different, that would be the obvious
one with which to start.
From: Bit Twister on 13 Apr 2010 08:58
On Mon, 12 Apr 2010 20:11:21 -0700 (PDT), pH wrote:
> Hi Everybody.
> Well, I have a new 320GB hard drive to replace my old 72GB one.
>
> I thought I might as well upgrade as well. I'm dial-up so have been
> pretty static over the years.
>
> I am thinking of:
>
> Mint XFCE 8.0
> Debian
> Slackware
> Centos

Go to http://distrowatch.com/, notice the price lists, left and right side, for
http://distrowatch.com/linuxcdorg.php
http://www.osdisc.com/cgi-bin/view.cgi/index.html?affiliate=distrowatch

Buy each distribution, install on a 20 partition, pick common
installer. I suggest grub in the mbr.


From: General Schvantzkoph on 13 Apr 2010 09:57
On Mon, 12 Apr 2010 20:11:21 -0700, pH wrote:

> Hi Everybody.
> Well, I have a new 320GB hard drive to replace my old 72GB one.
>
> I thought I might as well upgrade as well. I'm dial-up so have been
> pretty static over the years.
>
> I currently run Mandriva 10.1 Official. I have a Shuttle w/ 512MB of
> memory. I very seldom go into swap...maybe a few mb now and then so
> it's been very adequate for my needs.
>
> I would like some recommendations for some similar weight distributions.
>
> I am thinking of:
>
> Mint XFCE 8.0
> Debian
> Slackware
> Centos
>
> Pureheart in Aptos.

I would add memory while I was at it, 512M is really inadequate these
days. That said your biggest requirement is very low update requirements,
CentOS fits that bill, I don't know about the others.

If I were you I'd create two 16G root partitions, a 1G swap partition and
the remainder of the disk as the /home partition. With two root
partitions you'll be able to have two distros at a time on the system.
That will allow you to compare two at a time and more importantly it will
allow you to do painless future upgrades without blowing away your
current working system.

There is one thing that you have to be careful of when sharing /home
between multiple distros, you need to make sure that the User and Group
numbers are consistent. CentOS and Mandriva assign user numbers starting
at 500, Ubuntu starts at 1000, Mint is an Ubuntu derivative so my guess
is that it starts at 1000 also, don't know about the others. It's trivial
to change these numbers, just edit /etc/passwd, /etc/group and /etc/group-

What I would do if I were you would be to install CentOS5.4 first and use
it to partition your disk as I stated before (use the custom partitioner,
don't use the defaults). Let CentOS put grub into the MBR and use it as
your master distro. After you have CentOS setup and running you can try
the others in the alternate root partition. When you install the others
you should have them install grub into their root partition not into the
MBR. You can then set up CentOS's /etc/grub.conf file to chain load to
the alternate OS, a chainload entry looks like this,

title F12
rootnoverify (hd0,5)
chainloader +1

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