# Light-weight BSD Distro?



## Gogeden (Sep 23, 2010)

I didn't know what other site to post on with this question so I thought I'd ask here. Is there a light-weight BSD-Based distro. Similar to Damn Small Linux or Puppy Linux or Knoppix? As in low resource requirements? I have an old Compaq:


13GB HDD
Pentium II 400Mhz
128MB SD Ram


Thank you in advance! I'd really like to get more familiar with BSD in general so this is why I am asking


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## graudeejs (Sep 24, 2010)

FreeBSD is what you want


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## Gogeden (Sep 24, 2010)

Why is this? What makes FreeBSD the right choice? Thanks


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## Gogeden (Sep 24, 2010)

I also discovered an OS called "Dragonfly BSD". Is this light-weight?


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## fronclynne (Sep 24, 2010)

Yes, DragonflyBSD probably qualifies as lightweight.  OpenBSD & NetBSD are also lightweight.  This is obviously assuming you don't install too much non-lightweight stuff.

Also, "distro" is an obnoxious linuxism and should not be used in the context of BSD (unless you're specifically talking about PCBSD, the erstwhile DesktopBSD, or the debian project's GNU/kFreeBSD/gobble/gobble/Mr./Havnoonian/etc/&such/stallmansuxxx).


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## UNIXgod (Sep 24, 2010)

If you looking for embedding bsd :

this :http://www.tinybsd.org

Also take the time to learn the difference between an operating system and a distro. They really are different.


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## jb_fvwm2 (Sep 24, 2010)

Freebsd is lightweight as installed.  One adds 
to it, once properly configured (guides are
on the web, both for the former and for
the latter.)


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## vermaden (Sep 24, 2010)

Gogeden said:
			
		

> I also discovered an OS called "Dragonfly BSD". Is this light-weight?



All BSDs are lightweight: FreeBSD / NetBSD / OpenBSD / DragonflyBSD

... its about differences in FEATURES and POSIBILITIES.


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## phoenix (Sep 24, 2010)

The OS itself will run in as little as 32 MB of RAM, on a lowly P2, and install into less than 2 GB of disk.

It's the apps you install on top of the OS that will require more CPU, RAM, etc.

For example, Xorg, regardless of the OS you run it on, will need lots of RAM and CPU.

Firefox, regardless of the OS you run it on, will need lots of RAM and CPU.

KDE, regardless of the OS you run it on, will need lots of RAM and CPU.

And so on.

Barebones FreeBSD, though, doesn't.


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## renice (Sep 24, 2010)

Have a look at bsdmag08/2010. There's an nice article about "Low Resource PCs with FreeBSD" of Michaels. This summary will give you some hints to use FreeBSD effectively with older systems.


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