Installation

Is it difficult to anchor them to the disk?

Bionicpup uses a custom installer and supports two installation mechanisms. The default frugal mechanism copies files inside a partition which holds another distro, while the full option takes over the entire partition and is recommended only for older machines. The installation process is rather unconventional and might even intimidate first-time users, but every step is well documented and easy to follow.

antix also uses a custom installer that’s verbose enough to be operated by inexperienced users, despite the fact that it uses

Gparted for partitioning. That said, not many people would be dual-booting an old machine and the installer is a charm to use if you’re installing antix to the entire disk. The installer offers the option to encrypt the partition and will install the desktop you are currently running – and you can ask it to save any changes that you’ve made to the Live environment.

Installing Tiny Core is easy, once you download the tc-install or tc-install-gui apps. The distro offers several installation mechanisms, including a frugal installation to the hard disk, as well as an option for installing within an existing Linux partition. Due to the distro’s minimalistic nature, you can install it in under a minute, once you get the hang of the process and its peculiarities.

The other distros don’t use home-brewed installers, instead relying on mainstream ones that are familiar and easy to navigate. Bunsenlabs uses the standard Debian installer, which caters to the needs of new and experienced users alike. Q4OS is the only distribution in this Roundup which uses the distributionindependent Calamares installer and gives you the option to encrypt the installation partition.