The officially official Devuan Forum!

Altoid

Member

Registered: 2017-05-07

Posts: 1,581  

Thinning down the ascii installation

Hello:

While in the process of thinning down my live ASCII 2.0.0 *.iso project, I've been looking at what has been installed in the base VM I used and then by me.
I have tried to be as frugal as I can but I see there are a few applications I could probably remove.

I'm especially interested in removing those I will not use or do will not use, however small, as in the end, it all sums up.
All this within the strict boundaries imposed by the need to keep from breaking something ...   8^;

I ask this here because I do not entirely trust Synaptic's optional label.

A quick look at the 'size ordered' list Synaptic offers on 'Installed' packages, I see there are 895.
And some are quite hefty.

eg:

themes
Looking through the file manager and aside from the one labeled Default, there are 25 other folders in /usr/share/themes.

Opening obconf I realise that I don't like/need 90% of them and would eventually keep just the default option.
Depending on the size, maybe look for and install a different one as an alternative to default.

How can I get rid of all these themes and still keep the default one?

tools
One of them is the git package weighing in at a hefty 29.1 MB.
Do I need to have it if I will not use this live *.iso to compile anything?     

Same question would apply to g++-6 (24.5 MB), gcc-6 (25.7 MB) and libllvm3.9 (46.0 MB).

man pages
/usr/share/man has 36 folders but I can manage with english.
Which ones do I have to keep for english language only?

xserver-org-video-XXX drivers.
I use twin logacy NVidia cards, so I can manage with the nouveau drivers for the purpose of this live *.iso, so I removed the ones that would not drag the xserver-xorg-video-all  metapackage along with it.
ie:
xserver-xorg-video-intel
xserver-xorg-video-qxl

Anything else that could also be removed? 

Thanks in advance,

A.

HevyDevy

Member

Registered: 2019-09-06

Posts: 358  

Re: Thinning down the ascii installation

g++-6 depends on libc6, i would leave that alone or you will break your system. Same with libllvm3.9.

Git is always good to have imo. Ive many adhoc programs from talented programmers installed via git and can update them via git. Case in point, would be an upstream package that works with fairly simple deps like terminal file managers nnn or fff.

Last edited by HevyDevy (2019-11-27 13:58:11)

Altoid

Member

Registered: 2017-05-07

Posts: 1,581  

Re: Thinning down the ascii installation

Hello:

g++-6 depends on libc6 ...
Same with libllvm3.9.

OK

Git is always good to have imo. Ive many adhoc programs .,..

Yes ...

But this is a live emergency "as thin as possible" installation I am building.
Being live and non-persistent, I will not be updating anything.
It will reside on a USB drive inside my box, plugged into a USB socket on the motherboard and any updates/upgrades will be done (as needed) to the VM where it is coming from.
I am still on the fence wrt the convenience of having a full scale browser.

It's basically a quick go-to OS I can boot to through my BIOS w/F8 in case something goes awry. 

I had a CorePlus installation for a few years for the same purpose, it saved my installation more than once.

But one day I got a pair NVidia FX580 cards and additional monitors.
As TC does not officially support nouveau or have proprietary legacy NVidia drivers available in their repository, I am building this live *.iso which is much better than having to compile a TC kernel or the NVidia drivers.

That said, is it correct to assume that git can be removed?

Thanks for your input.

Cheers,

A.

HevyDevy

Member

Registered: 2019-09-06

Posts: 358  

Re: Thinning down the ascii installation

removing git should be ok unless their is some weird dependency issue with it on your install.

I take it you dont know much about git then? Definitely a package i would want on my live recovery usb providing i had an internet connection.

Altoid

Member

Registered: 2017-05-07

Posts: 1,581  

Re: Thinning down the ascii installation

Hello:

removing git should be ok unless ...

OK.
I have not seen any dependency for git.
Like I mentioned, this starts off with the ascii 2.0.0 VM hich I understand is as basic as can be.

... dont know much about git then?

Not really, never used it.

