[CentOS] Mini-centOS

[Bryan J. Smith <b.j.smith@ieee.org>]

From: Doug Koobs <dkoobs at dkoobs.com>
> If it helps any, I'm running CentOS4 on an old PII 400Mhz, 192MB laptop. Under
> Gnome, it's not exactly snappy, but it is usable. Unser XFCE4.2, i'm quite ahppy
> with it. I know you stated that you need Gnome, and I also prefer it. But if you
> haven't tried some of the lightweight alternatives, give them a shot, you may be
> surprised.

The nice thing about XFCE is that it is a _total_ session+file+window solution,
like KDE and GNOME.  And if you don't like XFCE's session+file managers, you
can always use Rox-Filer (which works flawlessly with XFCE's xfwm window manager).

> Intereating article about the new lightweight Windows OS.

There's _no_ such thing on the retail shelf or in volume Windows license.
Unless you link from the _Embedded_ NT/2000/XP releases, you can't "unlink" all
sorts of crap that "leeches" on the NTkernel, GDI, etc...
These so-called "lightweight" Windows OS releases are nothing more than some
things not bundled.  It's a 100% marketing gimmick.

Unfortunately, "Chicago"-designed MS IE is required by all apps since the mid-'90s,
which is the crux of the resource and, more relevantly, security in the current bastardization
of Win32 we call NT5.1 (XP/2003).  So it's hard to get rid of if you run anything
that was developed with Visual Studio.  It's really sad.  Some Windows architects are
really sharp guys, but the "applications" developers still develop like NT is DOS7
"Chicago" -- assuming the world is safe and users have full access over the system.

No wonder Marc left for Google!

> However, I don't think it will meet your needs, as it will be extremely crippled,
> to the point it won't even run MS Office if I read correctly.

Depends on what is left out.



--
Bryan J. Smith   mailto:b.j.smith at ieee.org