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Mission Impossible: finding a good linux distro that:
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up2u
May 30, 2019, 1:31:37 AM5/30/19
to
1) is newbie friendly, comes with preinstalled apps (packages) for
web,email, etc
2) Has hardened security and can be run live from USB
3) WIll work ok on virtualbox with only 512MB ram
4) Has enough support where you can get questions answered or find them
online.
5) Actually installs and works. Can be installed on virtualbox windows
host without a lot of modifications-works out of the box.
Most distros require 1gb or more of ram. Distros that don't, do not claim
good security or do not have a complete package of installed apps
suitable for internet, file manager. So far looking at Alpine (not newbie
friendly), puppy (maybe not secure?). Tried to install mint xcfe (sp?).
Got to end screen and scrambled video, no error message-and that's
supposed to be a highly "recommended" install for newbies to linux, haha.
And lastly, most importantly is FREE...
web,email, etc
2) Has hardened security and can be run live from USB
3) WIll work ok on virtualbox with only 512MB ram
4) Has enough support where you can get questions answered or find them
online.
5) Actually installs and works. Can be installed on virtualbox windows
host without a lot of modifications-works out of the box.
Most distros require 1gb or more of ram. Distros that don't, do not claim
good security or do not have a complete package of installed apps
suitable for internet, file manager. So far looking at Alpine (not newbie
friendly), puppy (maybe not secure?). Tried to install mint xcfe (sp?).
Got to end screen and scrambled video, no error message-and that's
supposed to be a highly "recommended" install for newbies to linux, haha.
And lastly, most importantly is FREE...
Aragorn
May 30, 2019, 2:26:00 AM5/30/19
to
On 30.05.2019 at 05:31, up2u scribbled:
> 1) is newbie friendly, comes with preinstalled apps (packages) for
> web,email, etc
Well, that narrows it down to a couple of hundred distros. All
desktop-oriented distros install at least one email client and a
browser by default, with several more to choose from via the package
manager.
> 2) Has hardened security and can be run live from USB
I don't think you really understand what "hardened" means in a
GNU/Linux context. All GNU/Linux distributions are pretty secure —
well, except for Puppy, because it runs everything with root
privileges. The UNIX security model is a lot better organized
than that of Microsoft Windows, and most distributions now make use of
stack smashing protection and position-independent executables.
A genuinely hardened distro on the other hand is commonly not geared
toward home desktop use and uses frameworks like SELinux or AppArmor to
further restrict what each application has access to.
Furthermore, it is pretty silly to demand hardened security of a guest
operating system in a VirtualBox session when the host operating system
is a security nightmare like Microsoft Windows. It would be a lot
safer (and a lot more stable) if the host were running GNU/Linux and
Windows were the guest running in VirtualBox.
> 3) WIll work ok on virtualbox with only 512MB ram
You won't find anything anymore that will be truly usable with that
little amount of RAM.
First and foremost, that restriction already rules out a 64-bit
distribution, and there aren't too many distros anymore that still come
in a 32-bit release.
Secondly, the system itself may be satisfied with only about 300 MiB of
RAM on startup, but as soon as you open up a few applications, you're
going to end up paging memory to disk, and that is going to
significantly impact performance, even to the point where you could
come to believe that the system has crashed due to it becoming
unresponsive to user input as the result of the perpetual I/O to the
swap partition.
A Firefox session with some heavy graphics in a couple of tabs can
easily do that on a system with limited RAM — I've had it happen on a
system with 4 GiB of RAM and a dual-core processor.
> 4) Has enough support where you can get questions answered or find
> them online.
I know of a few such places, but given your demands higher up, they
won't apply. I have no experience with any of the other support forums.
> 5) Actually installs and works. Can be installed on virtualbox
> windows host without a lot of modifications-works out of the box.
Just about all distros support running virtualized — the onus for
having everything inside the virtual machine working as if it were
running on the bare metal does not lie with the guest operating system
but with the host operating system.
But that said, it's not going to work in 512 MiB of RAM, unless we're
talking of a non-GUI system.
> Most distros require 1gb or more of ram. Distros that don't, do not
> claim good security or do not have a complete package of installed
> apps suitable for internet, file manager. So far looking at Alpine
> (not newbie friendly), puppy (maybe not secure?). Tried to install
> mint xcfe (sp?). Got to end screen and scrambled video, no error
> message-and that's supposed to be a highly "recommended" install for
> newbies to linux, haha.
Considering the restrictions you're putting up front, I'm not surprised
of the results.
> And lastly, most importantly is FREE...
Almost all distributions are free (as in "free beer"), and with the ones
that aren't — e.g. RHEL or SUSE — what you pay for is actually a
support contract. But even then there's a way around it. openSUSE is
free of charge, and the "free beer" version of RHEL is called CentOS —
or Fedora if you want it "bleeding edge".
If it has to be completely free as in "freedom" — i.e. no proprietary
drivers or firmware blobs — then you're already limiting yourself to
only a couple of distros anymore, e.g. Trisquel, Ututo and gNewSense.
