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>It can run on a quarter of a GB memory. Its installation image is only fifty megabytes, full desktop included, Oh, how the times change. I remember when "ligh

by brazzy 5y ago

>It can run on a quarter of a GB memory. Its installation image is only fifty megabytes, full desktop included, Oh, how the times change. I remember when "lightweight Linux" meant it came on a single 1.4MB floppy disk and could run on 4MB of RAM. Yes, including desktop, though that may have required a second floppy and 8MB.

esjeon 5y ago
These days, locale alone takes up 100MB of disk space, in case of Debian. Even without it, it's still difficult to go below 50MB, IIRC. Welp, even USB thumb drivers are much larger than that, so it won't be a problem, practically, but it's kinda puzzling to see how things can get this big.
- prox 5y ago
  I use to enjoy the blog of Virtual Dub, the author made this tiny video editor and talked frequently how things could be optimized without library dependencies. https://www.virtualdub.org/blog2/archive.html https://www.virtualdub.org/blog2/archive.html
  - grishka 5y ago
    Adding a huge library dependency to only use a function or two from there feels like a common practice these days, unfortunately. More often than not, you can copy the interesting part into your project as sources, or even better, reimplement it in a way that's more specific, and thus more optimal, for your problem.
- hansel_der 5y ago
  > but it's kinda puzzling to see how things can get this big. the industry has been on moore's drug for too long and reckless software develpement practices really take their toll since the performance plateau came in effect around 2015.
  - lewispollard 5y ago
    Well, that, and we have much better locale support.
    - VHRanger 5y ago
      Also people expect a lot of quality of life stuff like unicode instead of ASCII, larger resolution images, more hardware support etc.
    - hansel_der 5y ago
      true :)
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
glandium 5y ago
My first Linux install was in 1995 or 1996 with kernel 1.2.x and a functional desktop required way much more than a single floppy disk. IIRC, the kernel alone (with initrd) was taking one disk. I'm curious when "lightweight Linux" fit on one or two disks.
- sprash 5y ago
  ASMUTILS were specifically made for this. All your typical unix command line applications implemented in x86 assembly. You can still download the floppy image here: http://asm.sourceforge.net/asmutils.html http://asm.sourceforge.net/asmutils.html
- brazzy 5y ago
  My memory is a bit hazy, but it was actually later than that, 1999 or 2000, playing around with an old Toshiba laptop. It was a specialized distro of course, there were (and still are) a few of those. Maybe tomsrtbt. And a the desktop was functional inasmuch you could have multiple xterm windows and little else.
- morganvachon 5y ago
  It's not quite one or two floppies, but today you can get a full Linux desktop in 12MB via Tiny Core Linux. http://www.tinycorelinux.net http://www.tinycorelinux.net
Fnoord 5y ago
Heh, well, not sure about this, as it was the famous QNX 4.x floppy which was groundbreaking (the main dev passed away around the time of the release). I remember running a Linux firewall on a floppy, stateless (read-only). Nowadays, we wouldn't accept such, as it would not be able to update the software easily. I mean, one can run a firewall and virtual switch in a VM these days. With snapshot support. And then there's something like Nix which does take up a lot of space, same with ZFS dedup. While these features all use a lot of disk space, they give a lot of advantages. Which, logically, come with a price.
- kohlerm 5y ago
  Do you have numbers for Nix? I would expect one can put together a fairly small system by specifying only what is needed
authed 5y ago
I remember installing Slackware along with the desktop environment a long time ago (probably 25 years) and it was a pile of floppies...
jarcane 5y ago
I think you’re rather over exaggerating. For a few emergency boot disk or very low spec, like LOAF or uLinux, sure. But even late 90s, for anything actually practical, 50mb would’ve been quite the achievement. DragonLinux was my go to “lightweight” and it was around 200mb. 50mb in the early 00s only got you the net install for Debian, and Knoppix was a whole CD. But this is 2021. You need to do some serious pruning just to get GCC in under 1gb. 50 mb is a fucking miracle.

by brazzy 5y ago

esjeon 5y ago

These days, locale alone takes up 100MB of disk space, in case of Debian. Even without it, it's still difficult to go below 50MB, IIRC. Welp, even USB thumb drivers are much larger than that, so it won't be a problem, practically, but it's kinda puzzling to see how things can get this big.

prox 5y ago
I use to enjoy the blog of Virtual Dub, the author made this tiny video editor and talked frequently how things could be optimized without library dependencies. https://www.virtualdub.org/blog2/archive.html https://www.virtualdub.org/blog2/archive.html
- grishka 5y ago
  Adding a huge library dependency to only use a function or two from there feels like a common practice these days, unfortunately. More often than not, you can copy the interesting part into your project as sources, or even better, reimplement it in a way that's more specific, and thus more optimal, for your problem.
hansel_der 5y ago
> but it's kinda puzzling to see how things can get this big. the industry has been on moore's drug for too long and reckless software develpement practices really take their toll since the performance plateau came in effect around 2015.
- lewispollard 5y ago
  Well, that, and we have much better locale support.
  - VHRanger 5y ago
    Also people expect a lot of quality of life stuff like unicode instead of ASCII, larger resolution images, more hardware support etc.
  - hansel_der 5y ago
    true :)

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

glandium 5y ago

My first Linux install was in 1995 or 1996 with kernel 1.2.x and a functional desktop required way much more than a single floppy disk. IIRC, the kernel alone (with initrd) was taking one disk. I'm curious when "lightweight Linux" fit on one or two disks.

sprash 5y ago
ASMUTILS were specifically made for this. All your typical unix command line applications implemented in x86 assembly. You can still download the floppy image here: http://asm.sourceforge.net/asmutils.html http://asm.sourceforge.net/asmutils.html
brazzy 5y ago
My memory is a bit hazy, but it was actually later than that, 1999 or 2000, playing around with an old Toshiba laptop. It was a specialized distro of course, there were (and still are) a few of those. Maybe tomsrtbt. And a the desktop was functional inasmuch you could have multiple xterm windows and little else.
morganvachon 5y ago
It's not quite one or two floppies, but today you can get a full Linux desktop in 12MB via Tiny Core Linux. http://www.tinycorelinux.net http://www.tinycorelinux.net

Fnoord 5y ago

Heh, well, not sure about this, as it was the famous QNX 4.x floppy which was groundbreaking (the main dev passed away around the time of the release). I remember running a Linux firewall on a floppy, stateless (read-only). Nowadays, we wouldn't accept such, as it would not be able to update the software easily. I mean, one can run a firewall and virtual switch in a VM these days. With snapshot support. And then there's something like Nix which does take up a lot of space, same with ZFS dedup. While these features all use a lot of disk space, they give a lot of advantages. Which, logically, come with a price.

kohlerm 5y ago
Do you have numbers for Nix? I would expect one can put together a fairly small system by specifying only what is needed

authed 5y ago

I remember installing Slackware along with the desktop environment a long time ago (probably 25 years) and it was a pile of floppies...

jarcane 5y ago

I think you’re rather over exaggerating. For a few emergency boot disk or very low spec, like LOAF or uLinux, sure. But even late 90s, for anything actually practical, 50mb would’ve been quite the achievement. DragonLinux was my go to “lightweight” and it was around 200mb. 50mb in the early 00s only got you the net install for Debian, and Knoppix was a whole CD. But this is 2021. You need to do some serious pruning just to get GCC in under 1gb. 50 mb is a fucking miracle.