Why are small linux downloads that just have browsers so large?

Discussion in 'all things UNIX' started by roark37, Sep 3, 2015.

  1. roark37

    roark37 Registered Member

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    Hi. I was looking at small linux distros to just run live off usb and all I wanted was a browser. There seems to be several like this or close to it like Porteus and Justbrowsing but the downloads seem unusually large. Porteus was not too bad at 175mb but I think justbrowsing was around 350+ and others I have seen are even larger. Why would just a browser need so much? Is the linux stuff needed to even boot or run anything that large? I assume it is not as I have seen small Puppy versions smaller so I am not sure why this is. Thanks.
     
  2. inka

    inka Registered Member

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    To accommodate a range of hardware, many distros ship a kernel containing LOTS of drivers.

    For small, you might try TinyCore linux distro
    tinycorelinux.net
    ...and, upon finding it lacks a driver for your particular soundcard (or whatever) you'll be back to choosing one of those 175MB+ distros
    (wherein the kernel may comprise 90MB or so of the overall iso size)
     
  3. Amanda

    Amanda Registered Member

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    Is your flashdrive only 256 MB in size? :p
     
  4. roark37

    roark37 Registered Member

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    Thanks for the replies as I didn't realize the issue with all the drivers included but that now makes sense. And my usb drives are much larger than that I was just curious why the files seemed so large even for the small distros and take some time to download.

    But a follow up question is has anyone used either Porteus or Justbrowsing and if so would you recommend them?

    Thanks.
     
  5. inka

    inka Registered Member

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    Across version releases, I have repeatedly test-driven porteus. I've never bothered to testdrive "justbrowsing".
    Hands-down, I prefer antix. In the absence of antix, I would choose one of the slack-derived puppy variants (hmm fatdog64) over porteus.
    Comparatively, the porteus persistence setup & management is just too unwieldy (as in, overly clever & unnecessarily complex).

    It takes less than 5min to create a liveUSB from iso. Do it. Enjoy a little taste of distrohopping & make your own comparisons, eh.
    (I hope you'll report back afterward. I'm curious to hear your distrohopping observations.)
     
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