Hi,

I would like to prepare mini distribution (for my own) based on slackware.

I have installed Slackware 12 based on the description I found here:
http://slackwiki.org/Minimal_System

The problem is that after installation (without X!) I see via "df" command" that about 1,8GB of disk is used.
How this is possible?
Can I install Linux on max 600-650 MB?
I need basic X-System.

I guess this might be due to some "temporary" files created during installation, but still don't understand why it is 1,8GB

here packages I deselected from the default:

regards
Rafal

If these are the only packages you didn't install, then you installed quite a bit of software. Can you post the files listed in /var/log/packages?

Hi,

You could look at 'Cooking Up Some Slack. (CUSS)'.

This link and others are available from 'Slackware-Links'. More than just Slackware® links!

I haven't done a new minimal for quite a while now, but I'm sure you can get a running system with X in less than 300MB -the last list I worked out came out to about 225MB. If you add GTK & CO that will add ~150MB.
For a decent small install as above with develoment tools (compiler, etc), you are looking at 600-800MB.
I won't comment on which specific packages you might need or want. Your wants make a greate difference and the needs will depend on that. Coming up with a really compact installation that only includes what you want/need is a good learning process.
I used to maintain a long HOWTO for creating a small install, but it is quite a lot of work so I don't do that any more. To reduce it to its' real minimum, you need a clear listing of the programs you want to run and then you can follow the init process starting at /etc/inittab and run 'ldd' on every program that gets run during boot-to-desktop. Add in your optional programs and run ldd on each of them.
it is also helpful to study various initrd's used for tiny systems like the Slackware installer as it makes it a littler simpler to see exactly what is needed.
You can create what might called be a complete distro which has no libs, 1 device file and 1 single executable -for instance kernel boots and"Hello World!" gets printed to the console and that's it! Of course that's too much, but for you to really understand what you need, that's the point where you need to start your understanding -what' the first program that runs, what comes next and so on.

Thanks for all replies

yes, but please note that following the advice from here, I installed only this packages groups:
# 2 Package group [A]
# 3 Package group [AP]
# 4 Package group [D]
# 5 Package group [F]
# 6 Package group [K]
# 7 Package group [L]
# 8 Package group [N]

This means, that there is no X

Tomorrow I will try once again and then provide /var/log/packages

One general question (cause I have no experience with Slackware).
How do I remove installed packages like kernel-source? After I prepare what I need (compile), I would like to remove it. Do I use 'removepkg' for it?

My plan is to build Slackware on VMware machine and then use scripts published here: http://www.linux-live.org/ to make bootable Live CD with tools I like and need.

regards
Rafal

Even without X, that is still a lot of software which you don't need.

You can certainly leave out all of F which is just documents. And you only need selected packages from AP, D, L and N. Even A contains non-essentials.

Summary size of those packages should be less than 100MB (they all contain small, compact software). So you did nearly full installation.

Here is size of categories (du -sh *):
As you can see, two largest categories are kde and kdei. Kdei is a bunch of internationalization packages, you might want to uninstall all of them except one you'll need.

In kde category largest package is koffice (53M package):
If you want minimalistic system, you might want to remove it. You also probably won't need kdevelop, kdeedu, kdegames and maybe even amarok.
If you want much smaller system, you might want to uninstall entire kde (this will free a lot of space) and switch to another lightweight desktop (xfce, blackbox, etc.).

I recommend you to generate listing of package sizes (or take a look at PACKAGES.TXT) and start uninstalling (with pkgtool) largest ones you won't need. All packages you deselected were very small - nasm, for example, is only 620K uncompressed.

Hi
I followed the advice to checked log with packages and I know much more than before. I just tried to install only [A] and [AP] and unselected few applications. The rest was installed.
df command shows 511300
I check packages and here the biggest:

143793 devs-2.3.1-noarch-25
32580 ghostscript-8.62-i486-5
67429 glibc-zoneinfo-2.7-noarch-10
18082 groff-1.19.2-i486-1
65345 hplip-2.8.4-i486-1
31115 kbd-1.12-i486-2
56932 vim-7.1.285-i486-1
33550 zsh-4.3.6-i486-1

I summarized all and it gives 448826, which is a lot..

