[LAU] Shopping for a linux distro

[danni]

> No recommendation, but a few comments;
>
> It's fairly straightforward to get X to run without a window manager -
> just don't start one! This should work well as long as your single app
> only has a single window. With more than one window, you more or less
> need a window manager.

The application in question is freewheeling and yes it is single window. I 
have written a script to make all this happen for X including starting jack 
and making all the right connections. I am just not happy with the boot speed 
of the current setup.... and am having difficulty finding reliable 
documentation to improve it.
 
>
> "Working firewire" depends highly on what firewire hardware you are
> using, since firewire audio devices don't have the same kind of
> standardisation that USB devices do. Check with the FreeBoB people.

Yes the device is supported by freebob -> Some minimalist distro's for example 
Puppy linux don't ship with Firewire drivers enabled in the kernel and it is 
a conciderable PITA to compile these from source.

> As long as you're not planning to distribute the software packages you
> build (in which case you have to worry about dependencies and
> compatibility), it's pretty easy to build your own packages at least on
> DEB and RPM based systems. Just install Checkinstall, and type
> 'checkinstall' instead of 'make install' when you've built the software.
> It will generate a package file automatically.

A deb based system would be ideal.... What I really want though is something 
fairly minimal with good documentation on how to rip out anything unnessary 
out of the boot process.  ~15 seconds to a usuable system would be a nice 
target. A realtime kernel would be great too....

++

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