FREE! MX18 Minimal Installset

[manyroads]

@Richard would you evaluate that as good? I know less memory use is better than more. But is that a decent % reduction to you mind?

[dphn]

it's not so easy to create a minimal-version. A browser app is needed on every system. That's right. Most users expect here a popular app like firefox, but FF becomes bigger and bigger. So what are the alternatives? You can install waterfox or pale moon, but these apps are too unknown and people think, what's this?

E-Mail is optional in my opinion. TB is not necessary for a system. Users can install it, other users use a webmail client only. Maybe a small app like geary could be preinstalled.

A set of basic system tools are needed. On a live system you must have tools like gparted not only for the install process. I'm using it for usb-sticks. Better than gnome-disk-utility. Most distributions ship it and many of them deinstall it after the install-process. See Ubuntu/Mint.

[rasat]

I download the snapshot, run in CD, works well. Aim to see what apps does minimal include as per Xfce menu (first impression when exploring the desktop). Quite well trimmed to minimal but still many small apps which common users may not use. In my opinion, these can be removed.

Code: Select all

dconf Editor
Dictionary
Geany
Galculator
Mail Reader
Onboard
GtkHash
luckyBackup
Sensor Viewer
Tasl Manager
MIME Type Editor
GSmartControl
Htop
Scheduled Task

[Stevo]

My older 700 MB Core versions used claws-mail, SMPlayer with mplayer backend, and I think Pale Moon, but the PM browser deb was about 10 MB smaller in those days.

There's a lot more that can be weeded out. Do you really need to ship Hexchat, for example?

[anticapitalista]

There is probably a clash of terminology and aims. Some users (manyroads the OP may want a 'fat' minimal installation, while others see a minimal installation as something completely different (me)),

IMHO (again) a minimal install really does have the bare minimal for it to be clearly MX (and not antiX or Debian). So, it should come with xfce, a browser, MX tools and that is it. Then user can install whatever they want.

Is it noob-friendly?
No. Since user would have to build up and that means having some knowledge of what apps to install e.g. thunderbird or claws-mail, etc etc. (many of the options are in MXPI).

Since this is manyroads thread, I'll let him fine tune the way he sees his iso, and back out

[rasat]

Since this is manyroads thread, I'll let him fine tune the way he sees his iso, and back out

What I understood, manyroads is suggesting this minimal to become official, if the developers are interested. Its not for him, so he is asking feedback and suggestion from everyone.

Here are screenshots pasted into one shot showing the current snapshot's Xfce menu apps. With red dot, I marked apps to remove. Others can also suggest with the help of this image.
http://amurt.ro/download/MX/Xfce-menu-a-x.png

[manyroads]

Thanks @stevo, @anticaitalista, @rasat et al... I am happy to add all the items mentioned into the script and build a new snapshot. By tomorrow it should be online in the same DropBox folder mentioned in the OP.

As for who this work is for... I'm doing it as a proof of concept and I'm happy to provide my snapshot, scripts, etc. back to the community. I personally like what I have installed. I'm doing this because some folks have asked for an option like this (btw. I'm not one of them). Any reluctance I have is because I am skeptical as to my abilities to make anything much fancier than a snaphot.

[manyroads]

Ok Boys & Girls... I have the MX18 Continuum installset down to 991MB. There is one small bug that needs fixing (the FF icon on the panel needs removal ). Beyond that the install is pretty much devoid of apps. I believe all MX related functions, especially the tools, remain. Please test and let me know what you unearth.

I believe there is space to be saved yet by font removal, theme removal, icon removal...

The current 991MB version may be downloaded from my Dropbox folder:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/5d2pwt2woq7h ... EB2Oa?dl=0

The script ith the list of removed apps is in this folder:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/33ksvg28axkv ... XngOa?dl=0

[Gordon Cooper]

Do not see the 991mB file there, only the md5 and sha fiiles?

[Richard]

@Richard would you evaluate that as good? I know less memory use is better than more. But is that a decent % reduction to you mind?

Well, when you only have 995 MB, less is better. :)

I didn't take out everything on your list, but then not much is running at startup,
so it's a reasonable improvement. It is actually about 13% less memory usage,
which is great for a 1 GB netbook (ASUStek EeePC 1005HA with 150 GB HDD)

antiX with IceWM on the same nb starts using 65 MB;
while with Xfce4 it uses about 135 MB out of the box. Probably can be tweaked a bit.

But it all comes down to what you need to have running for a particular use.