Vector Linux LIGHT provides a lean and mean Linux system. It is optimized for use on older computers and is surprisingly lightweight, fast and stable. Despite being "light weight", it is a complete Linux workstation system, including compilers, multimedia and office applications. The download is about 300MB, so would suit those without broadband Internet connections. The most recent release of VL LIGHT is still in Beta development stages, up to version B3.3 as at February 6th, 2008. It is not recommended that newbies install this system until it has been finalized.

VectorLinux LIGHT is unlike smaller Linux distros such as Puppy, DSL, Feather and others. Instead it includes a full development environment for programming and compiling, scripting languages, man pages, documentation, a complete console based on bash (rather than busybox) and a huge array of typical Linux command line utilities and software. It also has these features:

• a fun, fast and easy installer with good hardware detection. Install time is only about 10-12 minutes on modern computers.
• the latest JWM and/or Fluxbox window managers - both are good-looking and fast window managers which consume few system resources.
• VASM: a powerful system administration utility.
• VASMCC: a user-friendly GUI interface to VASM.
• gslapt and slapt-get for easy, automated package downloading, upgrading, installation and maintanance.
• vl-hot system, for detection and auto-mounting of USB storage devices, low resources.
• Opera browser.
• Many other Internet applications including Pidgin, XChat, gFTP, Lynx, nmapFE, pyNeighborhood.
• vcpufreq: for reducing CPU frequency on supported processors, mainly for laptops to save power.
• vwifi: a special version of WiFi manager for help configuring various wireless cards and networks.
• MPlayer, Xine and xmms for multimedia and entertainment - for music and video and web content streaming.
• vsmbmount: a Samba connectivity tool.
• vpackager: an automated system for compiling ad packaging VL packages from source code.
• CUPS Printing System

• Pentium 200 or better compatible processor (i586 and up).
• minimum of 2GB of hard disk space for the entire system (less if you choose to install only certain packages), plus additional space for swap (virtual memory) and personal files.
• 64 MB of memory - but 128 MB will greatly improve performance.
• Suitable Video card and Monitor.
• Standard mouse, keyboard, sound card, CDROM, etc.

If you are ready to try VL LIGHT it is free to download.

 
Vector Linux was founded by Robert S. Lange of Canada. After gaining popularity, more developers joined the project, making VL-development a truly international endeavour. You too can join us at the Vector Linux Forum.

Hope to see you there soon!