Modern Linux distributions are often too heavy (the same LibreOffice, due to the use of Java, requires a lot of memory), so on low-powered computers it’s not particularly easy to roam. Fortunately, there are distributions that are as truncated as possible in size, but at the same time contain everything you need for more or less comfortable work.

Introduction

To begin with, it is worth giving a definition. A mini distribution is a Linux distribution capable of running on low-powered hardware. Low-end hardware is usually seven or more years old and has 512 MB of memory, a 2.4 GHz processor, and an integrated graphics card. Of course, you can't run modern versions of full-fledged distros on such hardware - they are too heavy. However, the problem of what to put is still there. Of course, you can install distributions of that time, but there will obviously be more errors than in modern ones, and no one releases security updates for them. There is an option to collect everything yourself from scratch, but this is too drastic. It remains only to use mini-distributions. This article will describe four general purpose mini distributions. But first, a short digression into the history of distribution building. First, let's remember why distributions are needed at all. Initially, they were just a convenient tool with an installation script to bundle programs. Then (due to the appearance of dependencies between programs) package managers appeared. Then came the current pillars of distribution building and the desktop race. There have been numerous attempts to create a user-centric distribution. And somewhere in 2000-2002, the first Live distribution kit appeared - Knoppix, which allows you to work without installation, and it became much easier to learn what Linux is. On the basis of Knoppix, the most popular mini-distribution was developed - Damn Small Linux. I think this brief digression can end and finally move on to mini-distributions.

INFO

If you need a desktop environment other than KDE/GNOME, you can use Xubuntu.

TinyCore

There are three variants of this distribution: Core, TinyCore, and CorePlus. The first one is 9 MB, but since this option contains only the command line, we are not interested in it. The second one already contains a GUI, which seems surprising by today's standards at 15 MB. However, it lacks non-English keyboard layouts, so only CorePlus is suitable for a Russian-speaking user. All three options work based on the 3.16 kernel. When loading, a menu will appear that offers a choice of as many as seven window managers. The default is FLWM - we will load it. After launch, the desktop immediately appears. At the bottom of it is a nice application launcher from which you can launch the editor, control panel, application management utility, log out, install it, and perform some other actions. Let's see what can be done from the application management utility. TinyCore boot menu When you first start it, you will be prompted to search for the nearest mirror. This is the first window we see, so let's take a look at the title as well. It seems to have come from the late nineties - the window control buttons are inexpressive and do not stand out in any way. There is no system menu for windows in principle. But back to the content. After pressing the Yes button, mirrors will be searched. At the end of it, you need to agree again, this time with the selected mirror. This point seems redundant - this is the second question that is not directly related to software management. But here we clicked OK, and the application selection window appeared. The left list, which, in theory, should contain available applications, is pristine. You need to select the Cloud (Remote) submenu in the Apps menu and click the Browse button. A huge listing of applications will be displayed, sorted alphabetically and not categorized in any way - the latter, of course, is a huge minus and drastically limits the users who can work with this distribution, despite the fact that it, in principle, is not positioned as a distribution for system administrators.
TinyCore package management utility Let's try to install AbiWord. There is no search as you type - which is quite logical, because the distribution kit is designed for low-power computers. After pressing the Enter key, a suitable package will appear on the left side. Selecting it, on the left side we get information about it. However, when you try to install it, it turns out that this is impossible - apparently, installing applications is not designed to work in Live CD mode. In this case, however, the question arises: why even give the opportunity to run this utility without an installed system? Let's try to put this distribution kit on HDD. The installation procedure consists of approximately six steps: hard drive selection, file system selection, bootloader options, selection of extensions to be installed, and confirmation. After installing and rebooting, we tried to install AbiWord again, and again unsuccessfully - this time the program refused to start due to the inability to find the library.
Installing TinyCore on HDD It can be said about the distribution that, unfortunately, it is clearly not suitable for novice users. What's there - it's not even for system administrators. It can be called a constructor for someone who wants to mold some kind of analogue of Parted Magic. But it is not suitable for direct use.

