Smaller graphical install than basic on Eee PC 701.

[globetrotterdk]

I am an absolutely new Salix user that would like to install a smaller graphical interface on an Eee PC 701, than I can get with a basic Salix LXDE 13.1.1 install, that includes wireless support. The Eee PC only has a 2GB internal HD. I assume this means that I need to do a core install and then work with slapt-get to get the other packages. I was thinking of either a plain vanilla openbox setup or a fluxbox setup. Are default configuration files included, or will I need to edit the configuration files before I can get any graphical desktop up and running?

Any help is appreciated.

[gapan]

How much smaller than a basic lxde install do you think you can get? It really doesn't get much smaller than that. You can probably remove all lxde packages after installation, removepkg /var/log/packages/lx* will do just that, but that will only give you back a few MBs, nothing that would really make a difference, even in a 2GB drive.

If you insist going the hard way though, there are directions in the wiki: http://www.salixos.org/wiki/index.php/H ... Salix_core
that still won't give you the absolute minimum, as all video drivers for example are installed and you don't need all of them, you just need the ones for you video card, in which case, take a look at:
http://www.salixos.org/wiki/index.php/H ... g_packages

[globetrotterdk]

Thanks for the quick reply. Don't get me wrong, I love the LXDE version of Salix. I use the LXDE version of Linux Mint 9 on my desktop PC. However, I need to be able to install Chromium, lynx, media codex, Abiword and cmus and I am not sure that there is enough room. My sound files are on an external HD, so there is no problem there.

[thenktor]

As I've pointed out in another thread there won't be much room you can save with an Openbox "edition":
You want a file manager? Perhaps PCManFM...
You want a panel? Perhaps LXpanel...
You want a terminal? Perhaps LXterminal...
Of course there are lightweight alternatives, but they need ca. the same space.

[globetrotterdk]

As I've pointed out in another thread there won't be much room you can save with an Openbox "edition":
You want a file manager? Perhaps PCManFM...
You want a panel? Perhaps LXpanel...
You want a terminal? Perhaps LXterminal...
Of course there are lightweight alternatives, but they need ca. the same space.

Are there any alternative strategies to gain some extra space? Is there a kernel specifically for the Eee PC 701? I also seem to remember that there were some developer tools installed, but I can't remember which ones.

[gapan]

You could remove gcc-g++ if you won't need it (ever) to compile anything. That will save you about 20MB of space in the installed system. Another 25MB could be shaved off if you remove vim if you don't use it. You can try elvis instead, or nano which is already installed. A further 8MB can be shaved off if you replace openssl with openssl-solibs. If you remove all unnecessary xorg packages as I pointed out in my previous post that will probably come up to total savings of 100MB or so. The git, subversion and mercurial packages take another 35MB of space or so.

But I think that what you want to install will fit right fine with a basic lxde installation in your 2GB drive anyway. It will probably leave >500MB free too. Give it a try, make a 2GB virtual machine in your desktop and see how much space you really need to get everything the way you want it.

[globetrotterdk]

Cheers. I'll try to remove some of those things you mention. Gparted says that I have 436 MB left with the basic install.

[gapan]

Well, you got me wondering, so I just tried it myself. I created a 2GB drive in virtualbox and did a basic lxde installation there.

A basic lxde installation right out of the box occupies about 1.4GB, leaving available 688MB on a 2GB drive.

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slapt-get -u
slapt-get --upgrade

and it's down to 639MB
which a

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slapt-get --clean

brings back up to 659MB.

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slapt-get -i salix-codecs-installer

and running it to install all codecs, followed by

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slapt-get --clean

brings the free space down to 641MB

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slapt-get -i abiword cmus lynx
slapt-get --clean

brings it down to 588MB free. And I didn't remove anything at all from what a basic installation provides. So, I think my guess was right.

Removing all unneeded xorg video and input drivers brings it back up to 622MB free.

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slapt-get -i openssl-solibs
removepkg gcc-g++ vim git subversion mercurial openssl
slapt-get --clean

brings the total free space at 712MB! You can possibly find a couple of ways to trim a few MBs off that too, but I think that's more than enough room on a 2GB drive and you still have a full lxde environment.

[pwatk]

If the EeePC has an SD card slot then couldn't you buy a large card and use that for /home and /usr?

Just a thought!

[globetrotterdk]

Wow, thanks gapan, that really helped. I erred on the side of caution when removing the video drivers, so I still have the following left:

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/var/log/packages/xf86-video-chips-1.2.2-i486-1
/var/log/packages/xf86-video-dummy-0.3.3-i486-1
/var/log/packages/xf86-video-i128-1.3.3-i486-2
/var/log/packages/xf86-video-i740-1.3.2-i486-2
/var/log/packages/xf86-video-intel-2.11.0-i486-1gv
/var/log/packages/xf86-video-openchrome-0.2.904-i486-1
/var/log/packages/xf86-video-vesa-2.3.0-i486-2

Unfortunately, I must have removed an input driver I shouldn't have. My keyboard no longer seems to work Here are the drivers that I have left:

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/var/log/packages/xf86-input-keyboard-1.4.0-i486-1
/var/log/packages/xf86-input-mouse-1.5.0-i486-1
/var/log/packages/xf86-input-synaptics-1.2.2-i486-1

Any ideas on how I can rescue the situation?