Minimalist Base Distro

[wanderer]

just my thoughts

tinycore is a great system
and it has now developed to the point
where you can do pretty much whatever you need to
for example i use a new firefox vlc etc

however for puppy
I think pupngo is the way to go
it is compatible with the rest of puppy
and goingnuts has done unbelievable things with it

i think its more about structure than size
since if you keep adding stuff anything is going to get bigger

if goingnuts will link us to one of his minimal cores
and a basic gtk1 x sfs
and a newer firefox sfs
and a media player sfs

thats a good basic system
people can start using it everyday
and then add to it and develop it as they want

if its minimal enough to start
people can learn it well enough
to be able to make or suggest mods

some people will want to add a lot
and some people will want to stay minimal
its really about having a minimal system as a base
so you can actually build what you want

wanderer

[rufwoof]

You might be interested in this 77MB or so ISO https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4MbXu ... sp=sharing

IIRC after pupngo added in GUI, network and firmware it was up at around a comparable size.

The above as a barebone boot can run a portable firefox of the latest firefox version, but is otherwise spartan. A click on the LoadTopDog script in the HOME directory will pull down and add of the more usual puppy apps, abiword, gnumeric, seamonkey, mtpaint etc. Or you can otherwise just load whatever SFS's you want on top of that barebone first booted image.

Saving is via remastering initrd, more intended to just change the barebone image (best to keep SFS's outside of the remastered version and leave that lean).

The other nice feature is its PXE net booting support.After booting it can become a PXE server for other PC's to boot from (clients), in turn clients can become servers, so for instance you could PXE boot machine B from machine A and then shutdown machine A and power on to boot from machine B.

[technosaurus]

Having implemented a distro that fit X + jwm + a terminal in less than 1Mb, I can speak toward what is absolutely required.
For a functional desktop you need to mount /proc, /sys, /dev and /dev/pts.
these are just normal mount commands

To start a typical Xserver and window manager,
X &
while [ ! -S /tmp/.X11-unix/X0 ]; do
sleep 0.1;
done;
export DISPLAY=:0
jwm -display :0

to manage packages the minimal is already included in busybox:
wget, to download them and tar/deb/rpm to install them

...but most people will want a graphical package installer
For this, Slitaz currently has the best minimal setup which uses a busybox httpd server on localhost to manage all kinds of settings.
This can be combined with a choice of browsers
... for minimal use, I recommend netsurf-framebuffer since it can be used from both X and the framebuffer console (even wayland) ... there has been a lot of development lately and its now using https://github.com/svaarala/duktape]duktape for its javascript

with basic networking drivers added we are talking about <4Mb

[rufwoof]

Thanks Technosaurus, that's really helpful.

I was running a non layered pup the other day, ROX and desktop OK, but struggled with jwm. The guidance you've posted helps a lot. Thanks again.

[anikin]

wanderer,

I think the irony of jamesbond's post has been lost on you. Do you realize, he's mocking your stanza/line break style? To my taste and failing eyesight your posts are absolutely illegible and insulting.

[jamesbond]

Do you realize, he's mocking your stanza/line break style?

Moi? Mocking?
Non, non, mon ami.
Au contrarie,
as people often say
imitation is
the highest form of flattery

Actually I find that
this style of writing
can be quite enchanting,

and while some of you
may disagree with me
I can certainly feel
that in some unknown ways
it could make it easier
to get the point across.

[wanderer]

just for you anikin

i will change my style.

wanderer

[wanderer]

I am glad to see goingnuts and technosaurus reading this thread. When they were working on pupngo and tecnosaurus' gtk1 distro it was awesome.

To continue to to be annoying, I feel that the key is to keep the core an absolutely minimal (but complete) console system and have a basic gtk1 X sfs so that people don't have to use the command line to add and modify things. These components can remain basically unchanged over time so that everyone can become familiar with the system. The system will have to have the ability to create a save file, to load multiple sfs files and to load pets. Then components can be packaged individually to be added as needed and to make each component easier to maintain. Many of the pets and sfs files that have already been created probably can be used, including the ones that are used to make a woof puppy.

just my thoughts

wanderer

[mavrothal]

IDon't get me wrong.
It has a great design.
But "minimalist" means differently to different people.
And for me,
TC traded off the wrong stuff for size.

First time I moded tinycore-2 for the XO-1 back in 2010
and then again in 2013-4 helped mod tinycore-4 to boot all 4 XO models
to their full desktop with wifi connectivity
with a single 100MB stick.
You can say I have some experience with it
and I can say one thing.
Tinycore is not minimal.

