Trim down SUSE install...after install...remove packages
 

I am new to Linux in general; SUSE is the second package I have installed ever in my life (MEPIS was the first), but I am enjoying SUSE a lot. When i installed form DVD, I did what I guess, I am shooting myself in the foot for, what I should have done. I installed all the pckages in there: Games, Development, ALL Desktop enironments, all multimedia, internet, Office, etc. I did this to avoid any problems with installation (like missing components, guess, being a noobie, does not pay)

I am dual booting with WinXP (SUSE boots with GRUB options by default). I have 60GIG HDD that SUSE conveniently resized and allocated almost 40:60 ratio in favor of SUSE. when installation was complete, the SUSE partition was around 6-7G used up. Now I see it has bloated to 13-14Gigs I have been updating packages regularly using YaST, and I am assuiming ALL packages get updated making more and more space used up.

I would like to remove packages that I do not use at all, and just have theones I use frequently (now that I have getten used to SUSE/Linux, I have navigated thru the system quite well).

How Do I reclaim some of the space in the linux partition for use in linux (i want to have enough space for work related things, and perhaps for photos).

Sorry I sound all over the place, but I am sure you will understand.

SL

Frankly, when you are installing SuSE, it will handle depencies better. From the disc, no matter what you select YAST can grab the depencies too, so long as they are on the media. The discs for install have all related software.

The problem with what you did, is, now it going to be a big dependency issue to delete a few gigs of that stuff. That means, honestly, it would be easier to do a new install and fo it right this time. Just pick what you want and need, not everything. You could even use a seperate drive this time if you would like.

Now, aside from there, you could just fire up YAST and change some things. Pick "Package Selections" from the top drop down, and that should look how it did during first install. Now you just be able to delete whole groups or single package. Whole gorups will take care of dependency issues better, but with YAST< just set the trash can instead of a check and start wiping what you can...or at least what you can easily.

Eventually you will get into dependencies that don't want files to be removed, and you have to decide on the popups if you want those packages either... it could be quite exhausting.

Okay, this is worth knowing. So now, let us assume I decide to do a clean install (which I might when the new 10.1 come out), how d o I make sure I have removed the current linux partition? Here is what I plan to do:

Resize the WinXP to 20G
Format a new partition as FAT32 (to share winXP and Linux files)
Have SUSE sit in the remainder (with its swap)

I have read elsewhere that this could be tricky and do not want to mess up.

I have even thought of using WINXP to partition the whole drive (20:10:30) after reformating to NTFS:FAT32:FAT32. I beleive linux recognizes FAT32 and I will choose in YAST partition manager the last hda3 to put linux into? right?

Am I on the right track?

Will SUSE 10.1 be worth installing, or should i stick with this version? It seems to have recognized most of my hardware.

Why create the new partition as FAT32? You can use NTFS just as well.

Dual booting is VERY easy, once you are in the "Partiioning" section of the install you will then visually see whats going on.

Can linux read and write NTFS; I have external drive (my previous laptop drive) formatted in NTFS, SUSE has problems writing to this drive.

You need to have kernel 2.6.15 or higher. 10.0 uses 2.6.13.15, which is too low, and only has an experimental NTFS read/write. Full NTFS read/write was added only a few weeks ago with the release of 2.6.15, which SuSE 10.1 will use. But was released months after SuSE 10.0 was released. I say that ebcause SuSE 10.1 beta uses 2.6.15git6 or git12. The actual release will use the latest tested stable kernel patched for SuSE when it comes out here next month. 10.1 beta also has KDE 3.5, Firefox 1.5, etc. The latest and greatest SuSE will be up to date when it is released.

so I guess I will wait then. Do a proper clean install with the minimalist options.

Many thanks
SL