Exploring Lilliput: Is the Cloud Replacing Tiny Linuxes?

“In case anyone wondered why I haven’t been offering any of my
highly-opinionated pieces on Linux Planet lately, it’s because I’ve
been exploring Lilliput: sampling for myself a few of the better
known small-footprint distros that offer an astonishing amount of
computing power packed into a mere handful of megabytes. And though
I haven’t been at this long enough to try out more than a small
fraction of the available ones, some overall characteristics of the
breed are beginning to appear. The most interesting feature to me
is that there seem to be two main branches of small distros: the
Tools and the Products.

“I don’t mean tools in the sense of Parted Magic or System
Rescue. True, those formally deserve the name of Linux distros, but
they are really tools only – they make no claims to the kind
of versatility a daily-driver desktop needs. The Tools I mean are
those that, at a minimum, offer a window manager, a terminal, and a
collection of links which, cleverly applied, can help you configure
your very own version of Linux that includes everything you want
and nothing you don’t.”

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