Hi, I was just wondering why Linux distributions are so much smaller than Windows? Is this true for most linux applications as well? I'm not having any luck with Google so I thought I'd just ask here. (Perhaps I'm asking the wrong question) Any information would be helpful. Thank you in advance.

"Smaller than Windows"??? With the distributions I use regularly that does not seem to be the case. At least with Redhat Enterprise 3.0, 4.0 and Fedora when at the packages list you select "install everything" it takes up approx 5gb or more space on the hard drive. For Fedora there are five Installation CDs, Windows XP uses one.

Every distro I have used was a larger install than any Windows OS I have used (except Vista). Those include Ubuntu, Fedora, Debian, Red Hat, and Simply Mepis. What distro are you using. I have NOT lost my mind — I have it backed up on tape somewhere

Oh. Maybe it's not bigger then. What about applications? Are they normally smaller in comparison. Say OpenOffice V MS Office?

The ability to scale down aplications is one of the intrinsic features of linux and open source software. It gives you the user the ability to choose any and all features for each OSS package. As an example, I currently have a bootable flash drive running Damn Small Linux with some security software, a web browser, standard configuration tools, data recovery tools and other general applications taking up a total of 368MB. This drive boots X win using BlackBox as a window manager. With Microsoft and other standard proprietary software you are usually given a minimal amount of choices of how to customize your software and in some cases no choices at all. Their mindset is give you a billion features just in case you might one day need to use one.