Project: Slim down Crunchbang

sunfizz98 · 2012-05-06 22:24:28

The perspective of bloat is subjective but for people who like keep things minimalistic, simple and clean, I have decided to work on my next project of removing "bloat" or my unsatisfaction from crunchbang to make it a leaner system.

Don't hate me Corenomial, but I honestly think there is too much stuff that should be removed and installed by the user or be placed inside the cb-welcome script. A 667mb iso is too big for me. The iso is already as big as the ubuntu livecd iso. I've been a long supporter of your distro, but I would love to see a lighter iso such as a cb-lite iso?

Here is what I have done so far

=====================
ISSUES
-Get native transparency working for urxvtc and not just urxvt

stuff purged
----------------
terminator catfish geany thunar gimp viewnior vlc xfburn xfce* chromium xchat transmission abiword gnumeric evince bluez file-roller galculator gftp gksu tsconf vpnc vnc* nitrogen parcellite avahi-daemon rtkit network-manager gigolo gsimplecal gmrun obapps synaptic

Directories purged
-------------------------
~/.config/( chromium/ compton/ crunchbang/ dconf/ geany/ gigolo/ google-chrome/ gsimplecal/ nitrogen/ parcellite/ Terminal/ terminator/ Thunar/ volumeicon/ xfce4/
~/ /etc/ (ImageMagick/ NetworkManager/ avahi/ gimp/ iceweasel/ vlc/)
~/ .xchat2/

Files purged
---------------
~/.gmrunrc .gmrun_history .gksu_lock

Savings made ~ 450mb

Stuff installed - Courtesy of SF98 Post-install scripts
ceni irssi mc ranger mplayer2 feh luakit nautilus-dropbox redshift rxvt-unicode pmount rtorrent xfonts-terminus fonts-vlgothic spectrwm

Extra stuff installed
-------------------------
leafpad - for simple copy/paste

Stuff to do
[DONE]-replace network-manager with ceni/wicd-curses
[DONE]-migrate to spectrwm
[DONE]-purge SLIM
[DONE]-clean up rc.xml and menu.xml
[PENDING]-Purge more packages.
[PENDING]-Write review about crunchbang waldorf and my attempts to make a cb-lite

Please help me on my quest to eliminate cruft and other trivial luxuries within crunchbang land. Once we have ripped out all the fat, I will make a tutorial/script that will do as suggested in this thread.

*other thoughts* - Might just do a netinstall instead and work from there. Please excuse my rant.

Last edited by sunfizz98 (2012-05-13 23:15:50)

VastOne · 2012-05-06 22:42:21

Some peoples crap is others treasures... Just an opinion.

Is the language really necessary? I see the apology to corepa, but this is coming off as a serious destructive rant rather than a suggestion...

machinebacon · 2012-05-06 22:47:11

Honestly, this is netinstall + own preferred applications as opposed to netinstall + somebody elses preferred applications. wink

sudo bleachbit will help you to get rid of unneeded (or needed) stuff, and the 'remove cruft' in smxi.

VastOne · 2012-05-06 22:50:02

^ Well said...

I agree. netinstall is so much easier and with Fizzy's scripts already in place, it is easy to get them and edit them to your own liking.

SabreWolfy · 2012-05-06 22:52:15

^^^ @VastOne: Agreed. Sounds like an interesting idea, but the tone and attitude is all wrong and comes across as aggressive and confrontational sad In my opinion, not cool and not what #! is about.

Agreed too re netinstall with WM and apps of your choice. That makes a custom lightweight distro rather than having to run #! down, if you know what I mean.

Last edited by SabreWolfy (2012-05-06 23:01:28)

sunfizz98 · 2012-05-06 22:55:10

Did some thinking and revised my actions, as I am sure the majority of #! users appreciate corenomial's hard work. I'd have to give kudos to him for making some excellent scripts that blend well with the openbox environment.

SabreWolfy · 2012-05-06 22:58:46

^ smile I think your idea came across more like breaking #! down because you thought it was bad, rather than building your own lightweight spin.

Last edited by SabreWolfy (2012-05-06 23:00:59)

greyproc · 2012-05-06 23:00:07

I'm with VastOne on the crap versus treasure... half the stuff you'd remove I depend on (evince... vlc.... gimp....)... some I'm agnostic about (terminator; a term's a term's a term...) and some I couldn't agree more fervently (avahi... seriously... wtf... but this isn't a #! thing; seems like almost everything wants the stupid libs... and then there's bluez, network-manager, xchat...).

From my understanding #! doesn't want to be the most minimal; it wants to be the most functional out of the box, and 'get out of your way' --- great ideal, really. What would be insanely useful is a nice configuration (like rrconf) that after install allows the removal of most everything (just spawning off apt-get remove...) via a simple config file (Y or N for each).

For me, hard drive space is so cheap, that I don't care about stuff taking up space, as long as it's not running (hence getting rid of stuff like hald, which is deprecated anyway! )

Thus far, #! has been a wonderful compromise for me: I get rid of stuff like gFTP and install Filezilla, and I can have an sftp connection where I can see (visually) which files are different and multiple select them. Nice eyecandy. #1 is usable after install --- I don't have to learn a new way to interface with my system --- and has a mostly sane selection of apps by default. wink

Speaking of eyecandy, you'd get rid of the volcontrol -- how do you mix your sound now? aumix? I'm using #! because in my old age, I'm far too lazy to use slackware, and the 'buntus and friends are the europop with cotton candy of distributions. It sounds like you want something a lot more barebones...

sunfizz98 · 2012-05-06 23:04:09

@sabrewolfy
well...if I wanted a swiss-army knife for general purpose workstation, I'd pick crunchbang hands down. Also, it takes a lot of conscious effort to make crunchbang go CRUNCH...BANG when testing the the disclaimer.

