remove everything to a minimal ubuntu installation

[psorincatalin]

hey there

i have xubuntu 10.04.1 installed with wubi, but my computer is still slow. i am a newbie regarding to linux (i only have 3 months of playing with the *buntus) so i want to do the following:

1. stripping down xubuntu to ubuntu minimal (but i don't know how to do that, hopefully i'll get some responses on how to do it)

2. from the cli i want to do the following:
a) sudo apt-get install xorg xterm wdm icewm menu firefox --no-install-recommends
b) sudo service wdm start

did i get the commands right ?
will this be enough to get a basic GUI working ?

thanks!

[brujoquizz]

Maybe it would be easier (and better for windows) to remove ubuntu from inside your Windows operative system, make a partition (with gparted, that comes in ubuntu, should be easier) and install a debian minimal, which is almost an ubuntu without all the desktop things. And from that minimal installation start installing the things you want.

[rockerphil]

when i first started using Linux it was with Fluxbuntu, a now dead *buntu distro and it was running on an old Dell Dimension L500cx running a 500 MHz Intel Celeron processor with 128 mb of pc100 SDRAM. well once Fluxbuntu died i was in the same boat you're now in. i wanted a distro that would run well on the modest specs my machine had but i wasn't yet experienced enough to install Slackware of Debian and i wanted to stick with the Ubuntu base. this tutorial helped a lot, and i hope it'll help you.

http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/minimal

hope this helps,

Phil

[psorincatalin]

if i do a minimal debian install, will i be able to use ubuntu repositories, and if so, how do i add them ?

will i have problems wile booting into windows again because of grub overriding the windows boot manager ?

[kaldor]

Wubi is a bad way of using Ubuntu. It's dead slow and glitchy from my experiences.

[cavh]

I'v used this method and recommend it:

http://www.cs.uml.edu/~aveilleu/proj...buntu-minimal/

[warfacegod]

Indeed. Wubi was never intended for more than temporary use as an alternative way to test Ubuntu.

As far as reducing a full install down to minimal goes I've tried this myself a few times. It is a huge amount of work, never seemed to be as effective as an actual minimal install, and left my system buggy as hell. I would suggest starting with a minimal and building from there. If that's not your thing then there are lightweight distros that might serve you better. CrunchBang's stable version is based on Ubuntu 9.04, for example.

[psorincatalin]

when i first started using Linux it was with Fluxbuntu, a now dead *buntu distro and it was running on an old Dell Dimension L500cx running a 500 MHz Intel Celeron processor with 128 mb of pc100 SDRAM. well once Fluxbuntu died i was in the same boat you're now in. i wanted a distro that would run well on the modest specs my machine had but i wasn't yet experienced enough to install Slackware of Debian and i wanted to stick with the Ubuntu base. this tutorial helped a lot, and i hope it'll help you.

http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/minimal

hope this helps,

Phil

okay, i've given up stripping down xubuntu and i want to do a linux partition with gparted on which i want to install ubuntu minimal + the commands listed above. is there any risk in doing this ?
is grub going to override windows boot manager? (other tips/hints?)
i also want to ask you what is the best .deb distro for my pc (500 mhz cpu, 64 mb ram)
i heard that gentoo has an extra andvantege in speed due to porting (what is that, and does it read .deb files?)

[lobralleo]

As far as I can remember, Gentoo is not .deb based, instead it builds every single package from sources. This of course means a faster response since the OS is tailored on the machine, however it could be very slow when installing stuff.

I am wondering if with such a lightweight PC you would fare better with something like Puppy Linux; you can browse DistroWatch for a list of light and active Linux distros:

http://distrowatch.com/search.php

[snowpine]

i also want to ask you what is the best .deb distro for my pc (500 mhz cpu, 64 mb ram)

You need more RAM, period.

Please read the Ubuntu System Requirements.

64mb is not even enough for a command-line only (no GUI) install.