http://slackwiki.org/Minimal_System I followed this.

But that was 1.3 g when I was finished.
That is too much. I have tried to find another good guide, but I couldnt find it. I want a smaller install, with base. so I can install pkg, and have network..

What should I do to get it smaller ?

There are lots of very good alternatives that should fit into well under 1GB with little or no effort on your part.

For example:
* Puppy Linux
http://www.puppylinux.org

* Darned Small Linux
http://www.damnsmalllinux.org

* Knoppix
http://www.knoppix.net/

* Etc etc

PS:
Yes, you *should* be able to fit Slackware into << 1GB. And the link you cited, http://slackwiki.org/Minimal_System, should be the ideal place to start.

But since it *didn't* happen to work out for you right off the bat, it might be easier to explore other distros, rather than troubleshoot why your "minimal" Slackware system still isn't quite minimal enough.

IMHO .. PSM

Whats up man?

Does it matter what distro?
are you set on a slack minimal install?

You should use tag-files
if your not already using em

that way you can repeat the install without having to go thru the whole menu each time

and, just keep editing the tag files till you get small

and maybe do the builds/installs in a VM like qemu/vbox/vmware
or what?

Youu could also check out Absolute Linux
which is basically a slimmed down Slack

and thers Vector and Zenwalk, their both slack aint they?

Start a Flamewar thread and say "Slackware vs Debian Minimal/low-ram install"
that'll get it started

I want to use Slackware. To learn it

I am building it in vmware. Until I know enough.

I havent tried that tag files stuff. How does that work? I need to take a look at it tomorrow I guess

tag-files and theres probably even better ways?
Slackers?

tag-files
http://www.slackbook.org/html/packag...-tagfiles.html

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Slackersbible
and check that out too

I have a blog entry on my set up of a minimal install for 12.2. I have updated it for 64-13.0, but it is approx 1.1G. That is OK for me, & should be a good start for you to take it smaller. My goals were an NFS/Samba server, the ability to compile programs ( using sbopkg ) & to act as a "recovery partition". The attachment has the tagfiles I used. In addition, I installed sbopkg, terminus-fonts, & halrv. I really like halrv for mounting removable drives.
Regards,
Bill

Attached Files

tagfile.txt (14.5 KB, 60 views)

This is out of date but it should give you an idea http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/slackware-14/samacs-super-slimline-speedy-slackware-704866

samac

A truly minimal install with pkgtools and network capability should be doable in about 50-60MB. If you want a usable GUI environment to go with that, then you are looking at about 250-275MB. Expect to spend a few months figuring out how to get it that small, though...

I want it as small as possible but workable. I tried that guide yesterday.
I tried to do installpkg package.tgz but then I got a error about that I couldnt make executable package or something. but I will investigate on that. But how is it possible to get 50 - 60 mb and it still working?

50-60MB is only possible by studying/following what happens when /etc/inittab and /etc/rc.d/(rc.S,rc.modules,rc.M) get run at startup. Only install what is needed to get to a CLI login plus the needed network support. It's about 35-50 packages. In the days of Slackware-10.0 it took about 42MB to get a 'just bootable and extendable' installation. Excellent learning exercise...

gnashley: in fear of being called a noob, I ask. What do I do / where do I read to find out what that does at startup? or what happens

Just start asking here on this forum -one subject per new thread. After the kernel is located and '/' is mounted, /sbin/init runs, using /etc/inittab. inittab tells init to run /etc/rc.d/rc.S and execution follows from there. Learn to read the bash scripts and figure out what each step is doing. Many optional things happen if optional packages are installed and activated. Once rc.* scripts finish you are at login, so everything that happens after that is optional.

Don't be discouraged if it takes you a couple of years to really grasp what is going on there and exactly what is needed to boot with.
You might use samac's guide as a starting point. It is quite good, but still contains several non-essential packages.

Well, I've done this some times now, and last time in june/july on my nightshift. Since you are unfamiliar with slackware, and linux generaly it's hard to know what packages you will need. If you have no clue on mechanics and you are going to build a car from scratch, what do you buy in the hardware store?

(Disclaimer, this is how i did it).

Basically you will need all packages in the A series. That would be in the slackware/a/ folder on your slackware cd1/dvd. You can actually drop several packages, but I'm guessing you can save perhaps 10-20MB. At least not very much, so I wouldn't bother with that in the beginning. So in the slackware installer, choose to select packages from A (And drop the rest, AP/D/E/L..) and install all packages in A.

After the installation you boot your shiny new system into slackware, and now the installation REALLY starts. Now you walk trough the folders, starting with AP, and upwards. You would want something to edit textfiles, so you will perhaps take nano/joe/jed. One or all of those. I prefer nano. (All those in addition to vim of course :P).

And you essentially work your way trough the folders and install all packages you need. And this is why its hard for us to say what you need, be cause you need what you like. And we don't know what you like. There are 5 (or something) different text editors. Several different audio-players, different cd-players, different window managers etc. Thats why a full installation is so large. It got multiple programs for the same task.

But use your system, when you discover that "Hey, I need <insert something useful>". You install this from your cds/dvd. In some time, you will have a minimal working system. This will of course go a _lot_ faster for those how have used slackware for a while and know what they need. Generally you need some basic tools in the command line, Xorg, sound system, network etc.

When you install software from packages and try to start them, you will eventually get something like "Missing library libXev.so" (An example. Its wrong, so don't bother pointing it out :P). Now, what do you do? Well, you can google. Ask here, or (preferably), you can have a copy of /log/packages/* of a full installation in your system. This folder contains a file for every package on your system. This file contains a path to every file included in that particular package. So you can search through these files and locate what package containing libXev.so. (Thats why you need this folder from a full installation, because your minimal system only got information on what YOUR installation have).

Then you continue. One package might require several packages. And one of these package might have dependency issues them selfs. Hence gnashleys comment that it could take months before you have a working minimal system just the way you like it.

When you finally get it working like you want to, it would be a shame to do it all over again, therefore you use alienBOBs tagfile script. This generates files containing information about what packages in the A-folder you have installed, and in AP, D, L, KDE,... you get the point. So next time you are doing an installation, you locate these tagfiles, and the slackware installer reads them and installed exactly the same packages that you had in the previous installation. (Except third party software that isn't included in the DVD).

"That's how the cookie crumble". You can only learn by using slackware, this takes time, but it will probably be worth while if you really intend to stick with slack
Well, this was a long post. Much longer then I intended. Hopefully you wont get to confused about it. :P

I'm not unfamiliar with Linux. I have used debian for a few years. And Gentoo a littler while, but I just havent dig that far into the system. Since you get a minimal install in Debian by just choosing the base system. But in Slackware I need to dig in. So that's what I want to learn.

I will try that. Just install from A. And take the other packages. I will just go with vim. And I dont need xorg. It's just gonna be a server anyway. Apache, irc, torrents and so on. So not too much.. But thanks for the tip Dinithion.

Ok. I need to figure out the tagfiles stuff. I dont know how to get the installer to read the tagfiles, but I can just google it

I have a Slack 10.2 installation on one of my disks that I made for the sole purpose of writing to Xbox hard drives. The installation was a little less than 600 MB. And that actually includes a lot of stuff that I could've left out. There are the DHCP utilities, but nothing for X11, USB, sound, etc. Most packages from the "L" section were not installed.