Puppy Linux

The latest version of this distribution is based on Ubuntu 14.04, so the programs from it are fine. But, unlike Ubuntu, the size of the distribution's ISO image is just over 200 MB and uses its own package format and its own repositories. After launch, a nice desktop and an initial settings window will appear, in which you can select the language, time zone and monitor resolution. When choosing the Russian language, a warning pops up that a package is needed for localization. You need to install it manually, but it's quite simple: click Install on the desktop, then select Puppy Package Manager on the Install applications tab and find the langpack_ru package. After that, you will need to restart the X server.
Initial setup of Puppy Linux Let's look at the set of available applications and at the same time evaluate the GUI. Let's start with the last one. The default desktop is the JWM window manager. The title bar with buttons looks standard, there is no retro desktop feel, the system menu is also present. By default, there are three virtual desktops, using the system menu, you can move windows to any of them. The developers have managed to squeeze a lot of useful applications into 200 MB - from spreadsheets (Gnumeric) to a browser based on Firefox 24. There are even several entertainment programs. It is worth noting, however, that 256 MB of memory is not enough for the distribution kit - at first, of course, it works fine, but then the brakes begin. For comfortable work, therefore, you need at least 512. Let's move on to packages. The graphical package manager somehow supports not only the Puppy Linux repositories, but also the Ubuntu repositories, however, there is no standard apt-get. That is, in Puppy, not only packages intended for it are available, but also a complete list of Ubuntu packages. When installing a package, a console window appears, which displays all the commands that are executed. After installation, another window will appear with a report on the work done. It looks pretty logical, but wouldn't it be better to display a message that the installation went well, somewhere in the corner?
Puppy Linux Package Manager Let's try to put the distribution on the hard drive. To do this, click "Install", then Universal installer. The first installation steps are quite intuitive, but starting with partitioning, inexperienced users may have problems - it was not worth separating the partitioning program from the installation program. In addition, the idea of ​​a "simple" installation is certainly interesting, but it looks strange for installing on a hard drive. The idea is that not the executable files themselves are installed, but the Squashfs images and all changes are made not to them, but to the dedicated FS directory. This allows you to install Puppy even on FAT / NTFS partitions, which is extremely useful for installing on a flash drive and other external drives, but somewhat confuses the user, since the latter is offered a detailed, but rather obscure description of the proposed options. Translation into Russian, by the way, sins with a huge ... number ... of dots. During the shutdown, you will be prompted to select a location to save persistent data. And everything would be fine, but the question arises: why can't you remember the user's choice in the installer? But for the possibility of encrypting this storage, there is a separate plus - there are three options to choose from: no encryption, weak encryption and strong encryption.
The first step of installing Puppy Linux After rebooting and starting Puppy from the hard drive, for some reason, you need to specify all the parameters again, although it would seem that they should be saved, because we did not set up persistent storage in vain. However, apparently, there is some kind of flaw here, because the next time the work is completed, they will again ask about persistent storage. But then they won't ask. Overall, the distribution looks like a reasonable choice for users with old computer. Moreover, it is focused specifically on users, which, together with the size, looks extremely attractive. However, the distribution has a huge minus - by default, the working user is root.

Slitaz

The size of the ISO image of the latest unstable version of this distribution is 42 MB. The kernel version is 3.2.53. During the download, a language selection menu will appear - unfortunately, there is no Russian in it. After the timeout expires, another menu will be offered, in which you can already select the desired desktop option or even start it without it. After launch, the desktop will appear - as such, the distribution uses OpenBox.
The second menu that appears when loading SliTaz In general, the GUI does not stand out with anything special, but it does not seem too old-fashioned either. The developers chose the option of placing the panel (and, accordingly, the main menu) on top. In terms of functionality, it is approximately identical to JWM, in terms of customizability of the title bar, it even surpasses it. There are not very many programs in the distribution kit, but still enough. In particular, there is a PDF reader and a music player. The default browser is some pathetic variant that doesn't even support JavaScript. An alternative is the Midori browser, based on the WebKit engine. Unfortunately, when trying to open some pages, this browser was automatically closed.
Midori Browser The package manager is TazPkg, which is a script written in ash. The package format is a CPIO-archive with an attached cpio.gz file and "recipes", which include dependencies. It is not clear why it was necessary to invent another bicycle - there are more than enough package managers, including lightweight ones. Installing a package looks very easy: # tazpkg recharge # tazpkg get-install mc Let's see how to install this distribution. In the application menu, select System Tools -> SliTaz Installer. A browser window will appear asking you to enter a username/password. After that, a web page will open offering to install or update the distribution. When choosing an installation, you will need to partition it, for this purpose you need to run GParteed. After splitting, you can already go further. The next page will have all the other options. Everything is very clear and precise, the only thing missing is the choice of the time zone.
One of the SliTaz Installation Steps After installation and reboot (note that the disk is not ejected automatically), the login screen will appear. This login window is perhaps the most minimalist I've ever seen - not even the mouse pointer is present during the login procedure. In the installed system, the Midori browser worked like clockwork, but it did not respond to the mouse wheel point-blank.
The login screen in SliTaz The distribution looks extremely interesting (perhaps, its size / functionality ratio is close to the maximum), but the lack of Russian language is a rather significant drawback. Besides, having another package manager doesn't seem like a good thing.