Actually its app and dependencies are
the same as any other "mainstream" distro.
Besides a handful of fltk based apps developed for SDL/TC,
is using all the mainstraem big apps with all the dependencies.
They are squashed and they look smaller but is just the same.

It is small if you want it to do small things
and is big if you want it to do anything more than that.
AAMOF currently the tinycore-plus CD,
that can actually support wifi and some wider range of hardware
while having few more WM other than fltk, is 83MB.

Try to install firefox and you get an additional 60+Mb, video 20+ etc.
So, no special compiling,
no homemade apps,
no trimming and optimising of any kind.

Actually dCore is going one step further.
Is just picking up Debian packages and
dependencies, transforms them in tcz
extensions and loads them.

Don't get me wrong, I like TC
(as you may think considering the
effort I have put in it),
but for the right reasons.
And "minimal" is not one of them.

[wanderer]

Yes I agree mavrothal

Perhaps minimal here is a misleading term. I mean a minimal base that can be expanded by discrete increments into whatever someone wants. In this way each component can be developed and maintained individually and (relatively) easily. The size and complexity of the base however is important because if too much is woven together it becomes more difficult (and slower) to build and harder to disentangle things.

wanderer

[L18L]

just my thoughts

murga-linux.com/puppy is a great forum and
reading in Puppy Projects can be fun.

I could run tinycorel back in 2010.
That was when I was using eth0.

Now on wlan0
downloading that minimalist distro
is no problem at all.

But trying to get a wlan connection
I had spent some hours.
Wasted time.
No connection.

If you could make
just one tcz
a working wifi.tcz...
that would be great.

But I am dreaming now...

I think.

[wanderer]

just my thoughts

I have played around with tinycore enough to do what I want initially. I will study and modify the scripts this weekend to try to get it to combine all of the persistent files into single folder (and other fun things). The scripts are pretty well documented and straightforward.

I will also pull out the pupngo core and other stuff from goingnuts big iso and play around with this. As I have repeated (ad nauseum) I think pupngo is the way to go for a "minimal" puppy system.

I will be having a lot of fun. I will be using wired internet. Keep dreaming L18L.

wanderer

[goingnuts]

Unpolished, untested
without any warranty or support
whatsoever
a quick boil up of my favorite toy

for limited download periode
pupngo 2015 Core

Xvesa, XFree86
blinky, proview, pmvol, aumix
guiTAR, Emelfm, beaver, dillo
xsnap, proview, cdplayer
multiuser (experimental though)
firewall, wifi and wired
all drivers and a bit more

40Mb iso - is it minimalistic
Is it usable
Does it boot with 32Mb ram
Maybe - I don't know

Kind of getting to like
this way of writing
forum poetry looking posts
and easier to read on a smart phone...

[wanderer]

Thanks goingnuts

I'm downloading your link now. Words cannot express my appreciation for your contribution and participation. I will begin to play with it immediately.

However on another note, I have no problem writing the way anikin wants. He said it was hard for him to read and I was serious when I said that I changed my style of writing to make it easier for him.

Thanks all

wanderer

[cthisbear]

goingnuts

" Unpolished, untested :roll:
without any warranty or support 8)
whatsoever
a quick boil up of my favorite toy :lol: "

Nice to see people recharged and helping out.

A bit like Barry....I'm retired now.

Oops! got an idea here.
Oh! here's a download there.

Why this is such a great working forum.

Even ttuuxxx has made it back for his Classic Pup.

Chris.

[L18L]

a quick boil up of my favorite toy

for limited download periode
pupngo 2015 Core

There is a mis-match in file names of
pup_412pupngo.sfs
and pup_412.sfs

Has been boiled too quick
Anyhow, thanks for the link.

[goingnuts]

Sorry if you have problems with the ISO. I cant test or correct for the next 4 days.
Dont get derailed - the ISO just represent what can be delivered if you study "the big iso".

[L18L]

Sorry if you have problems with the ISO. I cant test or correct for the next 4 days.

goingnuts
No worries
Your iso works.

I had the iso on a stick with rcrsn51's isobooter.
After having removed

Code: Select all

pmedia=cd

from menu.lst
it is working.

Very nice.

[wanderer]

goingnuts

Your iso is working great. I'm playing with it now. It looks really cool. Thanks for making it.

wanderer

[Marv]

Just for a hoot... Frugal install in my Grub4Dos Experimental directory on a Fujitsu S6520 laptop (core 2 duo, intel 'cantiga' graphics, iwlwifi). Booted fine and came up running cleanly. Touchpad as mouse usable. No wireless with iwlwifi as of yet but I'll play with that a bit. Just a brief look yet but it reminds me of the olden dayz with pup and I mean that in a good way.

Thanks for thinking small