[sf-lug] System requirements (was: A short and simple survey)

[Michael Paoli]

Documentation and/or lack thereof (& findability) for system
requirements (minimum) and recommended.

IMHO Debian still does a pretty darn good job of this.  Varies among
distributions.

I'd guess Arch likely well covers it - as their
(notably wiki) documentation is generally good to excellent.

Ubuntu ... I've pretty much given up looking for it.  They still have
(last I checked) "recommended" - or something like that, but that's
it - at least last I recalled/looked, and even that may not have been
super-easy to find.

Debian :-)  They don't bury you in documentation, but quite easy enough
to find the relevant documentation.  How many "clicks" to get there?
https://www.debian.org/
under Documentation we have:
Release Info (nope, that's not what we're looking for)
Installation Manual
Then click the link for the architecture ...
That gets one to a table of contents, which includes:
System Requirements
Supported Hardware
so ... about 6 clicks max., and perhaps as few as about 4, and pretty
cleanly and logically laid out.

I also have some fair bit of that covered on:
https://www.wiki.balug.org/wiki/doku.php?id=balug:cds_and_images_etc
including in many cases direct link from architecture for a distribution
to the relevant data on requirements and such - at least where such is
generally available (sometimes the Debian anchor tags change and need
updating, but at least the pages remain quite consistent).
and:
https://www.wiki.balug.org/wiki/doku.php?id=balug:cds_and_images_etc#notes
Though those notes can probably use some more updating.

> From: "Rick Moen" <rick at linuxmafia.com>
> Subject: [sf-lug] System requirements (was: A short and simple survey)
> Date: Tue, 9 Oct 2018 19:38:52 -0700

> Quoting Michael Paoli (Michael.Paoli at cal.berkeley.edu):
>
>> Many distributions well document exactly what 32-bit they do/don't
>> support (not only CPU minimums and recommended, but also other
>> minimums/recommended for distribution).  However some distributions
>> don't document this very well at all - e.g. just give a "recommended"
>> and can't be bothered to spell out what a minimum usable/supportable
>> configuration is.
>
> This actually is one of the ways in which the Linux distribution world,
> in general, has changed for the worse.  For about the first 15 years, it
> was absolutely routine for _every_ distro to prominently disclose, for
> each release, 'mimimum system requirements' (the feeblest and tiniest
> target computer the release's installer could handle) and 'recommended
> system requirements' -- citing most importantly the CPU, total RAM, and
> disk space for a typical (or default) installation.
>
> But then, without any apparent discussion, most distros started making
> that information more and more obscure, or omitted altogether.  It's
> disappointing, and has added one more hurdle to the task of helping
> newcomers.
>
> Debian Project still do a moderately decent job of disclosing this --
> although even they hide it away in the Installation Guides
> (https://www.debian.org/releases/stable/installmanual) for the ten
> supported CPU ports.  Which means that newcomers aren't likely to find
> it without very easily unless they already know where to look (i.e.,
> aren't newcomers).
>
> One of the consequence of this information void is that you then got
> absurdities like LUG regulars insisting on installing woefully tiny
> (now-defunct) DamnSmallLinux because they had really no idea how much
> disk space and RAM a fully-functionality distro requires if you _avoid_
> dumbass kitchen-sink installations.
>
> I see that Debian 9 'Stretch' (current 'stable' release) will still
> install and run without special tricks onto my 1999 128MB RAM Sony VAIO,
> as long as I go with a window manager (as I prefer), eschew DE
> bloatware, and choose to install only a sensible set of software.  Cool.
> https://www.debian.org/releases/stable/i386/ch03s04.html.en