4MLinux

This distribution is available in two versions: Basic and Full. Version 11.1 (based on kernel 3.14.27) of Basic takes 70 MB, while Full takes just over 370. When trying to boot on a virtual machine with 256 MB of RAM, the Basic version refused to start. Therefore, the recommended minimum for this distribution is 512 MB. After launch, an editor window will appear in which you need to specify the locale of the window manager (by the way, its indication does not affect anything - neither immediately after editing, nor after restarting the graphic system), and after closing it - a desktop with a bright background image and information about system load. JWM is used as a window manager. At the top is the quick launch application panel, the standard panel is at the bottom, and on it is the second panel, this time for quick access to the settings. There are more than enough effects in this desktop, you can even turn on 3D - although why they are needed in a lightweight distribution is unknown. Of the available applications, there is the NetSurf browser on its own engine, originally developed for RISC OS. Unfortunately, Russian-language sites are not displayed correctly in it. In addition to the browser, there is also the Sylpheed mail client and the MPlayer player. It is also possible to install, for example, Firefox or LibreOffice.
NetSurf Browser Again, the developers did not use any of the common package managers, but created their own - zk, an almost five-kilobyte ash script. And everything would be fine, but this manager not only does not support repositories - it does not even support dependencies, which was bad manners back in 1995. In fact, it just unpacks tar.xz archives to the root and keeps the distribution up to date. To install, select 4MLinux -> Installer from the main menu. A console will appear, where after pressing Enter there will be ... an error. It says that no partition was found. It's not difficult to create, but the installer must be designed for such cases. Created, re-launched the installer... and again got an error - it's impossible to mount the partition. After creating the file system and the next launch, we will be offered - attention! - format the partition. This, in a good way, was worth suggesting at the stage of the second mistake. Then the question will be asked: will this distribution kit be the only OS on the computer? Since it’s better to put such things on the first time on a virtual machine (which we do), we can safely answer “Yes”. After that, a warning will appear that the system loader will be installed. As such, it is not Grub2 and not even the usual Grub - LILO. And this is in 2015. There is nothing left to do but agree. The next step is to check if the data is correct. Here we boldly give a positive answer. And after that, the installation will be done. The process takes less than a minute, then you need to reboot.
Partition selection step during 4MLinux installation After the reboot, you will be prompted to set the root password. Next, there will be a text login prompt, and, despite the preliminary installation of the superuser password, it starts up without a password. No GUI is launched even after logging in - it must be started manually with the startx command. After launch, everything looks absolutely identical to the Live CD. The distribution makes a very strange impression. Its graphic part looks very nice, but the fact that it is impossible to run on less than 512 MB of RAM (despite the fact that the image itself takes only 70) is surprising. The set of available applications is also small - it seems that the developers, instead of useful programs stuffed exclusively all sorts of effects. The management of so-called "packages" is also bewildering at best - the 1995 Red Hat distribution, I repeat, looks even more solid in this regard. The installation is also reminiscent of the early days of Linux: not only is the installer unable to partition disks itself, it also uses the ancient LILO bootloader.

NanoBSD

It is possible to create a stripped down version of FreeBSD for use on systems with limited memory. The NanoBSD script will help with this. Features of the resulting images:

• packages (and ports) work absolutely identical to the original system;
• unless otherwise specified when building the image, the functionality is also identical;
• the root FS is mounted in read-only, which allows you to turn off the power without entering any commands.

This feature is mainly used for creating embedded systems, but it can also be used to create a minimalistic image.

