What are the best Text only Linux operating system?

Question

9

Options
Considered

47

User
Recs.

May 24, 2019

Last
Updated

Here’s the Deal

9 Options Considered

Best Text only Linux operating system	Price	Default Desktop Environment	Based On
89 Arch (without a display server)	-	CLI	N/A
-- Gentoo	-	CLI	None
-- Slackware	-	KDE SC	Softlanding Linux System
-- Damn Small Linux	-	-	-
-- CentOS	-	GNOME 3	Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)

See Full List

Request recommendations from the community

I Recommend...

Help millions of people make better decisions.

Each month, over 2.8 million people use Slant to find the best products and share their knowledge. Pick the tags you’re passionate about to get a personalized feed and begin contributing your knowledge.

9 Options Considered

My Recommendation for Arch (without a display server)

My Recommendation for Arch (without a display server)

Excellent documentation

Requires some background with Linux and the command-line to setup

Cutting edge rolling release

Package manager is so naive

No restrictive handholding, pure control over everything

Too many package upgrades that require manual intervention

As slim or copious as you want it

Multiple Aur helpers

Simplicity is absolutely the principal objective behind Arch development

Fragile packages

Fast and simple package management

Rolling release requires bandwidth

Excellent package selection with the AUR

Not for the faint of heart

Helpful community

Problems with driver/kernel/gpu consistency

A package for almost everything

Instability can be an issue

Support for a large variety of hardware

Manual install process

Excellent package management with the AUR

Documentation only makes sense if you know how to adjust it

It is Linux at the core

Stripped down to the bone

Helpful 3rd-party installers

My Recommendation for Gentoo

My Recommendation for Gentoo

Can be officially systemd-free

Not beginner-friendly

Portage's emerge is powerful

Customized package installation can take a long time and cause installation failures

Full control of the software

Very steep learning curve

Documentation and community are second to none

A very large collection of software is available

Great for anyone who is serious about learning the intricacies of Linux

USE flag system for extreme flexibility

More fine-grained control over packages

Creating and updating packages is easy

Good for people who want to compile everything

Portability

Fully customizable

Can by optimized to any given CPU by using proper compile flags

Can be officially systemd-free

Gentoo does not impose a standard look-and-feel

Vast possibilities and options for system programs

Freedom

Live USB

My Recommendation for Slackware

My Recommendation for Slackware

Ideal to learn more of Linux

Not the best for running business with IT departments that don't have Linux experience

Stable

OLD

OLD

KISS system

No surprises

Package Management

My Recommendation for Damn Small Linux

My Recommendation for Damn Small Linux

My Recommendation for CentOS

My Recommendation for CentOS

Applications don't have to take into account potentially breaking changes in libraries

Greatly favours stability over anything else

My Recommendation for linux from scratch

My Recommendation for linux from scratch

For those who wonder what it takes to create an actual Linux distribution

Takes a while to create the system. Only for those people who would like to create their very own distribution, or just to understand what makes a Linux system tick.

My Recommendation for Funtoo

My Recommendation for Funtoo

Stage3 sources are built using the Funtoo Linux tool 'metro'

Funtoo Linux offers a variety of stage3 builds

`boot-update` to take care of bootloader configuration

No systemd

Portage tree split into kits

Use flags that are suitable for a task or environment are grouped into Profiles

Stage3 archive coming with pre-compiled kernel based on Debian's kernel