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The machine I'm using has a PowerPC architecture so I'm somewhat limited to what flavors of Linux I can use and I don't want to go back to Mac OS 8.9.

The HD is only 3.3 GB so I can't get both Debian and GNOME on it.

Any suggestions for a different distro and Desktop Environment?

Simon Sheehan
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Greg Guida
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  • I find it *highly* surprising that you can't, seeing as how Fedora, Sugar, *and* GNOME fit on the OLPC XO-1, which only has 1GB of flash, with room to spare. – Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams Jun 19 '11 at 17:38
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    [The PowerPC disk space requirements appendix for Debian 6.0](http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/powerpc/apds02.html.en) indicates you'd need up to 3.5GB to install GNOME, but only 2.57GB afterwards to run it. You could possibly download the GNOME packages a few at a time and remove the .deb files afterwards, or else you might not need the entire GNOME environment, and can make things work with a reasonable subset. – Mike Renfro Jun 19 '11 at 22:33
  • Thanks @MikeRenfro I knew I wasn't losing my mind lol. But since debian sets up a swap partition I don't think I have room for it either way. – Greg Guida Jun 20 '11 at 00:11
  • Setting up swap is optional. – tshepang Jun 20 '11 at 16:30

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Try Archlinux PPC. You start with a very blank Linux and can add in what you need as you go along using their package manager, Pacman. Their Wiki has great guides to get you going if you are new to Linux in general. I also recommend you use the Net Install over Core Install, because then you get the newest packages. Their base packages are about 300mb (120 download). I'm not sure if this applies to PPC version, it goes for x86 and x64 though.

Also for a GUI, you are referring to a Desktop Environment. Xfce is somewhat similar to gnome, and is only about 15mb. It uses very little resource wise. If you wanted even less of a Desktop Environment on resources, try out Fluxbox

Simon Sheehan
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