Conclusion

Mini-distributions are a useful thing. Unfortunately, as you can see in this review, only a small part of them is really suitable for the user, even despite the declared purpose. But those of them that are really convenient do not reach the level of usability of full-fledged distributions. TinyCore is not suitable for users or administrators - it is a distribution kit for specific purposes that needs to be finalized with handles. But the installer in this distribution is normal. 4MLinux looks like a beautiful wrapper with a very strange filling - not only are "packages" in the understanding of this distribution just tar.xz archives, but LILO is also used as a loader. And there is nothing to say about the installation - if the installer has not acquired a graphical frontend in eleven versions of the distribution kit, this means something. In addition, this is the only distribution in the review that could not run on 256 MB of memory. SliTaz can already be recommended to users - with a modest size (40 MB) it has a set of applications similar to that of 4MLinux. The package manager, albeit self-written, works as it should. The installation method is also interesting - via the Web-GUI. If it were not for the lack of the Russian language (including in the repositories), it could be safely advised to not very experienced users with old hardware. Finally, Puppy. Despite some controversial points (for example, not very intuitive installation and the lack of the ability to easily install packages from the command line), this distribution compares favorably in terms of the number of programs - which, in general, is not surprising, since the size of the ISO image is more than 200 MB, - and the presence of the Russian language. It is also the only distribution in the review that is somehow compatible with third-party repositories. Summing up: it all depends on how much the user takes the time to fuss with the installation and initial configuration of the distribution (after all, in principle, with a very strong desire, you can use the minimal installation of the same Ubuntu). But other things being equal, Puppy looks like the most preferred option.

Author Elena the beautiful asked a question in Other languages ​​and technologies

how to install linux puppy along with windows, provided that windows is already installed (so that when you turn on you can choose the OS and get the best answer

Answer from Gnome-forever[guru]
you can put puppy on a flash drive 256 mb is enough. .
or grub in mbr install. .

gnome-forever
Enlightened
(25348)
Olga, in principle, the manipulations are simple, but without such experience, you can get problems ..
It is important to correctly write grub to the section with puppy, and then to the mbr of the disk, you will have to edit menu.lst (manually register puppy and Windows)
The slightest mistake and Windows or puppy won't boot, although everything can be fixed with LiveCD Puppy...
In other more well-known distributions - Ubuntu, Mandriva, OpenSUSE, etc.,
All this is done automatically..
There will be more time, let's chat in a personal, do nothing for now or try to stumble puppy on a flash drive, get a useful experience ..
In general, google and read more here
http://www.puppyrus.org/wiki/index.php?title=Установка_Puppy_Linux_на_flash-носитель

Answer from Silencer[guru]
Just allocate space on your hard drive for Linux and install it. The Linux bootloader will do everything by itself, it will prescribe Windu to boot.

4.1.1 Hard drives, partitions and file systems

A hard disk can be divided into several parts (partitions). In the operating system, each such partition looks like a separate hard drive. In Windows, each hard disk partition (as well as floppy drives and CD-ROM drives) has its own letter. Usually A: is the floppy drive, C: is the primary partition of the hard drive, D: is CD-ROM drive, E: - second hard disk partition, etc. Most often, Windows uses the NTFS or FAT32 file system.

On Linux, the primary partition is addressed as /dev/hda or /dev/sda . First letter ( h da) indicates the type of disk: "h" - idehd, "s" - satahd or flash, the second (h d a) the letter means: "d" - disk (disk), third (hd a) - disk number. For example, if your PC has a second hard drive, it is addressed as /dev/hdb or /dev/sdb . Sections are numbered sequentially, starting with one. The hard disk partition /dev/hda1 corresponds to the C drive in Windows, the /dev/hda2 partition corresponds to the E drive (if D is a CD-ROM), and so on. Linux can work with many different file systems, including ext2, ext3 or ReiserFS. These FS will not be read in Windows without special software, but Linux can freely work with file Windows systems. FAT32 is best supported in Linux, so for information exchange and data sharing in Linux and Windows is better just use this FS. The main thing to remember is that files cannot be placed on FAT32 if their volume exceeds 4 GB.

4.1.2 Defragmenting the hard drive

Download the program for defragmentation Defraggler. The program is good because it works faster than the built-in Windows defragmenter. Constantly updated and improved, unlike the last. Russian interface is present. So there will be no difficulty in using it. Install Defraggler on your computer, launch it and first of all select the interface language:

After localization, select the disk that you want to defragment (1), click the Analyze button (2) and check the disk for fragmented (divided) files. Such files are displayed in red. If there are many such places on the disk, and the disk size is large (40 GB or more), the defragmentation process may take a long time.