But given that you're running Microsoft Windows on your computer,
you're most likely not interested in the political objective of not
having any proprietary software on your computer.
--
With respect,
= Aragorn =
> 1) is newbie friendly, comes with preinstalled apps (packages) for
> web,email, etc
desktop-oriented distros install at least one email client and a
browser by default, with several more to choose from via the package
manager.
> 2) Has hardened security and can be run live from USB
GNU/Linux context. All GNU/Linux distributions are pretty secure —
well, except for Puppy, because it runs everything with root
privileges. The UNIX security model is a lot better organized
than that of Microsoft Windows, and most distributions now make use of
stack smashing protection and position-independent executables.
A genuinely hardened distro on the other hand is commonly not geared
toward home desktop use and uses frameworks like SELinux or AppArmor to
further restrict what each application has access to.
Furthermore, it is pretty silly to demand hardened security of a guest
operating system in a VirtualBox session when the host operating system
is a security nightmare like Microsoft Windows. It would be a lot
safer (and a lot more stable) if the host were running GNU/Linux and
Windows were the guest running in VirtualBox.
> 3) WIll work ok on virtualbox with only 512MB ram
little amount of RAM.
First and foremost, that restriction already rules out a 64-bit
distribution, and there aren't too many distros anymore that still come
in a 32-bit release.
Secondly, the system itself may be satisfied with only about 300 MiB of
RAM on startup, but as soon as you open up a few applications, you're
going to end up paging memory to disk, and that is going to
significantly impact performance, even to the point where you could
come to believe that the system has crashed due to it becoming
unresponsive to user input as the result of the perpetual I/O to the
swap partition.
A Firefox session with some heavy graphics in a couple of tabs can
easily do that on a system with limited RAM — I've had it happen on a
system with 4 GiB of RAM and a dual-core processor.
> 4) Has enough support where you can get questions answered or find
> them online.
won't apply. I have no experience with any of the other support forums.
> 5) Actually installs and works. Can be installed on virtualbox
> windows host without a lot of modifications-works out of the box.
having everything inside the virtual machine working as if it were
running on the bare metal does not lie with the guest operating system
but with the host operating system.
But that said, it's not going to work in 512 MiB of RAM, unless we're
talking of a non-GUI system.
> Most distros require 1gb or more of ram. Distros that don't, do not
> claim good security or do not have a complete package of installed
> apps suitable for internet, file manager. So far looking at Alpine
> (not newbie friendly), puppy (maybe not secure?). Tried to install
> mint xcfe (sp?). Got to end screen and scrambled video, no error
> message-and that's supposed to be a highly "recommended" install for
> newbies to linux, haha.
of the results.
> And lastly, most importantly is FREE...
that aren't — e.g. RHEL or SUSE — what you pay for is actually a
support contract. But even then there's a way around it. openSUSE is
free of charge, and the "free beer" version of RHEL is called CentOS —
or Fedora if you want it "bleeding edge".
If it has to be completely free as in "freedom" — i.e. no proprietary
drivers or firmware blobs — then you're already limiting yourself to
only a couple of distros anymore, e.g. Trisquel, Ututo and gNewSense.
But given that you're running Microsoft Windows on your computer,
you're most likely not interested in the political objective of not
having any proprietary software on your computer.
--
With respect,
= Aragorn =
Carlos E.R.
May 30, 2019, 4:24:17 AM5/30/19
to
On 30/05/2019 07.31, up2u wrote:
> 1) is newbie friendly, comes with preinstalled apps (packages) for
> web,email, etc
Practically all.
> 1) is newbie friendly, comes with preinstalled apps (packages) for
> web,email, etc
> 2) Has hardened security and can be run live from USB
knowledge to pair. Not "newbie friendly".
Now, a special version for USB stick, those are fewer but there are some.
> 3) WIll work ok on virtualbox with only 512MB ram
but it runs as root, so that contradicts "paranoid security".
For instance, I started "thunderbird" minutes ago, for email, and it
uses half a gigabyte already. Later it will take about 1.2 gigabytes.
> 4) Has enough support where you can get questions answered or find them
> online.
be reduced.
> 5) Actually installs and works. Can be installed on virtualbox windows
> host without a lot of modifications-works out of the box.
> And lastly, most importantly is FREE...
If you mean free as in gratis, the enterprise versions charge somehow.
--
Cheers, Carlos.
Brian Masinick
Jul 14, 2019, 11:18:57 PM7/14/19
to
Despite not perfectly fitting all criteria, I genuinely appreciate and recommend antiX, one of the dwindling number of distributions capable of running on a 32-bit system.
It's easy to install, uses system resources moderately, and is fast on all but the very oldest systems. It was created for old computer systems and has an intelligent and helpful community of developers and users.
It's easy to install, uses system resources moderately, and is fast on all but the very oldest systems. It was created for old computer systems and has an intelligent and helpful community of developers and users.
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