Re: Lightweight distros with GPUTILS in repository

At 7:38 AM +0800 9/15/09, Jason Hsu wrote:
>I'm trying to program microcontrollers in C on a 10-year-old laptop 
>with only 256 MB of RAM and a 500 MHz processor.

...

>Are there any lightweight distros that offer GPUTILS in the 
>repository?  Is there anything I can do in a distro to substantially 
>reduce its RAM requirement?

Most distros start server process that you don't need.  If you don't need to
send and receive email directly at the box, then disable sendmail.  Don't
run Firefox; it uses tons of memory.  Unfortunately, X tends to use a lot
of memory, but you may need it to run design tools.  If you don't need graphic
tools, learn to use the command line, and log in at run level 3, where
the X server doesn't get started.  Learn about using the 'top' program to find
out how much real memory is used by various processes (this will take some
studying of the help, I really can't give a 25 word explanation of what to do).

peter