Much to my time-lapsed chagrin, I have become aware that the full install of Slackware 13.37 is much more GB-hungry than my little USB flash drive can provide.

Time to buckle down, and pick and choose. Any advice & guidance on how to set up a hand-picked, customized flash drive installer would be appreciated.

I have 3.72 GB to work with.

A size estimation and list of all the "core" files would help me to figure out what remainder I have to work with. Can anyone help me with that? I consider "core" to indicate that said files must be present on the flash drive installer as opposed to acquired, later, by compiling.

If a file/program/etc. is not critical to the install, and can be acquired later, I'd prefer to do so.

Next, whatever environment I go with should be easy to run with 1 GB RAM and a 134 GB hard drive. I believe I remember someone advising that KDE might not be the best environment for this purpose.

Instead of having a selection of environments included in the install, to choose from, I'd like to choose the one I'll use, ahead of time, if that's possible. I remember using Gnome, and liking it, but that was 11 years ago. Other than KDE, what other environments come most recommended these days?

Also, I would probably prefer to go with Opera instead of Firefox, unless Opera has become less-popular over the years? Feedback would be loved on preferred browsers. Again, I'd prefer to go with one, ahead of time.

Full install is never an option, nobody will ever use all of it, in your case a mininal install with xserver and a lightweight window manager is recommended since you only have 3.7GB space. So the base system, xserver and window manager.
Next the programs, Firefox is very popular now days, I'm not sure which browser Slackware have as default, it is a good idea go with the one your distro recommends.
Opera still around yes. Iceweasel, Dillo, Midori, just to mention some and are there other options for browser.

Regards

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Firefox is default to Slackware, and I haven't been terribly fond of it... but that opinion was formed from using it on Windows 7, and also because it liked to give me spots of grief with random incompatibilities.

I suppose I'd be willing to give the browser another go, since I used to swear by it, but I'll still keep my "feelers" out for now.

Also, and please forgive if this is a stupid question... I'm replying before I dart off to research what you've provided: Would Xserver & the window manager cover for environment needs, or is that additional to?

Like: http://www.lxde.org/

Consensus from those that have used it?

Lxde is a combination of things on top of Openbox ! The xserver and window manager/DE is what you need for GUI(graphical user interface).

For a newbie to Slackware a full install is the recommended option. Remember that Slackware has no dependency solving package manager, so you have to know exactly what you do when you decide to not install a package.

@Clockwork: As already suggested in your other thread, make a network based install using the USB image and you don't have to bother with the size of your pendrive. To your other question, on a machine like that I would recommend to use XFCE, Gnome may be an option, but since Gnome is not in the Slackware repositories you have to install it from other sources, like GSB.

@ukiuki: Ahh... things are clicking back into place, now. That should have been obvious; thank you for pointing that out.

@TobiSGD, I do not have access to the network in that fashion (it is shared between myself and the person I live with, but we never interact between our machines). I have very minimal experience with using one to access/transfer files, and I do not feel comfortable with that method of installation. I said before that I was installing by flash drive, only. This is my option. I'm a "newbie" to Slackware, yes, but not to Linux... I need some re-acquaintance with packages/procedures/etc., but I tend to be a fast study. I figured out how to remote-install Gentoo on a PS3; this can't be that much more difficult?

I have been expecting to have to research dependencies as I go. I can't be the only person that enjoys doing this...?

Oh, may I didn't make that clear enough. I have my own mirror, so I can use that for installation. But of course you can use any Slackware mirror (also the ones on the Internet) for installation, just use the FTP/HTTP server option when the installer asks for a package source. When you really want to use the pendrive for installation, just copy the directories a, ap, n and l to the stick, install only that and then use slackpkg to install the rest/wanted after you have done the basic installation.

"Black Friday" is in 2 days and you should be able to get an 8gb or larger drive for under $10.

If you are beginner in Slackware, isn't it worth $10 to potentially save yourself hours of your time?

Alternately you could do a network install as recommended above, or give Salix a try; it is based on Slackware but arguably more beginner- and netbook-friendly.

All I really want is to replace Windows with Linux, and Slackware came highly recommended (and suits the part of me that likes to research & tinker with things).

I suppose I did not consider external network sources, partly because networks, in general, are unfamiliar territory (my interests revolved around teaching myself CSS, and the like), and partly because I knew what my (limited) resources are and was resolved to make do.

The reason I wanted to customize the install was because I got about 80% through the ISO-transfer process before it told me I was out of space. Since you told me that I probably wouldn't use KDE, anyway, I was hoping for a way to exclude it (and KDEI). Then, when I got to thinking about exclusions, I started combing over the list and wondering what else wasn't crucial and could be saved for after the main installation was accomplished.

**By the list, as quoted below, I was looking at: A, AP,D, F, K, L, N, and X. Going from the ISO, I am not sure how to isolate those, specifically.

I wanted to add in LXDE (or possibly XFCE, since you recommended it), and choice of browser.

I don't know enough about E, T, or TCL to understand if they are important to the install (though you didn't mention them).

These are the torrents available, but they cluster the packages per individual disk in a way that I do not like.

If, by slackpkg, you mean:

The Slackware Package Browser, among other new features, has been moved on http://packages.slackware.it, which says...

**The whole list, according to the Slackware site, is:

Thank you for your input, @snowpine, but (reasonable or no... and I agree that it might be, in most cases) that is not available to me, and I would prefer not to go into details why.

You need absolutely no knowledge about networks for a network based install, except the ability to type in an URL

Normally you would do that with AlienBob's usbimg2disk.sh, but that obviously will only work on a Linux system. By the way, XFCE is part of XAP.

Nope, slackpkg is a small program found in AP that is a fully fledged package manager that is able to download and install/upgrade not only packages from the Slackware repositories, but also the program groups, for example will install any package in XAP.

But I personally still think that the network based install is the easiest way to go.

So, following that thread of theory:

or
?

I suppose if I switched my folder of files to save over to the larger flash drive, I could just use the smaller one for the usbboot.img. Although, then I'd need to determine where I would direct it to install from, and I'm still not keen on bogging the installation (or my machine) down with things I'd be perfectly fine without.

Input?

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[Edit]Whoever moved the thread... thank you... I think [/Edit]