Post #3103565

2026-01-04 21:08 UTC

@sushee@ohai.social What, in your opinion, is the best and easiest way to build a Linux personal productivity system without all the generally unnecessary cruft that virtually every distribution includes in order to appeal to the widest set of potential users possible? I want a lean, mean machine without too much trouble. I am currently using Linux Mint 22.2 Cinnamon, Linux Mint Debian Edition 7, and Raspberry Pi OS (bookworm, still haven't set aside the time to upgrade to trixie)

Replies (2)

@sushee@ohai.social 2026-01-04 21:23

@gcvsa@mstdn.plus The distribution you can ruthlessly boil down to the essentials - I would probably give Alpine a try (it's also used extensively for lean containers so you can strip it down very well). I like distributions which allow me to really go through every single pkg to install to throw out everything I don't want, then I update to bleeding edge whatever I like "bleed". :) I do a super lean root, no big desktops, only a handful apps but an extensive local "my favorite bleeding edge" in my ~.

Open ##3103566
@sushee@ohai.social 2026-01-04 21:28

@gcvsa@mstdn.plus so my lean, mean is focused on bleeding edge programming languages, firefox/ai-free alternatives, my fancied up vim/neo-vim and a minimal xfce or old-school window managers configured to death 😂 (GUI is my playground). I moved to "web" fully since 1995 so only minimal local apps like a libreoffice. I welcome the recent fashion of "fancy CLI tools" as I still watch movies with "mplayer -f themoviefile" :) I try A LOT but I need very little.

Open ##3103572