Whats that: "glibc-zoneinfo-2.7-noarch-10" and "devs-2.3.1-noarch-25"?
I am not sure I need it

And something I don;t understand.
I test everything on VMware, so I can see how big virtual disk is. I see only 435776 ??? Don't understand why

regards
Rafal

Regarding devs-2.3.1-noarch-25 I have found this:
"
This package creates special files in the /dev directory that
represent your system's hardware, and a tool (/dev/MAKEDEV) for
creating new device files. These files are required to access
hardware on a Linux system."
..so I need this

maybe this is why I see a difference with visrtual disk real size and "df" command. It does not take that much as it claims

By the way, "df -h" gives human-readable size, in megabytes/gigabytes. Without -h (the way you used it, I think) switch it returns size in "blocks", which is (AFAIK) dependant on filesystem settings. I strongly recommend to use "du -sh" and "df -h", because it'll provide much clearer results.

For example, zsh-4.3.6-i486-1.tgz on my system is only 2megabytes big (2358139 bytes). Quick calculation shows that your block size is about 70 bytes (??? strange value. 2358139/33550), which means that "448826" on your system means only 29 megabytes of space (448826*(2358139/33550)/(1024*1024)). This isn't too much. From those packages you listed you most likely won't need zsh (assuming you have another shell), and maybe ghostscript. You also might want to uninstall vim (if you are not vim guru, of course) and replace it with "elvis", which is much smaller.

you might want to run "du -sh *" (as root) from "/" directory and see what takes most space.

I have done next test (using [A], [AP], [L], [N], [X] and [XAP])
I played a little bit with "Remove" in pkgtool and it seems to work fine, however I am not sure whether space on disk will be immediately available.
Don't I have to clean up any TPM folder or something similar?

some library packages are huge. Does Slackware checks dependencies ? I.e If I need GTK for some applications it will not allow me to remove GTK without any warning messages. It is the case when I work with YaST on OpenSUSE. If not, then how should I know dependencies for each single program ?

regards
Rafal

Run "df -h" before removing package and after removing package, compare results.

You might do it, but it's not necessary. Of course, some files will accumulate in /tmp and they'll take space, but that shouldn't be much on newly installed system.

No. System assumes that you know what you are doing. So if you'll decide to remove glibc (don't do that), it won't stop you.

It will allow to remove it without warning messages.

If you launch program from terminal, and some libraries are missing, program won't start, but you'll see what it couldn't load (text will be printed in terminal). If program was started from X (without console), these messages should(not sure about it) be saved to ~/.xsession-errors. And if you don't see messages for some reason, then you always can use ldd on program binary to see what it needs. If program can't load because of other reason, normally it prints or shows error messages somewhere.

After that you'll have to locate package package with missing library (list of files is available on DVD for every package) and install it.

Hi,
With package selection I more or less ok, but have another problem.

Here is my approach and results for latest test:

1. I have created virtual machine in VMWARE with no hard disk and only USB.
2. I installed Slackware on USB (it was visible as /dev/sda3 because I have 3 partitions on my 8GB USB)
3. After installation I tried to boot system from USB, but this time not in VMWARE, but on real hardware.

During booting I faced following problem:
"Kernel panic - not syncing: VFS : Unable to mount root fs on unknown=block(8,3)"

For me the reason for that error is clear, but the question is how to solve it.
Apparently when I boot Slackware from USB it detects my hard drive as sda. I have on it several partitions, but not like on usb. Because during installation my USB was detected as /dev/sda then now when my hard drive takes /dev/sda system will not boot.
Information I see before this error says that I have sda (my hard drive) and cdrom. I can't see usb (like sdb or something like this).

How can I correct it (if possible).

regards
Rafal