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Although I use Fedora on both my laptop and desktop machines, when I want my os on a USB stick, I go with Puppy Linux, which fits on my old 128 MB stick with about 40 MB to spare

Read the bottom portion of the mail. It is very easy to create a custom spin based on your choice of software packages that would easily fit under 512 MB. Check out livecd-creator.

> Whay would be the advantages of running Fedora XFCE?

Fedora :-)

It a question of preference really.

I have included more applications like Tracker, many nice command line applications and all the language packs out of the box. The default Xfce look and feel is the same as upstream and if you are a Xfce fan you might prefer it better than the GNOME like layout in Xubuntu. Also I have sticked with more Xfce applications instead of replacing many of them with GNOME apps like the Xubuntu folks. Fedora Xfce spin is likely to be more suitable for low resource systems too.

You get all of the Fedora goodness and there is a very easy utility, livecd-iso-to-disk to convert the image into bootable USB images. We even have a Windows version available now.

https://fedorahosted.org/liveusb-creator/

You should try out for yourself.

I don't get it. What is so good in the default layout of XFCE? First of all it wastes a lot of screen real estate. For example, the empty space on both sides of the unnecessarily big 'dock' is basically unused and unusable. Also the taskbar on the top is too 'fat', so it too wastes space and it even looks kind of 'clunky'.

So.. XFCE is supposed to be light on resources... but when it comes to screen real estate it is actually really wasteful... This is paradoxal especially when you consider that one of the biggest problems with old computers is low resolution monitors. Furthermore, the big fat panels use up a lot of space vertically, which is even more problematic with modern computers as they often have wide screen displays.

Oh, and the layout in Xubuntu is not much better either... I wonder why the panels are so big... about 20% percent bigger than in Gnome... once again wasting space and looking clunky, without any good reason.

PS. Yes... I know everything is configurable... But the fact is that 'average users' don't care about that - they just want good experience 'out of the box'.

Well... not trying to bash or anything, but Xubuntu's Xfce doesn't feel like Xfce at all. It feels more like Gnome, both in its default layout and its sluggishness. It's not a good representation of Xfce at all. I tried the Xfce live CD of Fedora earlier, and it's surprisingly light. I say surprisingly, because Fedora is also guilty of adding a lot of crap (like daemons) that runs by default and slows down the distro to the point where I have problems just trying to run the Gnome/KDE live CDs without freezing. It was only using about 80-90 megs of memory out of 256 on the machine I ran it on, and was quite responsive. Hopefully it stays that way, light and fast... the way Xfce is meant to be.

As indicated in the mail, there are two different kind of audiences.

a) Xfce fans
b) Folks who want something less heavier than GNOME or KDE.

Fedora Xfce Spin is suitable to both these kind of users. You are interrelating two different things.

Flashback to 1986, shortly after the 386 came out, when a friend told me that I'd have to use 16 bit programs for a couple of years until the software caught up to 32 bits. "A couple of years" turned out to be 15 years. And MS was promising 32 bits, and even claiming to have them, much of that time. ;-)

Well, there was the 32bit DOS programs and extenders but I can certainly understand repressing any thoughts of ever having used DOS on a daily basis. I'm getting a cold sweat just remembering it.

I don't mind thinking of DOS. It was an efficient little OS. (These days the GNU fans would admonish me, reminding me that DOS was just a kernel!)

It's remembering The Rise of The Cybermen^W^W^Windows that gives me the creeps!

Ok, so beat me with your rhythmstick but I actually liked it when Windows 95 rolled around. I blame the brain damage caused by years of endless fiddling with autoexec.bat and config.sys. Not to mention the horror that was ISA cards and getting them to work in DOS an Windows 3.x. Then you add Stacker and the memory management to the mix and we're in the seventh circle of Hell.

Don't mean to flame but doesn't Vista have a 64bit version? Infact it runs the game Crysis faster than the 32bit version. So I don't know what you mean by it being a fantasy.

Vista's purpose in life is not running Crysis. It is a matter of fact that 64 Bit support is generally lacking, app and driver-wise. Actually, MS themselves state the main focus to be on 32 Bit version even of Vista's successor. There is also a 64 Bit version of UT, it was there since day one, but that doesn't mean 64 Bit adoption is great.