Debian-lxde

This board posts about running linux on your webdt366
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serialjoepsycho
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Debian-lxde

Post by serialjoepsycho »

There is a 462 mb debian live img available on  LXDE.org . I  don't have a usb keyboard so I don't know if it will load up to the 366. I was thinking if it does we could work up a little tutorial here of how to customize it and perhaps how to load it from the usb onto the hdd thru the terminal after loading the os. This I think would allow you to customize this image on your desktop, adding and removing the packages you would want (while paying careful attention to the limited hdd space) and maybe make it an easier install while of course allowing anyone who might want it the option of booting from usb. Then again I might be off abit since the image is live which might cause some problems. Any thoughts?
serialjoepsycho
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Re: Debian-lxde

Post by serialjoepsycho »

I don't know that that would particularly work but I'm thinking there might be  a base level image with an installer that will fit on the dt That we can strip and add to and customize. Know what i mean?
quotaholic
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Re: Debian-lxde

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On debians site I grabbed the LXDE+XFCE cd sized installer image. Put it in an external drive and booted it up via usb hub attached to the DT. In advanced options on either lxde or xfce there is the option for "advanced graphical installation" And then "Expert Graphical". There are a series of things to go through like keyboard map and timezone. I opt for no network mirror and skip networking.

If one uses a network mirror kiss 40+megs goodbye on the hd.

Set up the partition for one large reiserfs. I find reiser more responsive than ext3 on the DT. Then begin your base instal. Go for the newer kernel when given the option. Once completed you can apt-get clean and see only 179mb taken on the disk. Text only but its a start. From there issue an "apt-get install xserver-xorg-video-vesa xinit xauth". That will install the gui from the install disk with very little extra. Wacom and synaptics input are the only extra packages not needed.

From there I suggest getting a folder of debs on a cf card and install manually.

Get sudo and localepurge on there as well as erasing /usr/share/man and /usr/share/doc frequently. /usr/include can be erased if you do not plan on installing build-essential packages.

I am not trying to shoot down the live image idea. It is a good one and to have a customized live image on the DT would allow for much more in the form of packages. However one person who took puppy and expanded it out from the live iso to see almost 700 megs of uncompressed data. The other hard thing to lineup is penmount. Unless the linux kernel in the os you are looking at can shake hands with penmounts packages it is a do not pass go scenario. If you are curious about different operating systems look at their download page and get all the linux drivers they offer. Decompress them all and look  at the readme files. There will be the kernel version that you need to line up to. Using this method we find that there are not many choices for the DT.

 
serialjoepsycho
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Re: Debian-lxde

Post by serialjoepsycho »

does that image cover most of the drivers? And is lxde lighter than xfce?
quotaholic
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Re: Debian-lxde

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When debian installs it will auto associate the cisco card as well as have the atlas button controller built in to the kernel. This will give you the ability to get working buttons and working internet. You will need hal + hal-storage to get the cf card to automount and desktop-file-utilities +mime-support to get the icon to appear on the desktop. I am assuming this is what you meant about drivers?

Penmount makes their driver available on their website. A word of warning you will have to correct the install.sh script in penmounts installer. They have a line that points to a ubuntu readme file when it should be a debian readme. As the driver for lenny and the driver for ubuntu804 are the same they dont put effort to fixing. I have reported the bug.

At the part where the basic installation completes (text mode) the installer will as if you want to install software or finish the installation. Do not install anymore. Finish the install. As the next part is selection by grouping you will run out of drive space.

That is the part where having a folder of the apps you want on a cf card helps. Debian is famous for how easy it is to install packages but this is where the bloat happens. Apt keeps a much needed batching of indexes in /var. This batching of indexes ends up being 40+megs. As a result I only use "apt-get -f install" as a method of repairing dependencies. sudo dpkg -i software.deb is the manual install method. When the installer says you have unmet deps run sudo apt-get -f install to fix.

As a great number of files are located on that disk you can get quite far however packages like wicd (if you need a network manager) will need to be gotten elsewhere.

I think XFCE 4.4 and LXDE are close. XFCE4.6 is much heavier than LXDE. I like E17 the best as it has been optimized to run on linux powered mobile devices and cell phones as well as the desktop. That and it can be endlessly configured. LXDE needs to run atop of openbox. LXDE is a pain to configure. XFCE is much more user friendly on that level. LXDE + openbox take about 20 megs the same as e17 however xfce takes the cake at 46 megs of space on disk before plugins.

Hope it helps
quotaholic
Last edited by quotaholic on Fri Jul 24, 2009 1:59 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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