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#1 2025-08-08 20:24:59
- 32bits
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- Registered: 2025-07-13
- Posts: 42
Small installations with Refracta Linux
Small installations with Refracta Linux
I was not connected 2 long days along working to help my PC to be performant again. I did do it with Refracta Linux using the nox versions both in 32 and in 64 bits. And I am happy, all seems to work today evening. It seems to be parent with GNUinOS, perhaps is Refracta Linux the base of GNUinOS? I will make a new tread to report on that other experience, and repeat this message in the new thread to introduce the separate discussion.
The 2 installations seem to work very well but are not really so small as the installation with GNUinOS. As my efforts have to reach very small installations, it is a bit a deception.
In both cases, I did use the small ISOs offered at the webpage of Refracta Linux.
- for 32 bit the nox version with Daedalus
- for 64 bit the nox version with Escalibur
My procedere were simple:
- start the ISO as download from USB memory card
- remove the stuff I don't want to use (mc, vim)
- install on the disk with refractainstaller
- restart from HD now
- install xorg menu jwm slim info wget
- update upgrade
- refractasnapshot
- restart from USB memory card this actualized base and a just graphic system
- reinstall on the HD with refractainstaller to look if all works
- add the rest, first part:
sudo apt install didiwiki drawing enchant-2 gimagereader gimp gnumeric gnumeric-plugins-extra gpm gocr gv hunspell links2 mgp mhwaveedit mousepad mplayer mplayer-gui nted pipewire ranger textdraw viewnior xfce4-appfinder xsane
I did add in ~/ a file .Xressources with following 2 lines
*.font: xft:monospace:style=Bold:size=13
XTerm.vt100.reverseVideo: true
So get xterm a view like an high performance console!
In /etc/jwm/system.jwmrc I did add an important line for screenshot in this block of lines:
<Program icon="utilities-terminal" label="apps">xfce4-appfinder</Program>
<Program icon="utilities-terminal" label="console">console</Program>
<Program icon="utilities-terminal" label="files">files</Program>
<Program label="screenshot" confirm="false">xwd | xwud</Program>
<Program icon="utilities-terminal" label="txt">txt</Program>
<Program icon="utilities-terminal" label="web">web</Program>
actually, console is a link -> xterm, files -> ranger, txt -> mousepad, web -> links or luakit!
But deception:
The installation give me a /usr/share/applications/ranger.desktop file ready to use but ...
... it does not work! And I don't understand why.
I have to prepare myself more *.desktop files for xcalc xedit xditview .
My smart text processing app is the browser! I use didiwiki. It can do a lot (also in the very simple browser links2 !!! Including show very difficult writing like Indian Tamil, or Korean): normal - bold - italic - underlined - diverses titles - center - pictures - columns etc. The page are in text format and can be acceded in the hidden subdir ~/.didiwiki (a link helps to make then directly accessible!).
I have a print screen!
2 graphic text editors (xedit and mousepad) with hunspell
gnumeric
full support for scan and ocr (using gocr for common usage; tesseract-ocr can be added on demand)
idem for graphic usage and multimedia
and a good menu for graphic app's : xfce4-appfinder.
This extremely frugal version was a test if possible to fit all that in 1 GB: in 32bits yes but just. In 64 bits not any more. Of course, that equipment is very frugal.
In 64 bits I add over that luakit. I is extremely fast and good.
In 32 bits I don't know some smal and good browser any more.
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#2 2025-08-08 20:26:54
- 32bits
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- Registered: 2025-07-13
- Posts: 42
Re: Small installations with Refracta Linux
Question: how to upgrade the Escalibur installation to Ceres?
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#3 2025-08-08 21:08:03
- golinux
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- Registered: 2016-11-25
- Posts: 3,535
Re: Small installations with Refracta Linux
Escalibur does not exist. Try excalibur.
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#5 2025-08-09 00:09:07
- golinux
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- Registered: 2016-11-25
- Posts: 3,535
Re: Small installations with Refracta Linux
aitor . . . is Escalibur your "Basque" version?
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#7 2025-08-09 20:52:47
- 32bits
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- Registered: 2025-07-13
- Posts: 42
Re: Small installations with Refracta Linux
in Troyes (I really am from ...) we did always say escalibur
wikipedia.fr: «La première mention de l'épée d'Arthur sous le nom d'« Excalibur » est due à Chrétien de Troyes.
L'étymologie de ce nom ancien, connu sous plusieurs variantes (Excalibor, Escalibor, Excaliber, Calibourne) n'est pas déterminée avec certitude, d'autant que « Excalibur » n'est pas le seul nom connu pour cette épée : par exemple, dans le conte Le Chevalier au papegau, elle s'appelle Chastiefol. Le mot « Excalibur » semble une altération savante d’éléments linguistiques issus du brittonique.»
I will here provocate because Devuan seems to like to play with names like dédale and escalibur having different writing in different languages. Why? Is Linux the most aggressiv defensor of the US American English now? Different from Microsoft, always respectfull for the other cultures...
(At installation's time, it is not possible to select "English" to install Debian or other like Debian with the real "locales" you need excepted you select a country where English is really the language... But you get a wrong time if you select "Irland" as European and all locales wrong if you select GB. Hm ...)
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#8 2025-08-09 21:01:08
- 32bits
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- Registered: 2025-07-13
- Posts: 42
Re: Small installations with Refracta Linux
I did modify a bit the installation, the size of the snapshot for 64 bits is now 1,111,936Ki . It is a good size to boot into the RAM (I actually am "in the ram" and not at the Hard Disk)...
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#9 2025-08-09 21:29:01
- golinux
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- Registered: 2016-11-25
- Posts: 3,535
Re: Small installations with Refracta Linux
@32bits . . . Thank you for your interesting thoughts and also the "French" refresher course (which I could still read).
You asked about why/how we have chosen our release names. One of our first developers was an astronomer. So we decided to pick our release names from the list of Minor Planet Names. The list is very long so we knew we wouldn't run out of options! There are names there from many cultures but it is true that we have gravitated to more European and Latin-based choices and that has become part of our identity . . .
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