torios team mailing list archive

["Ali Linx (amjjawad)" <amjjawad@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi everyone,

On Mon, Jul 6, 2020 at 10:26 PM <ml@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> On Thu, July 2, 2020 2:07 pm, Israel Dahl wrote:
> > @Laura thanks for wanting to help!  I think our goals overlap well, and
> > could do with more hands on deck.  My main goal for ToriOS is to make
> > things easy to use, and look fairly nice on as old of hardware as
> > possible.
>
> I'm still working on/trying to find lightweight alternatives that will
> work better on older systems than a lot of the typical programs offered.
> I really like how ToriOS makes good use of the FLTK GUI.  Will be trying
> to put together patches on some of the FLTK programs I use and upload them
> soon.  There are only about 3 or 4 other distributions I know about that
> specifically try to make use of FLTK programs (including NanoLinux,
> TinyCore Linux, 4Mlinux).
>

I'm sure there is no other distribution that could actually beat ToriOS.
Keep in mind that ToriOS is using a modern base to help old machines to
work.
I've tried tons of distributions. So many. One of the reasons why I decided
to start ToriOS project is because these distributions which I have tried,
didn't give me what I was looking for.


>
> I'm also looking into SDL based applications and trying to determine
> whether it's better to use the latest version of SDL (which takes more
> resources) or try to continue to work with SDL 1.2.15.  I'm trying to
> backport some helper libraries to 1.2.15 now, but I'm also looking at
> adding SDL 2.x support to some SDL 1.2.15 applications.  Would be
> interested in hearing opinions from others on which SDL version they
> prefer.
>
>
This is beyond my knowledge so no comment.



> > I really want to join forces with all the small distros to form a common
> > base, or some way to share all our niche programs.  I think this would be
> > the most helpful!
>
> I think the main distribution that actively tries to reach users with
> older machines is Puppy Linux.  They have several custom programs as well.
>  They also have several tools to build distributions automatically
> including one that uses Debian as a base.  However, there would be some
> differences with how ToriOS does things such as the package manager and
> making more use of the root user.  One of my favorite distributions that's
> based on Debian is AntiX.  Don't know if we can share any resources with
> them, but AntiX works very well on older hardware.  It has some nice
> custom software that works well on low resource machines too.  Plus, it's
> systemd free for those who don't like systemd being so inclusive and
> trying to do several jobs instead of one job well.


The philosophy of ToriOS is to KISS. Keep EVERYTHING as simple, as easy, as
short as possible.



> Would be interested to
> see some statistics on whether systemd or its alternatives work better on
> older computers, but my guess is that it's going to depend on the
> hardware.  One other advantage is that it has several tools for doing
> respins in ISO or flash drive format.  The other small Linux distributions
> I've looked at are working with the musl C library instead of glibc.  I
> recently heard from the developer of Cucumber Linux.  He's stopped that
> project and is now working on fidelix but it's oriented to server use and
> uses pkgsrc (which he said is working out very well).  If we switched to
> musl, the system would be more lightweight and would allow for static
> compilation.  However, you'd lose compatibility with Debian unless you
> could pull off something similar to what Bedrock Linux does.  Some of the
> lightweight programs that the musl based distributions use might be
> helpful though.  Also, Debian does allow for installation of the musl
> compiler along with the standard gcc/glibc compiler.  Might be interesting
> to see if packages or programs compiled with the different C libraries
> could coexist in some easier way.  There are also options like TinyCore
> Linux.  However, I wonder how well that works for older computers since
> it's geared to using as much RAM as possible.
>

Too complicated, I'm afraid. This will set us back to where we started. We
want to go in different directions. I'll share my ideas soon!


>
> I think ToriOS and AntiX are the main distributions I know when it comes
> to targeting older systems and remaining Debian based.  Also, many
> distributions are moving away from 32 bit support and offering only 64 bit
> support.


ToriOS is better than AntiX ;-)



> Might be worth looking into how likely it is that Debian will go
> this route as well and what to do in case that happens.  I've noticed
> several forums mentioning issues with getting a modern browser that works
> in 32 bit as well.


No doubts!


> That could be a serious issue at some point and
> already is with some other distributions.
>

Indeed.


> Sincerely,
> Laura
> http://lmemsm.dreamwidth.org
>
>
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-- 
Remember: "All of us are smarter than any one of us."

Best Regards,
Ali/amjjawad <https://wiki.ubuntu.com/amjjawad>