I have an old notebook which I’ve been toying with a few smaller distros on (typically easy to install, liveCD types), and while I enjoy the tinkering aspects of this, I had a thought that I’ve been mulling.
In the past I’ve run distributions based on larger, better supported, systems (Ubuntu, Debian, Arch, etc.) and if or when they have folded, like crunchbang did, or PeppermintOS (however briefly), I just changed them out.
However, if I were to go back to peppermintOS, say, would it be feasible to ‘convert’ the system to the parent distribution? So, could I force peppermintOS to ‘become’ Debian, for example? Or is this overly simplistic? It’s a level of engagement with my operating systems that I just haven’t had!
No, they aren’t to blame, but it makes “light” distros pointless.
Not really - there’s plenty of use cases where running memory intensive stuff like that isn’t an issue and running a small footprint distro makes more sense than, say, a maximalist, fully featured desktop distro.
I’m not trying to run a media centre or play games on my 11 year old MacBook!