After reviewing the results of the analysis, click the Defragmentation button and wait for the operation to complete.

4.1.3 Creating partitions

Now you need to plan the number, size and type of partitions you will create. I recommend creating three more partitions in addition to the Windows partition. This example assumes that initially there is one partition with Windows (drive C:). After partitioning, the hard drive will look something like this:

Primary section: NTFS or FAT32 (Windows)

Second section: ext2 or ext3 (we will install Puppy on this partition)

Third section: Linux swap partition

Fourth section: FAT32 (for file sharing between Windows and Linux)

We will leave Windows on the primary partition. The second partition will have a Linux file system (ext2 or ext3), here we will install Puppy. The third partition needs to be made slightly larger than the size of your computer's RAM and formatted for the Linux swap file system. This is the section for swap files. The fourth FAT32 partition will be for file sharing between Linux and Windows, its recommended size is all the remaining free space.

You can familiarize yourself with the procedure for dividing a disk into partitions (preparing for installation) by watching a video. Video clip

Video size: 516 Kb

At the end of all procedures, you should get the following:

Close GParted. Now you can proceed to install PuppyRus on your hard drive.

4.2 Installation

4.2.1 Frugal installation using the "Universal PuppyRus(Puppy Universal Installer)"

Frugal Installation copies the Puppy image file from the CD to your hard drive. At system startup, Puppy reads into random access memory (RAM) in the same way as if you booted from a CD, but it is much faster. Thus, this method combines the advantages of booting from a CD (protection against unwanted spyware) and booting from a hard drive (speed). Moreover, it simplifies the process of switching to new version Puppy - all it takes is to replace some files. ()

To get acquainted with the installation process, you can watch the video. Video clip will start playing after full download. Depending on the size of the video, it may take a long time to load.

Video size: 4.8 Mb

Click here to download and view a screencast created with Wink!

You can also download the video for local viewing on your computer: Archive with the video (4.8 Mb)
To watch the video, unpack the archive into a folder and run the html file.

4.2.2 Manual Frugal installation / Update Puppy

To use this option, a bootloader must be installed on the computer. If the bootloader is not yet installed, we recommend using the "Grub bootloader configuration" ().

Boot from the CD using the puppy pfix=ram option. Copy the files PUP_301.SFS ZDRV_301.SFS INITRD.GZ VMLINUZ

to a Linux (ext2/ext3) or FAT32 partition.
If you are upgrading Puppy, overwrite existing files. Configure the GRUB bootloader by editing the menu.lst file. It is usually found on a Linux partition in the /boot/grub directory.

Add the following lines to the menu.lst file: title Puppy Linux 301 frugal (on / dev/ hda2) rootnoverify (hd0,1) kernel / vmlinuz pmedia =idehd initrd / initrd.gz

Note: (hd0,1) refers to the hard drive and partition where the GRUB files are installed. Depending on the device from which you are booting the system, you will need to set the value pmedia on the usb flash, usbhd, usbcd, ideflash, idehd, idecd, idezip, satahd, →

I have a rather "old" computer: ABIT ST6 motherboard; Celeron 1100 MHz processor, "overclocked" to 1463 MHz (FSB=133 MHz); RAM 512 MB; video card NVIDIA GeForce FX5200/128M; additional USB 2.0 PCI controller GEMBIRD UPC-20-2P (since the motherboard USB ports 1.1); network card PCI Intel 100 Mb; HDD SAMSUNG 200 GB; CD/DVD drive Optiarc AD-5170A; floppy drive; PSU DELTA ELECTRONICS DPS-300KBD. I will briefly describe the process of installing Puppy-420-ru version v6, in the frugal variant, on this computer, perhaps this will help someone starting to master Puppy Linux (forum materials were used when writing the article).

First, on a PC with Windows and Internet access, we need to do the following: download the Puppy-420-ru ISO image, burn the CD in this way, thus obtaining a Live-CD, defragment the HDD on which we are going to install Puppy- 420-ru (this is for the case when this HDD has FAT or NTFS partitions, like mine), and also upload a small mkswap file (after downloading, remove the txt extension from it).

