I'm looking for a small, lightweight distro to use in several different capacities. I don't want to use different distros, I want a compromise candidate that can work as best as possible for all of the following:
1.) My everyday desktop (usable in a VM or via USB Portable as needed)
2.) A realtime OS for machine control (LinuxCNC)
3.) A kiosk version that runs Chrome or Firefox (latest) that allows me to lock down the system while still allowing for local storage access and for network & removable usb storage.
4.) In a perfect world a fourth variant that can run on a raspberry pi for those times I need something tiny and cheap that runs on 5V.
In the past I have started with Ubuntu server or a Debian network install as the base with OpenBox installed as the window manager. The nice thing about both of these is access to Aptitude. That being said I'm fine compiling from source. I would need the following as a core software suite:
1.) Python 3.XX and libraries such as Numpy, Scipy, etc
2.) OpenCV
3.) TensorFlow
4.) LinuxCNC (on the Realtime version)
5.) VMWare Player (not on the realtime version)
6.) OpenBox (I can live without this, but I've had good luck with it in the past)
7.) Chrome and/or Firefox (both preferred)
8.) gcc/make
9.) Sublime (because let's be honest, if I was using Vim I wouldn't be posting something like this on a Linux forum)
It seems like Tiny Core 64 could offer these things and the extremely fast boot times works well for what I'm trying to do. Additionally it seems like I could make a script to control which of the above software is loaded on startup by installing them on demand (so I can only load up a browser if it is needed on an application-specific basis). I realize that it would bloat pretty quickly with all that I'm adding in, but I don't need 90% of the shit installed with most Linux Distros and in the past I've found that it is easier to add software and libraries rather than remove them.
Hopefully if I'm thinking about going into Tiny Core all doey eyed and overly-optimistic one of you can warn me before I waste hours of my time.
Thanks!