Unity-based TinyMe 2010 RC1
Desktop Training - Desktop Reviews

Details: I've used Puppy, DSL, and a few other lightweights to bring some old junkers back from the dead but never had the pleasure of using TinyMe, until now. The Unity-based TinyMe 2010 is of course a minimalist distro and it uses the Openbox session and window manager. The 2010 RC1 download I used is only 200MB and runs as a live CD. You can get a stable version from the TinyMe download page.

Version: TinyMe 2010 RC1

Nickname: Acorn

Release Date: 04/04/2010 

Desktop: Openbox

Put in the TinyMe live CD and you'll see this screen as the boot menu loads.

TinyME 2010 Boot 1

Here is TinyMe booting up.

TinyME 2010 Booting

Once on the login screen you can enter the username "root" and password "root" if you're running the live CD.

TinyME  2010 Login

 

The TinyMe desktop has a really nice, clean setup with a statistics area in the top left and a few desktop icons on the left.

TinyME 2010 Default Desktop

At the bottom of the screen you'll notice several larger shortcut icons and the TinyMe main menu. Here you can see the internet options are visible. One of my favorites here was the Madori web browser.

TinyME 2010 Internet Menu


The Office part of the menu includes AbiWord, a lightweight word processor.

TinyME 2010 Office Menu

Graphics include Get Screenshot, MTPaint, and Viewnoir image viewer.

TinyME  2010 Graphics Menu


Sound and Video included Asunder CD Ripper, Aumix, Recorder, and Pragha


TinyME  2010 Sound and Video Menu

You'll notice few games on board out-of-the-box but again these can be added.

TinyME 2010 Games Menu

All in all TinyMe is a good start if you're using an older setup or just enjoy the un-bloated feel. I think almost all installations will require the user to make atleast a few modifications before this distro is ready for daily use especially on the application side of things. But this is good though as you don't do the same things I do on a daily basis and vice-versa and I can customize the distro without expending any resources on stuff i don't use. Find out more about TinyMe at their website.