Of course, you can cripple a minimal installation of Slackware even further to save 15 MB of aaa_elflibs.

I would recommded building a uclibc/busybox system instead. This way you can squeeze a complete installation into the 10 MB of glibc-solibs.

Seriously: Installing Slackware 14.1 x86 A series and leaving out the generic and non-smp kernels/modules leads to a functioning minimal installation below 400 MB. I would consider that "good enough".
Make the A series self-contained would be a good start. gawk is included into A for example, but doesn't work due to missing libmpfr.so in 14.1.

Yes. As we say in French: "les grands esprits se rencontrent"

Ah, so I've just stumpled over a "bug". I would move gawk into AP instead and include diff and the lighter nawk into A.

Or even better you can go to Brian Kernighan's web page and get "real" AWK:" http://www.cs.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/awkbook/index.html.
Big savings of disk space there, eh? Oh, yeah, no dependencies to worry about...

Note: awk builds to a.out, I save it as /usr/local/bin/nawk 'case it's "new AWK" as opposed to "old AWK."

Smallest install
http://distro.ibiblio.org/tinycorelinux/


1. SlackBuild equivalent of Build World from FreeBSD
2. Ports equivalent from FreeBSD

Why not just leave Slackware alone? Buy Dr. Torvalds a beer if you want to discuss changing his distribution. It's not like this is groupware.

Don't like Slackware? Go to http://linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/ and build your own minimal system, after which you can customize your workstation using http://linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/. That's all a D'Strow is: a kernel with a selection of additional packages.

--
Obquote: "I'll keep that in mind, Mr. Bailey...when this becomes a democracy." Captain Kirk, The Corbomite Maneuver.

=-=-=-=-snip=-=--=-
What can I do with my LFS system?
A by-the-book LFS system is fairly minimal, but is designed to provide a strong base onto which you can add any packages you want.

-==-=-=-=--=-snip=-=-=-=
http://linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/
What can I do with my BLFS system?
Nearly anything! An LFS system is primed to become a system that fits whatever need you have. BLFS is the book that takes you down your own custom path. You could build an office workstation, a multimedia desktop, a router, a server, or all of the above! And the best part is you only install what you need.

[Read O'Reilly "Sed and Awk" to see what you can do with those powerful tools.

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Agreed. This is why I am very happy that our BDFL is in charge. Mr. Volkerding has a proven track record of expertly charting the course of Slackware development. I don't feel the need to second guess his judgement.

1 members found this post helpful.

I second the motion. Patrick's judgments have always proven to be spot on when it comes to keeping Slackware a sane distribution. A lot of people feel like we need to keep up with distribution XYZ, but in reality it's distribution XYZ that should be keeping up with Slackware.

Slackware's always set and been the standard in my opinion.

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Er, correcting a typo: Buy Dr. Volkerding a beer! You are more than welcome to buy the kernel developers a beer, but around here in this Slackware forum, you're more likely to get your idea implemented if you buy Pat a beer. Off topic: Let's start a buy Dr. Volkerding a beer fund. Don't forget to tip the bartender and waitress.

If I could afford it, I'd buy Patrick a pallet of Sam Adams Boston lager just to keep Slackware sane and simple, and even find ways to reduce the overhead already in Slackware, if at all possible.

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It'd be nice if, during installation, there was an option to install the generic kernel and configure LILO to use it. I'm not fussed if that doesn't change, though - I'm used to doing that by hand, anyway.

Hmm... That would need something like running mkinitrd_command_generator.sh before lilo or elilo, and probably adapt liloconfig accordingly. I guess that would trigger a flow of help requests here like "Help! the Slackware that I just installed can't start!"

One of the reasons that was avoided. Huge is there to be an all-purpose kernel until you know how to setup an initrd for your system. It's easier to use Huge outright, or even stick to Huge full time than to figure out an initrd for beginners.

I see no advantage on using an initrd, actually I rather not use it, it is an annoyance.

Useless for you, but useful for others.