Hello everyone. This is my first post here on this forum. I have a question about a minimalistic slackware installation with X11 and light window manager. Which packages should be installed? The system should also be able to use scim-pinyin with all its dependency packages.

Thanks to Pat and all team. The new Slackware 13.37 is fantastic. Great work.

hi piotrdk, welcome!

this board has a nice search function that i used now to look for the word "minimal" on this forum, and I found this, maybe it can help you

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...with-x-838437/

but remember that only full installations are supported, if you choose to slim down things you're mainly on your own

Since you ask you should first try Austrumi(this is nice for very minimal needs or as live os)(also it's not completely based on slackware but still will work) or Absolute(basic slackware install stuff with lightweight IceWM already done for you like you needed but download browser installation before you install because in previous releases included web browser didn't work) or some other slackware-based distribution then move on to original Slackware customization once you ready to move forward.
edit: You don't have to distro hop. Try virtualisation tools like VirtualBox to experiment without hopping.

Thanks Ponce. I will try this approach.

Arcane, I am already tired of distro hopping, including Arch. I will experiment with slackware along the idea of minimalism.

Wonder if you can use zipslack and then add in x window?

Did you see this on www.freshmeat.net yet : 'sous-marin'. The description is :
Sous-marin linux is a small, pure, individualized Slackware installation system using only scripts and a minimum of resources. Sous-marin's tools allow you to create an installer CD and tagfiles, choose the minimum of pure Slackware packages you need, FTP/HTTP install the system over the Net, and analyze the result as you add apps and their dependencies.
Maybe this is exactly what you're looking for. ( http://freshmeat.net/projects/sous-marin )
I personally haven't look at it as I'm not really concerned with anything less that a full 100% Slackware install. I agree with @Ponce that you're probably heading for problems, unless your goal is very niche. I think the reason that Slackware can get away without a dependency-checking package manager is that the base system installs almost every useful library going ... (and then some ...).

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SalixOS is a gnomelib/xfce trimed version of slackware. It's reasonable enough.

IMO unless you have disk space limitations, there's no reason to trim down the installation. The number of installed packages does not influence the speed of the system. All that matters is what WM and apps you're going to use.

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Slackware will definitely give you little hassle if you do a full install. I enjoyed trimming slackware down once but it was time consuming.

Thanks for all the ideas. I am after my first "timid" try and it works great, but it is not near a real minimalistic setup. WM is fluxbox, scim-pinyin works perfectly, and full-texlive package from slackbuild. All the things I need for my work. Enjoying.

I wholeheartedly agree!

And if you do have serious disk space limitations the first thing you should consider doing is simply adding disk space to the device. A full install needs less than 7Gb of disk space. The cost 7Gb is almost nothing these days.

If you have some device which is very limited and hard to add extra disk space to, such as an older netbook, then I would take lumak's advice and try SalixOS. It seems to be the most pure of the Slackware derivatives. They also provide dependency information for all of base Slackware packages, so it is very easy to build Salix up from the initial minimal install.

There is no NEED to, that is correct. There is no NEED to change from the huge kernel either. However, some people like to be in control of their system. They like to pick it a part and reassemble it to know the internal workings and to get familiar with the "glue". Some people also like to know that their system is as stripped down as possible and know that every package is useful and know what every package is for. It's probably for the same reason someone build their own house or buy DIY items. Not because they have to, but because they can/like.

I'm one of those, unfortunately I haven't got the time to deal with time consuming hobbies for the moment, or any moment soon.

Oh well, that's just my ranting

I agree!

The more I learn, the more I find I can do without. I prefer to go by the tagfiles' guidelines about what is officially considered "optional". I'm surprised to see how many packages are marked this way.

I haven't actually removed anything for a long time because space isn't an issue. So what if there are more than half-a-dozen different text editors and I only use one. They don't take up much space and aren't in the way...and if I decide I want to try one out I don't have to go back and re-install it.

Or you can try slaxbmc wich i use it has only fluxbox but you probably need the slack dvd to install som apps. Like wireless is not included. I don't use xbmc wich it is designed for i like the small system and build on top of it. It is hard and time comsuming but fun...

I think the best solution to have a minimalistic Slackware is by creation a list of Tagfiles made by our contributions. These tagfiles should be saved in a website and should be divided in categories like this for example:

1) Base ( core applications, development libraries, no X, etc)
2) minimal ( core applications, development libraries, a DE, X, a browser, etc.)

Then the user can download them and insert in the slackware dick or modify the net-install script to use these tagfiles. Just my idea. Anyone willing to contribute in making these categories?