how i use it

[djmarian]

Hi,

I was wondering if there could be a minimal version for school (PC's better than mine).

I think these programs would be enough pidgin, chrome, firefox, thunderbird, transmission, gnumeric, libre office writer, gpicview, vlc, screenshoot, leafpad and xarchiver.

I also use filezilla, java, flash, apache, php, foxitreader, gimp, audacity, lame, nautillus, virtualbox, wine, teamviewer and bluefish.

How big would the iso image be?

[jaywalker]

I haven't checked, but much of your wish-list is likely to be found on a LiveCD. Have a look at one - see what's missing and what's included. My guess is you would get much of that into the space of a 700MB CD.

If you intend to use it in school then why not try building your own installation on a 2 or 4 GB USB stick?
That would be very flexible and need only have exactly what you want.

A few years ago I did a night class in software engineering and I managed very well with a Mandriva LiveCD and a USB stick for my data files. If I were doing it again now, I would definitely switch to a "proper" live system on a USB stick or two.

To make the most of the space available I would certainly rule out Gnome and KDE. I have used LXDE for years and it is very usable, quick and compact.

Richard

[djmarian]

[quote="jaywalker"]try building your own installation[/quote]

so how do i build one?

[jaywalker]

try building your own installation

so how do i build one?

Gosh that looks very "technical", did I really say that? I should have chosen my words more carefully. I did not mean a DIY-type full-blown self-installing mageia-like production.

It is much easier to start with a distribution you like and build a working system which you can then copy onto your target device/s. A Mageia LiveCD is a good place to start, but you can equally well use a full installation DVD. The good things about starting with the LiveCD are;
1. It will be i586 and thus useful on 32 and 64 bit hardware.
2. You can try it out and be sure you can get the bits working you know you'll need.
3. You can also try it on a selection of your likely target machines and see what issues may need to be resolved later.

Using an install DVD isn't that much different but you will have to decide if you want 32 or 64 bit and you will likely have much more superfluous software to get rid of unless you are very careful with the install time choices. Trying out a different selection of packages to include might take more time as you may need to go back to a clean running system which will have to be installed again before it can be tweaked.

So, bearing in mind that there are some obvious differences in the specific operations of the two methods I will have a go at describing how I would do it using a LiveCD.

First choose your target medium; USB memory stick, external hard disc, ... you will want to consider what size you have available and how portable you need it to be. Make sure too that you have enough time ahead of you so you can complete the whole task in one session. I once forgot about that and closed down to get some sleep. Next day I had to start from scratch again because changes made to a LiveCD system are not saved anywhere!

Next, boot your LiveCD of choice. Apart from getting the languages you need, you will be choosing between KDE and Gnome. If you really want to keep the system smallish and responsive on the widest possible range of PCs then you may well decide to dump whichever desktop the CD provides and go with something more flexible. I go for LXDE even on a fast PC because it can show clear performance improvement over KDE. There is a rumour doing the rounds at the moment that the version of KDE on the latest Cauldron is observably quicker than previous versions, so it is maybe worth trying it before you dump it (the really good thing about using a LiveCD).

Once you have checked that all of the basic functionality is there you should start by uninstalling all the stuff you know you won't need. This can be quite scary as the dependencies and suggests for some packages can be surprisingly extensive. Your main goal at this stage is to reduce the package footprint so that when you run the updates you will be fetching as little of what you don't need as possible.

Next configure the Mageia repositories for urpmi/rpmdrake so you can update your system and add the packages not on the CD. Just be careful not to update the kernel or any other package which may prefer a reboot - remember you will have to start again if you do. Switching from Gnome/KDE is OK though. Just install task-LXDE (make sure you get lxdm with it) and switch over to that desktop and login manager before uninstalling Gnome/KDE and gdm/kdm.

When you have chosen your software needs and your desktop it does no harm to do some system configuration and tidying up. You will probably want to set up your real user identity and home directory and get rid of the ones provided on the CD. You should also set proper passwords for root and yourself.

When you are reasonably happy with your work just click the icon on the desktop to install the live system on your target device. Disclaimer time. I have not tried this with a USB memory stick as the target. I have used external 2.5 and 3.5 USB connected hard discs. I don't know if the standard grub boot loader will work on memory sticks, but there are solutions out there for making a bootable system on these.

If everything has gone well for you, and you'll know that as soon as you try to boot from your new portable system, you can do the final trimming which is only possible with proper storage: install any kernel and library updates you had to skip, fetch any proprietary drivers you may need on your target PCs, anything else you can think of.

The very last step, I suppose, would be to reboot your build machine to its native OS and attach your new portable system to make a compressed backup for future use.

If you think I have left something out then just ask.

Richard

[doktor5000]

You could give https://wiki.mageia.org/en/Draklive a shot, but it's not the easiest tool to use.

[jaywalker]

You could give https://wiki.mageia.org/en/Draklive a shot, but it's not the easiest tool to use.

Yes, I was afraid to do more than hint at that. I looked at it some time ago, and the system-on-a-stick thing that Mandriva did (even bought a couple for myself) but for my purposes the more conventional tools with detachable real drives were more suitable. I am only preparing special-purpose systems for my brother's music and film studio use, and then only a very small number.

[doktor5000]

The questions is still what the OP wants, a customized live cd or a customized installation (medium). The former is rather easy to do,
the latter would require something draklive, or otherwise doing a minimal install and adding all your wanted packages, which is quite easy to do:

Code: Select all

urpmi pidgin chromium-browser firefox-ro mozilla-thunderbird-ro transmission gnumeric libreoffice-writer libreoffice-langpack-ro gpicview vlc screenshoot leafpad xarchiver filezilla flash-player-plugin php gimp audacity lame dkms-virtualbox wine nautilus bluefish

(assuming that you want romanian language packs)
For java and apache i don't know which implementation you use, but you can adapt above command to your needs. Only foxitreader (do you really need that when we have evince or okular?) and teamviewer can't be installed from the repositories.

[djmarian]

[quote="doktor5000"]The questions is still what the OP wants, a customized live cd or a customized installation (medium).
Only foxitreader (do you really need that when we have evince or okular?)[/quote]

i will try both: live cd or a customized installation, when i have time (Romania does not pay enough for my time, i prefer to spend the time for myself), and i think i'll need help too... we'll see

i have no idea about evince or okular, will try them right away (new to linux here, i just translate)

[djmarian]

evince runs a little slower than foxit, but it might be more stable
okular does not open anything "component cannot be found"