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dev_squid
02-17-2010, 12:46 AM
Alright. Here we go...

The other day, I was referred to this neat little command-line Unix simulator called Cygwin. To put it lightly, I fell in love. I found Knoppix, and from what I can tell, it's a viable OS once I strip off the KDE desktop environment to make it 'old-school'. I'm admittedly not a Linux uber-guru by any means, but I'm willing to learn as much as I can about interfacing via Bash. Anyway...

The applications (i.e. whatever's in Synaptic Package Manager) that I currently have installed are the default applications that came with Knoppix 6.2.1 CD image. I used the application provided by pendrivelinux to write the iso to my USB stick and make it bootable. I can successfully boot and run Knoppix Linux 6.2.1. No problems.

I already have a 5gb unformatted partition on my HD that I'm saving to install Knoppix in. I figured that's enough for a second OS. I'm probably going to be using it as a software development environment. Call me crazy, but I just LOVE the look and feel of a Linux CLI.

Anyway, let's say, for the sake of argument, that I know nothing about Linux. What applications are the BARE NECESSITIES for what I want? I'm not confident enough to go blindly uninstalling what I -think- is unnecessary. There ARE a few things I'd like to keep, though...

I want to have NASM as my assembler, GCC for compiling C and C++ (not including libraries that I can't actually test in a CLI environment, like SDL), Vim as my file editor, irssi as my IRC client, Lynx as my browser. I'm pretty sure that's it. If there's anything else that I might need, I think I can figure out how to find and install it through Synaptic. Err...a command-line-friendly MP3 player would be nifty, as well.

If there's anything else you could suggest to enhance the whole experience, let me know. Keep in mind, this is going to be a home/personal OS. I won't need to set up servers, I won't have multiple accounts, so I honestly don't care about administrative tools. Anything that I can shave off of this to make this my at-home-hacker environment, I'd like to know. How do I get from Point A to Point B?

Thanks! Any help is greatly appreciated.
-Brandon

I've already tried ttylinux, but it just didn't have that "feel". Call me crazy.

EDIT: If you want, I can provide you with a list of everything listed in Synaptic. Thanks again. :)

Capricorny
02-17-2010, 01:31 AM
First, you don't really need external tools to administer Knoppix 6.2.1. Just use the main menu, Preferences/Install Knoppix to flash disk option to write it to USB FAT32 formatted removable media (USB harddisk goes just fine). I have seen some error reports from people doing it other ways.

Second, for your use, I would recommend starting from the 6.2.1 DVD. You risk a few more version conflicts when installing new packages, but most of the development packages you need, will already be there. Defining bare necessities has proved to be impossible for me.

Third, for development, use a 16GB USB stick. You'll need it. Set up a 4GB persistent image on it. It will get filled up sooner than you like. Also, make sure you have at least 16GB FAT32 hard disk space to write the KNOPPIX system from USB into for your later daily use.

Fourth, have a second USB stick as a backup, and a removable USB hard drive (old 2.5" drives mounted in cabinets are just fine) for backup and storage.

When you are done setting up programs and making customizations on the USB stick, boot Knoppix from the backup, and write the whole KNOPPIX system to disk. After that, you start from an USB stick, but it runs like an ordinary full Linux distro install, just with the 4GB space limitations on persistent storage. But that doesn't have to matter too much, as you can use as much ordinary disk space as you like.

I have a USB stick setup with two extra persistent images set up, giving me close to 12 GB altogether for customizations. One of them I use for Java, Mono, Eclipse, Groovy, Grails etc, keeping that stuff outside the "Knoppix domain".

Good luck!

dev_squid
02-17-2010, 01:41 AM
I'm actually not going to use the flash drive again after I install it, so that doesn't really help.
As for the 'external tools', I was talking about 'external tools' that I used to write the images to the USB stick in WINDOWS, not Knoppix. And that wasn't really my question, I was just trying to set up my post. :|

BTW: I really only make and test lightweight binaries. It's nothing I need tons of space for.

Capricorny
02-17-2010, 02:01 AM
I wrote that you did not really need other tools, not that they could not be used - the standard way to get Knoppix to disk, is to write the ISO image to CD/DVD, boot from that, and transfer to USB stick. But it's of course not the only one.
Not using the stick again after having set up Knoppix on the HD seems like a very bad idea to me. But I've only worked with Knoppix for a few years.
Perhaps you should install some tools and do some actual development before you judge about how many tons of space you need. I have been constantly running out of space with smaller installations, and all my development so far has been extremely lightweight as far as my own code goes. But all the tools are not lightweight.

dev_squid
02-17-2010, 03:42 AM
I don't see why installing it to my hard drive is any different than installing it to my USB stick. As for how much memory I need, if I even ran out, I'd simply have to extend the partition by a bit. But I think this is a little out of the scope of the topic of this thread.

A variety of input would be nice.
-Brandon

Capricorny
02-17-2010, 11:32 AM
I don't see why installing it to my hard drive is any different than installing it to my USB stick. As for how much memory I need, if I even ran out, I'd simply have to extend the partition by a bit. But I think this is a little out of the scope of the topic of this thread.

A variety of input would be nice.
-Brandon
Your response follows a quite usual pattern here: You want to use Knoppix, ask for advice, but then turn down tried-n'true tips when they run against your inclination. You have almost no experience with Knoppix, still you want to use it differently from the established, efficient, use pattern. That may well work for you, but I think it would help you if you could bring yourself to imagine that some people, like me, don't advise against what you want to try because we don't know about it, but because we have tried similar things ourselves, and ended up with less that excellent results. That too, may well have changed now. Good luck.