[Carnifex]

Seem many people are having trouble with the 4GB drives filling up too fast. The best solution I have found so far is to install Ubuntu from the Minimal CD and then build up your install from there. The Minimal CD installs only a very basic command line and installs from the Internet rather than the CD, so you will need to plug in a network cable. If you have more than 1GB of RAM, do not allocate swap space on the drive, just remember, no swap, no suspend.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/In...tion/MinimalCD

Once installed to get a basic Gnome desktop, run the following:

sudo apt-get -y install gnome-core gdm network-manager-gnome \
fast-user-switch-applet human-theme x11-xserver-utils tangerine-icon-theme \
gnome-themes-ubuntu ubuntu-artwork jockey-gtk gnome-screensaver \
gnome-utils gcalctool tsclient firefox vlc mozilla-thunderbird file-roller \
evince rhythmbox ubuntu-restricted-extras system-config-samba gftp pidgin

This should have most of the expected functionality and the install should be hovering around 2GB of space. the only thing really missing is Open Office and Gimp. There are no good alternatives to Gimp, but you might try gpaint or mtpaint. If you really can not get by with a plain text editor for word processing, I would recommend Abiword rather then Open Office. You may also replace vlc, thunderbird and rhythmbox with your video player, email client and MP3 player of choice.

[jej.514]

Interesting. Wish I had known this when I had my eeePC 701 (with a 4GB SSD).

Question. I didn't create/use Swap space on my Mini Ubuntu install, but I still had sleep/suspend. Is it perhaps Hibernate that doesn't work without a Swap space?

Jeff

[reflex]

I started with a full install, then I slimmed it down by removing packages. Maybe next time I'll do the opposite (start from a minimal install).

Originally Posted by jej.514

Question. I didn't create/use Swap space on my Mini Ubuntu install, but I still had sleep/suspend. Is it perhaps Hibernate that doesn't work without a Swap space?

You're right that Suspend-to-RAM on Linux works without swap. Maybe the confusion comes from the fact that hibernation is also called "Suspend-to-Disk".

[Carnifex]

Sorry my bad, I meant Suspend to disk. I also forgot to mention, you should run "sudo apt-get clean" to delete all the downloaded deb files once you are finished.

[safemode]

Do not create swap, and make /tmp and other directories where temporary files are written as tmpfs. Remove multiple language directories (locales) if you dont need them as they take up a fair chunk once your installed applications mount up in number and if you already know you aren't going to read them, you can remove the docs directories too (man pages still work).

Stay away from desktop environment dependent applications, as they require you to install said desktop environments (and their dependencies), if you can.

Remove old kernels you no longer use, and their modules, and like the guy above said, always apt-get clean when you're done dist-upgrading and what not.


You can go with xfce and still get that whole desktop experience at a much lower installed size cost (and ram cost) than gnome.

Another benefit of starting from minimal and working your way up is reducing boot time. my mini 9 boots from pressing the power button to the desktop and all startup apps being loaded in 30 seconds (from kernel load to that is about 15 seconds)

[Carnifex]

Originally Posted by safemode

make /tmp and other directories where temporary files are written as tmpfs.

For those who do not know how to do this, edit the /etc/fstab file.

sudo gedit /etc/fstab

and add the following line.

tmpfs /tmp tmpfs defaults,noatime,mode=1777 0 0

[tmshih]

I've just installed WattOS on my 4Gb Mini 9. It's a Ubuntu derived distro using Openbox and LXDE for a GUI. The whole installation left 1.6 Gb empty space on my SSD (much roomier than the 500 Mb Ubuntu Remix leaves behind).

Some modifications I made after the install include:

Changing the SLIM login manager to GDM because SLIM can't handle automatic logins yet

Adding system-config-printer for my printer (this gobbled up 200 Mb and slowed down my login. The original install logged onto my wireless network instantly after booting)

I added Skype, and upgraded Pidgin to properly login into Yahoo Messenger

After the changes there was still 1.2 Gb left on the SSD (not including the 400 Mb Swap space which I'll leave until I upgrade the memory from 512 Mb)

There are some issues with configuration panels extending below the 1024 x 600 screen, but applications work just fine.

I tried installing Bastille to harden the system, but it says it won't work with this distro

It's a very nice and tight system with a desktop menu GUI. Great if you only have a 4 Gb hard drive to work with.

[Carnifex]

I wrote a shell script to finish off the minimal install. Once you have the initial install done, if you don't want to type in a long command line, you can retrieve the script with the following command.

wget http://www.carnifex.org/downloads/finish_minimal_install.sh

Edit the script to taste and then run.

sudo sh ./finish_minimal_install.sh

This script also fixes the system so SD cards are recognized and installs the Medibuntu packages.

[jej.514]

Once 9.10 is released (and the minimal CD is available), will the above scripts install the current components? I want to give this a shot when 9.10 is out.

Thanks for the tip, Carnifex!

Jeff

[Carnifex]

The script should work fine with 9.10. I have not tested it with the beta version so I can not verify it at this time. Once the official release is out, I will of course be upgrading and if there are any issues, I will update the script. Most likely the only change will be the removal of the SD Card Reader fix.