Linux
distributions are already small; they can easily be smaller than the smallest
Win2K installation with equivalent or
greater functionality, depending on purpose.
Compare the contents of the
six CDs of
Red Hat, to the one cd of
Windows 2000. The OS itself is equivalent to
Windows 2000 Server almost out of the box, and resides on one cd.
The other five are simply
EXTRA. Often, those CDs include the
source code, which itself can be several times the size of the binaries alone. The source may
compress well, but that just adds
another step in the installation process.
When one
installs an
OS, whether it be Linux or Win2K, they usually expect it to be entirely functional after
installation (barring some minor tweaking).
I'd hate to have to wait a day while my system
compiled itself, unless I planned on doing that (which is why you get the source code on those other 5 CDs!)
On
my linux box,
MySQL takes over 4
hours to compile (
AMD K5-100). I can't imagine how long the kernel would take, not to mention the entire
compliment of
libraries,
binaries, and various other utilities that go towards making a distro fuctional.
Making
distros smaller isn't really necessary. Making an install on your machine smaller requires only
a bit of planning, and
skill, on your part. Or you can pick one of the many
pre-planned tiny distros out there. I believe there are a couple
floppy-based distros. This is an advantage of
<freely-available-source> operating systems.
And yes, as yerricide noted,
Redhat is not the only option.
The people who will decide between linux and Win2k will, hopefully, do some research beforehand and realize that in the end, they ARE getting shortchanged by getting only one disc!
Small Distros: