Distro Zoo – Lightweight OSes

While some people swear by Christmas, I maintain that the most wonderful time of the year is, in fact, April and October. These are the months when new versions of Ubuntu are released. While there will always be those stick-in-the-muds who will never venture from mainstream distros like Fedora and stock Ubuntu, those releases mean that other developers can issue their own variants of Linux based on the latest versions. This is the case for FunOS, which uses an Ubuntu 25.10 base but is designed to be much more lightweight than its parent.

Other Linux projects are more ambitious, offering multiple flavors based on different operating systems. This is certainly true for Peppermint OS, with versions based on both Debian and Devuan. Voyager Live is also available in multiple versions, including flavors based on both Ubuntu and Debian.

This level of customization doesn't just apply to the base OS. FunOS, for instance, doesn't even have a package manager, meaning you're free to tweak it to your needs. Peppermint OS and Voyager Live, on the other hand, are more willing to hold users' hands by including Synaptic and Gnome Software respectively. This month, I'm also delving into Clonezilla Live, a distro designed specifically for imaging and cloning drives. If you're looking for a snazzy, intuitive desktop, then you'll be disappointed in Clonezilla Live. However, you will appreciate the simple step-by-step wizards that take you through using tools like Partclone in a an easy-to-understand way.

[...]