HOWTO Ubuntu Lite

[confused57]

I don't know if this would work or not:

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

[dmizer]

i hope it's not too late for this to be of use to you:

ps. I would prefer going for a fresh install but I cant since 3other CLIENT computers are dependant on it for Internet Sharing.

i was in a similar situation a while back. i needed to do some hardware upgrades as well as thin out the software and change up the system (i got rid of all my gui's). anyway, long story short, i employed an ancient 500mhz docked laptop running knoppix as a substitute.

docked because the dock had an ethernet port and the laptop didn't (eth0) and i used an old pcmcia network adapter i dug out of a box for eth1 kind of a frankenstein setup but hey ...

with knoppix, i was able to make use of my network attached storage, do nat, samba, dns, ssh server, netbeui domain resolution, as well as firewall and port forwarding. worked flawlessly for the week. not a hiccup.

wasn't pretty, but hey ... can't complain about results.

[Ziptar]

I just installed Ubuntu Lite on an Old Dell Lattitude CPx J650GT. I had Ubuntu on it already but, I had some odd package installation issues, I was going to reinstall anyway so I thought I'd give lite a try... like it so far takes me back years to when I worked in Solaris. I am really rusty with X and the command line after years of windows server admining but, I think I'll keep lite, it's clean and minimal.. I like that...

the Live 1.1 CD wouldn't install for me so I did the server install and then the packages accoring to christooss's how to here. Worked just fine. The PCMCIA and the $17.49 Ralink RT2500 card I bought were detected and installed when I checked with lshw all I had to do was edit /etc/network/interfaces to

# The loopback network interface
# auto lo
# iface lo inet loopback

auto ra0
iface ra0 inet dhcp
pre-up iwconfig ra0 essid mywirelessessid
pre-up iwconfig ra0 key off

and I was off and running, I still need to go back and doo some of the stuff kultex pointed out earlier in the thread and I may install ROX. I have a few questions first thought...

My USB Pen won't automount I have ivamn and usbmount installed but I still need to do

sudo su
mkdir /media/usbi
mount t- auto /dev/sda1 /media/usbi

to get it to work.. is that the best I can do??

I have an HP PSC 2510 Wireless All in one I need to setup but, when I click HPLIP Toolboox I doesn't start. Should I install HPLIP 1.6.9 ????

Can anyone give me some tips on tweaking the Alps Touchpad?? It works but it's pretty wonky.. I found a thread here but, I am not sure how much of it applies to lite??

and can someone recommend me a good GUI file manager?? I installed fileruner but, it leaves alot to be desired, is there one out there similar to Ubuntu's??

Thanks

[dmizer]

for all of your issues, you can just use the guides here. as long as the directions are written with terminal commands, you'll be okay. (if no terminal commands are given, ask for them).

as for your usb pen, you might be able to correct the situation by adding an entry to fstab.

[Ziptar]

Thanks dmizer, I'll start setting stuff up and see how it goes...

BTW I was re-reading kultex's post and some how I missed this the first time, if it doesn't work I'll try fstab.

AUTOMOUNT with ivman: To get the automount function working, create with mousepad a file named startup in
$HOME/.icewm:

#!/bin/sh
exec /usr/bin/ivman

then you have to make startup executable:

$ chmod +x /.icewm/startup

in rox it works perfect - in emelfm you can not unmount the devices

[dmizer]

let me know how that works out for you, and if you experience any slowdown as a result.

remember icewm is a very lightweight desktop because it's cut back on some of the "unnecessary" features that slow things down, so some things you would otherwise do with the gui will have to be done by command line. it's the price we pay for speed. the more you add to icewm to make it act like gnome or kde, the slower icewm will be.

[Ziptar]

I got ROX on the desktop and Automount via ivman working last night. Now slowdown that is noticeable so far. Ivan automounts my USB Pen and CD. I can't eject the CD though once it's mounted. I'll have to look into that.

Anyone know how I can configure NUMLOCK off when icewn starts?? each time I retart it my numlock turns on again??

[Zed]

You probably have numlockx installed.

sudo apt-get remove numlockx

[aldar]

I have installed Ubuntu Lite and everything is ok except that my startup file isn't working. I have the file in my $HOME/.icewm dir, it's called "startup", it is read and executable by all. I have only one line in it:
rdesktop -u "" -g 800x600 192.168.0.55 -f
I used to have this above that: #!/bin/bash but made no difference.
When I startx, the icewm desktop comes up, but no rdesktop. If I then manually run the startup file from icewm, rdesktop starts just like it should. What am I missing?

[eeried]

I was wondering how easy or hard it would be to swich to fluxbox but keep all the stuff that you get from ubuntu-lite package or what ever it is called?
snip
I would want to get rid of IceWM and all the extra stuff that it has that I don't need, like some of the libs and such because that would just be a waste. I know that installing it would be very easy, apt-get install fluxbox or what ever the package is called. but removing IceWM and the libs and depencencies that I don't need would be a lot more difficult for me.

This is exactly what I'd like to do and there has been no satisfying answer yet.

The package manager is smart enough to remove unused libraries, so when you uninstall icewm you should see other packages go along with it (for example, icewm-common).

Not exactly smart enough.

I think a decent install option would be to install from the alternate Ubuntu CD: server install. Then when you install the lite desktop, use aptitude instead of apt-get: aptitude keeps track of all dependencies more completely than apt-get. When you want to remove IceWM: do

aptitude remove --purge icewm.

It shouldn't matter if the lite-desktop package is removed too (at least not until you upgrade to a future release of Ubuntu-Lite). I know Xubuntu is all right without its xubuntu-desktop package.

With "aptitude install" and "aptitude remove" you should be allright.

However, this may not be the solution, so please help!

PS: Hello, Christoos, I think Fluxbox instead of IceWM should be included in Ubuntu Lite for lightness sake (and Fluxbox rocks!)