In the Setup BIOS of the computer, we set the boot from CD-ROM, boot from the recorded Live-CD. Since my HDD had one NTFS 200 GB partition, the disk needs to be prepared accordingly. I decided to just "cut off" from the existing partition - 9 GB for the partition with the system and 1 GB for the swap partition. For this we go to "Menu"->"System"->"Gparted Partition Manager", mark our disk. Next, select our section, click "Resize or Move", and reduce the size of the NTFS partition by 10240 MB by entering this number in the window "Free space after (MB)", press Enter, then "Edit"->"Apply all operations", we wait. Now select the partition we created and not yet partitioned and click "Create", select the type of file system "ext3", press the button "+ Add", again "Edit"->"Apply all operations", we wait. Make this partition bootable - right-click on it, select "Flag Management" and put a tick on "boot".

After this operation is completed, we cut off 1024 MB in the same way, but from the created ext3 partition and get a 1 GB partition. Here is a small digression - in Puppy-420-ru there is a problem with the mkswap system utility, and first we need to solve it. We turn off GParted, go to "Files" (shortcut on the desktop), then go up one level, look for the /sbin folder, find the mkswap link file in it, delete it, and copy the previously downloaded mkswap file to /sbin. Expand GParted, select a 1 GB partition, click "Create", select the file system type "linux-swap", click the "+ Add" button, then "Edit"->"Apply all operations", wait, the swap partition has been created.

Now you need to install the GRUB bootloader on the bootable ext3 partition. We go "Menu"->"System"->. Follow the prompts (simple -> standart -> enter your disk, for example, /dev/sda2 -> MBR -> enter /dev/sda ), wait, the /boot folder will appear on the second partition. Next, you need to edit the GRUB boot menu. We go into the /boot/grub folder, find the menu.lst file, open it, delete everything that is there, and paste the following lines:

timeout 10
color light gray/blue black/light gray

title Puppy Linux 420 frugal
rootnoverify(hd0,1)
kernel /puppy-ru-420/vmlinuz pmedia=atahd psubdir=puppy-ru-420 nosmp

title Puppy Linux 420 frugal
rootnoverify(hd0,1)
kernel /puppy-ru-420/vmlinuz pfix=ram pmedia=atahd psubdir=puppy-ru-420 nosmp
initrd /puppy-en-420/initrd.gz

title Puppy Linux 420 frugal
rootnoverify(hd0,1)
kernel /puppy-ru-420/vmlinuz pfix=fsck pmedia=atahd psubdir=puppy-ru-420 nosmp
initrd /puppy-en-420/initrd.gz

Title Reboot
reboot

Title Shutdown
halt

the first item is a normal system boot (it will happen automatically in 10 seconds), the second item is a boot with the parameter to check and fix errors in the file system, the fourth and fifth items are rebooting and shutting down the computer, respectively. In principle, you can add items to this menu as much as you like, I chose only those that I really use.

Install Puppy-420-ru: create a folder /puppy-ru-420 on our second ext3 partition, and copy the initrd.gz , vmlinuz and pup_420-ru-42.sfs files there from the Live-CD, also create an empty folder in this folder ATAHD file. Everything, the system is installed, reboot ( "Menu"->"Shutdown"->"Computer Restart"), we refuse the offer to save the session in a file. We remove the boot from the CD-ROM in the Setup BIOS, boot from the HDD, after booting you can begin to master the system, after work is completed, when you select "Menu"->"Turn Off" turning off the computer or restarting it, agreeing to the proposals to create a save file (the so-called "saves"), select the proposed size of 512 MB, if not enough, then in the future it can be easily increased. Now we have installed in the frugal variant operating system Puppy-420-ru version v6.

Here one of the options for installing Puppy-420-ru is described, it is also quite possible to use "Universal Puppy Installer" located in "Menu"->"Settings". For beginners, it is worth noting that "Universal Puppy Installer" does not install the GRUB bootloader, and after its completion, you must go to "Menu"->"System"->"Grub - Grub bootloader settings" and install the bootloader, and then insert the necessary items into its menu (edit the /boot/grub/menu.lst file).

update: A small but important addition. In general, when installing Puppy Linux, it is not at all necessary to create a separate partition on the hard disk for it, you can install this system in a folder on an existing partition, while you only need to install and correctly configure the bootloader (GRUB, GRUB4DOS or some other). Creating a separate section is, as it were, a tradition, a classic method that I used when talking about it in this article.

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