Making a lightweight spin is still a work in progress on my part.

Last edited by sunfizz98 (2012-05-06 23:05:06)

CBizgreat! · 2012-05-06 23:04:50

+1 ... or would it be +2, what machine typed.

Am spoiled now, want mostly only what I want ... mostly how I want and machine's advice has been the way I've gone about it. Not as easy as a pre-config'ed/pre-selected setup. But to me MUCH more satisfying once it's up and running.

Though +1 sunfizz98's main suggestion too. I mean if it's not too much trouble a separate cb-lite version think could be nice. For folks who don't want a regular install and have diff preferences as to what they like using. I mean gives them a #! base to work with. Instead of having to chop and hack and re-config the regular iso to hades and gone to get things customized for em. Though that is entirely up to Corenominal and not my place or decision etc. Only a thought on the topic in general. smile

Vll and Viva la #! ! wink

Last edited by CBizgreat! (2012-05-06 23:08:20)

SabreWolfy · 2012-05-06 23:05:25

@greyproc: Yes, #! is not about being as lightweight as is possible. For that, don't install X and run terminal apps for everything smile

Last edited by SabreWolfy (2012-05-06 23:06:28)

sunfizz98 · 2012-05-06 23:08:23

@greyproc please refer to my SF98 tutorials which explain how I get around in life. alsamixer for sound. urxvt for terminals. etc etc. Here is something to get you started.

SF98 Master List - living minimalistically and efficient

SabreWolfy · 2012-05-06 23:09:33

No cb-lite version would suit everyone anyway though. You don't want gimp or vlc, but I only don't want vlc, etc. Isn't this just about the normal post-installation tweaking we all do anyway?

VastOne · 2012-05-06 23:11:41

I kind of like the swiss army knife approach, that is as good a reference for greatness as any for CrunchBang !! cool

VastOne · 2012-05-06 23:12:47

SabreWolfy wrote:

No cb-lite version would suit everyone anyway though. You don't want gimp or vlc, but I only don't want vlc, etc. Isn't this just about the normal post-installation tweaking we all do anyway?

Exactly... cool

I challenge anyone that claims they use #! exactly as it is installed...

sunfizz98 · 2012-05-06 23:13:38

Well said, especially since I used crunchbang as my foundation to learn linux cool

machinebacon · 2012-05-06 23:15:04

The swiss army knife is and always will be grml big_smile

sunfizz98 · 2012-05-06 23:16:43

@machinebacon
teach me how to use grml big_smile

machinebacon · 2012-05-06 23:22:30

Experientia est optima rerum magistra tongue

By the way:

wget -c http://download.grml.org/grml32_2011.12.iso
[...]
Length: 330301440 (315M) 
[...]
Saving to: `grml32_2011.12.iso'

Is that small enough, fizzy? big_smile

Last edited by machinebacon (2012-05-06 23:30:30)

2ManyDogs · 2012-05-06 23:43:14

sunfizz98 wrote:

Might just do a netinstall instead and work from there.

This makes the most sense to me. I'm about to do just that on my test machine (already have a minimal install running on the secondary test machine) and build it up from there. When you're ready to decide from the bare bones you're ready for a minimal install; at this point your idea of what I need will not be mine (I don't use dropbox or irssi, and don't want spectrwm).

#! gives people an excellent framework and the tools they need to learn more about what they do and do not want; Debian is always there "under the hood" when you're ready to go further...

Last edited by 2ManyDogs (2012-05-06 23:47:22)

VastOne · 2012-05-06 23:45:57

^ I see myself as a Debian user with a #! shell/packages and of course a great Community

sunfizz98 · 2012-05-06 23:47:33

I'm just here for the community. I mostly deb netinstall everything else.

greyproc · 2012-05-06 23:49:23

SF98: Thanks for sharing. smile

I like the swiss army knife reference, too. #! is a nice base for me. I'm feeling somewhat defeated that my knowledge isn't enough to do what I wanted (I'm stopping just short of playing patching games with the kernel to get apparmor to work), but, at this point, Imma gonna just enjoy #!. (There should be a Taylor Swift background for that... no, other kind of crunch, bang.) Other than actually using some of the awesome conky configs, I've got everything set up how I like it, which has to be a record for me and a reinstall. (And that includes a nicely customized kernel, to boot!) Come to think of it, small isn't always better, ya'll... tongue

el_koraco · 2012-05-06 23:50:37

machinebacon wrote:

Is that small enough, fizzy?

The daily small iso is even smaller, about 150 MB.

sunfizz98 · 2012-05-06 23:51:08

@greyproc
I tend to disagree, but that's for a different time big_smile

@el_koraco
daily small? As in deb businesscard iso?

Last edited by sunfizz98 (2012-05-06 23:52:03)

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#1 2012-05-06 22:24:28

Project: Slim down Crunchbang

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Re: Project: Slim down Crunchbang

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