I am not a programmer nor do I know how to compile.
I'm still struggling with understanding basic scripts.

The live install provides me with basic tools to get the rig back up when/if I screw it up.
Practically all my installed applications are from the Devuan repository

Thanks a lot for your input.

Cheers,

A.

fsmithred

Administrator

Registered: 2016-11-25

Posts: 2,486  

Re: Thinning down the ascii installation

If you can devote 1 GB of that usb stick to the rescue system, you shouldn't need to work hard to trim it down. The live system is compressed in a squashfs.

Have you seen this guide for minimal install? It's for jessie, but the basic procedure is valid for any suite.
https://devuan.org/os/documentation/dev … al-install

A debootstrap install will give you the leanest possible base to start with. I prefer to start with an installer iso and un-check all the boxes except 'Standard system utilities' in the tasksel window. Then install what I want, usually excluding Recommends. You might have better luck with the command-line tools (apt or apt-get) instead of synaptic. Getting rid of synaptic will free up a lot of space.

I think you can remove the locales package to get rid of all the extra internationalization files.

Altoid

Member

Registered: 2017-05-07

Posts: 1,581  

Re: Thinning down the ascii installation

Hello:

If you can devote 1 GB of that usb stick ...

Sure, but the idea is to get the slimmest possible live *.iso.

Have you seen this guide for minimal install?

Yes, I recall trying to use it once for a different project but I had some issues with it.

This time I decided to start with the ascii VM downloaded from the Devuan repository and trim down.
Like you said, it's much easier than installing and it's coming along quite well.

... better luck with the command-line tools ...
... instead of synaptic.

Yes, I'm slowly getting to be more proficient in cmd line but still lacking.
Using apt/apt-get is one area where I'd rather stick to synaptic for the time being.

But I was going to uninstall synaptic before running the snapshot as I won't need it in the live system.

... remove the locales package ...

Good, I'll try that and see what happens.

Still need to know how to weed out the compilers and the themes I don't wan't.

Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance,

A.

fsmithred

Administrator

Registered: 2016-11-25

Posts: 2,486  

Re: Thinning down the ascii installation

If you're not going to be upgrading, you can delete the theme directories that you don't use. They're in /usr/share/themes.

Search for posts by Mr. Greenjeans in the Devuan Derivatives section. He's the most radical minimalist I can think of. That should give you some good ideas.

Ozi

Member

From: Melbourne, Australia

Registered: 2017-03-15

Posts: 105  

Website

Re: Thinning down the ascii installation

Just adding my 2 cents here.

ncdu is great little tool to find where all the large folders are, and you can use it to navigate as well.

If you don't need man pages or docs they can be minimised, i.e. replaced, not deleted.

How to reduce the size of Debian Live image
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=90629
search for "zerosize() "

You can also configure localepurge to remove unwanted locales and manpages when new packages are installed or updated.

And I agree with fsr that themes can be removed, but also fonts and images.

Swapping gui apps to cli apps is another good way.

Devuan Minimal Live Images
http://kalos.mine.nu/devuan/index.html

This might also give you some ideas!

Create a Custom Debian Live Environment (CD or USB)
https://willhaley.com/blog/custom-debia … vironment/

Last edited by Ozi (2019-11-27 22:01:05)

---

Star Live Linux Xfce/FB/OB/Jwm/i3 | DIY Live-Build example | Crowz

HevyDevy

Member

Registered: 2019-09-06

Posts: 358  

Re: Thinning down the ascii installation

the grml live disc is always a good one to have around, would be even better if based on devuan. Unfortunately it has migrated to systemd as init. But they do know how to put together a comprehensive minimal live recovery distro.

https://grml.org/

https://www.distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=grml

i post this up as maybe to give you some ideas on minimal live recovery linux distro you could have a look into and learn from.

Personally i believe you cant beat good old knoppix as a comprehensive solution, given the size of usb stcks these days, knoppix will make really good use of them and give you the persistence you need.

https://www.knopper.net/knoppix/index-en.html

Last edited by HevyDevy (2019-11-28 13:40:27)