Looking for non-bloated but easy-management distro

GeorgeBeckingham

I'm not new to Linux, but since it's been 5 years since the last time I had a Linux box (Lubuntu on an ancient laptop), I'm pretty much new again. The aforementioned laptop had Ubuntu before it became bloated, and I learned on Mandrake 9.something before it became Mandriva.

After a quick search this morning, Mint and Ubuntu look like they'd be the easiest distros to use, but I was struck by how Ubuntu and Debian brag about the tens of thousands of packages that are bundled with the basic installation.

I'm trying to get away from bloat. What I want most is a distro that will let me install an OS with a fairly small footprint, then let me install only what I want. I'm sure I'll end up with a reasonably large, complex system, but I don't want the distro to fill up my drive with what someone else thinks I should install.

I'm also lazy, so I want a distro with a user-friendly package manager. I'll compile from source when I want to go out of my way to get something, but for the most part I want a system that will manage dependencies, including cleaning them up when I uninstall a program.

I'll be installing this on a 3-4 year old ASUS laptop (Intel graphics) with a brand new 1 TB hard drive.

Any distros or variations come to mind?

antidrugue

There are probably as many answers to your questions as there are users here. Debian would definitely be a great choice. You can try the Debian Stable XFCE CD, which will give you a minimal XFCE desktop : https://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/current/amd64/iso-cd/debian-9.2.1-amd64-xfce-CD-1.iso

Ubuntu has also come a long way in the last 5 years. The latest Ubuntu 17.10 is also excellent, it's fast and offers a great set of packages. If you want to experiment, there are also tons of other distributions that would fit the bill : http://distrowatch.com/