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View Full Version : [ubuntu] 9.10 Minimal Install on netbook



TheBuda
February 19th, 2010, 04:11 PM
Wise sages (and likely wise guys),

I've been playing with Ubuntu for severla years, although I've been a casual user, always just installing from the live disc. I'm comfortable with apt-get, and not scared to format, reformat, get angry, calm down, reinstall, etc.

I'd like to upgrade my Dell Mini 9 netbook wti 9.10. one of my problems with 9.04 is space. with the standard install I'm using 3.7 of my 4 Gb of HD and want to try and streamline that. I've starting have problems upgrading my apps because of space to downlod the upgrade to.

I plan on formating and starting from scratch with the minimal CD (transfered to USB), but I want a clear recipe of steps.

Main goals:
- Standard gnome interface (not remix)
- Open office writer, calc, and impress
- Chromium

I know once I get started to type "cli" to install the basics, but then what? Many of the guides I've seen online are several years old. I can handle chromium and Open Office once I'm all up and running, but I don't want to install and then uninstall firefox, gimp, etc.

Greatly appreciate advice, guidence, and sarcasm.

ajgreeny
February 19th, 2010, 05:01 PM
So install the minimal install system then
sudo apt-get install gnome-core openoffice.org-writer openoffice.org-calc openoffice.org-impress gdm xorg and anything else you decide you want. These will bring in a lot of dependencies, which you can't avoid, but will still be a lot less than a full ubuntu desktop system. After that you can add things as needed the usual way.

You might also like to use a lighter DE than gnome, such as lxde, which I looked at a few months ago on top of a minimal install of jaunty. It was blisteringly fast, but not as configurable as gnome. Certainly worth looking into for a netbook, I think.

wojox
February 19th, 2010, 05:11 PM
Here's a few more:


sudo apt-get gnome-codec-install
indicator-session-applet update-manager
firefox-3.5-gnome-support gnome-themes
network-manager gdebi

TheBuda
February 19th, 2010, 05:36 PM
Thanks for the help!

Another add-on questions. I've got a built in wireless card. I assumed that during install ubuntu would pull the drivers etc. Do I need to install anything extra to managem those connections or will the network manager mentioned above do the trick.

TheBuda
February 19th, 2010, 05:48 PM
lxde looks very interesting the more I look at it. If I've read correctly it is now in the ubuntu repositories so I should be able to type

sudo apt-get install lxde

??

ajgreeny
February 19th, 2010, 10:16 PM
lxde looks very interesting the more I look at it. If I've read correctly it is now in the ubuntu repositories so I should be able to type

sudo apt-get install lxde

??
You certainly can!

TheBuda
February 20th, 2010, 03:48 AM
so everything was going swimmingly but I've got no wireless with lxde. I'm going to try gnome and see if ti works there, although I dont quite see the difference.

mkvnmtr
February 20th, 2010, 05:11 AM
To get a good LXCE desktop there are a few more LXDE packages that you need to install. I think LXDE-core is one of them. I did a few nimimal installs with LCDE but I have gone back to using xfce4. It seems to give me the same result but does not bring in gdm and some other stuff I do not want. It is fast and light also. Seems to me that it does everything I need that gnome did but faster.

TheBuda
February 20th, 2010, 04:10 PM
well after hours of playing I got everything I want in under 2Gb of space leaving half my harddrive free. I had to install several other small but important pieces. I plan on typing it all up later on for myself and others. I may even write a quick script for mini 9 users.

I'm still with gnome, but I may play some more in a few weeks.

thank you all for your help. I hope to pay it forward with a tutorial soon.

- Buda