I’ve been doing some scouring and my search results are coming back confusing. Usually either incomplete information, or some kind of sales spam, so I’m reaching out in the hopes of recommendations for actual linux users and fans. I am looking for a very small, tiny even, security/privacy focused distro. I don’t mind doing some work to set it up (though LFS may kill me!)
Here is what I have.
- RAM: 2GB (yep. Seriously. None-upgradable).
- HDD: 20GB (say 19GB)
- Processor: Intel Celeron N3350 (2334Mhz average)
- GPU (hah): Intel HD Graphics 500 (Integrated)
Wishlist
- Graphical user interface (I appreciate it’s going to be very basic)
- Arch based (I love the AUR and pacman)
- Base runs on less than 512MB of RAM, Arch Linux is a minimum of 512MB.
The software I plan to run on said device, so to give some kind of guidance of how much RAM we’re working with.
- Tor Expert and Tor Browser bundles or Mull.
- Virtual machine (of some kind) with Whonix
- MariaDB
- RClone
- VLC/Smplayer (which ever is smaller)
- VPN client
- Rustdesk (I can’t find anything smaller than actually works)
- ZSnes
- SimpleX
- Deluge (DelugeD with thin-client)
- LibreOffice (until I can find a lighter alternative, but I need the BASIC capabilities).
Arch linux is too big even as base. I’m currently using 64-bit AntiX which runs (base) half of what Arch-Linux does according to it’s own guide. It’s using IceWM (which is its heaviest DE). It took a while to investigate believe me, it’s also Debian so focuses more on security than Arch does (due in part to Arch’s bleeding edge status new vulnerabilities are being added all the time, they’re being fixed of course, it’s just a natural consequence of their methodology).
I don’t believe AbiWord or Gnumeric have BASIC capabilities?
Deluge takes up a tiny amount of ram, I’d recommend investigating the thin client mode. It’s smaller than Transmission for me. The non-daemonized client has a memory leak.
Thanks for the tip about X2Go. I’ll take a look.