The biggest two differences will likely be:

(1) a newer C-library, so when the player is running both versions will be (at least partially) loaded into memory. Cost: 0.5MB or so

(2) Player runs from a *real* init program, so init will be bigger and in memory at the same time as the player. cost : another 0.2MB or so, or less.

(3) Any servers that are running will cost more memory than before.

That's the basic memory footprint issue. Leave out the above three, and one has the current player software -- no point in a new distro for that.

Cheers