I had the same feeling when I reviewed Austrumi Linux 1.5.1 which is a business card size (50MB) bootable Live CD Linux distribution from Latvia and is based on Slackware Linux.
Hardware requirements:
CPU - Intel-compatible (pentium2 or later);
RAM - at least 128 MB (if 128 Mb or less, then run boot: al nocache);
HD - not needed;
CD-ROM - bootable CD-ROM drive.
Booting:
There are 5 options for booting and they are:
al nocache don't attempt to cache CD
al noaufs read only filesystem
al text run text mode
al noddc for old monitor
al lang_XX where XX – locale (el, en, it, lv, ru)
We used al lang_en so we have the system booting in english (the default is latvian).
The total time for booting was around one and half minutes in our Armada M700 with a 4X speed CD driver.
The first impression after booting is very good. Some landscape as wallpaper and a bar in the top of the screen is everything we can see. We can say that between all the lightweight distros we tried until now this is the one that looks better.
It is important to say that the network is not up after booting and some configuration is needed.
Hard drive installation:
Austrumi is provided with a simple application for installing the system to the hard disk. Seems like that application only copy the content of the CD to the hard disk and it is also capable of create/edit disk partitions and formating it in case that is needed.
We installed Austrumi in our Armada M700. The process is simple and fast but the CD must be inserted in the unit because if is not there you will see some error and there are not many explanations about it.
The time for booting is now even better (almost a minute) and the entire system is taking only 30 mb of space in the memory. The default language is Latvian again, but that is easy to change using the main menu.
Default applications.
Maybe the most notable detail is that there is no email client installed in this distribution and instead of it you will find a webmail application. I wasn't able to make it work so I can not give my opinion about this particular application.
Some of the programs you will find in this distribution are
Office: Abiword, Gnumeric and Homebank
Audio/Video: Mplayer
Graphics: Gimp, Inkscape
The default file manager is emelFM2 and you will also find Midnight Commander from the terminal. The default browser is Firefox and it is preloaded with three extensions which are Shazow, Translator and DownloadWith.
It is important to note that Austrumi also has an application for remastering the CD and it is possible to create personalized versions of Austrumi using this application.
The complete list of applications can be found here.
Conclusion:
I don't have too much to say about Austrumi. It is extremely light and gives new life to old computers like our Armada M700.
Austrumi is not free of some errors like the lack of documentations or some errors in translations but besides this details, Austrumi seems to be a solid distribution and accomplish very well the purpose it was created for.
I would give Austrumi an 8.5 over 10.
Austrumi is exactly like the shoes for kids. I really like the way they look but I wouldn't be able to use them.
Austrumi at Distrowatch
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