putting knoppix on a diet!

Hello and I would like to thank Mr. Knopper for showing the linux community what is possible. I very much enjoy booting my box with Knoppix and getting away from my "other" operating system.
I know that knoppix is a demonstration of how much software can be crammed on a cdr that will boot on about any pc without a hitch. I know people are working on smaller versions that will fit on a 3.5 inch cdr. I am a linux rookie and as I look through all the programs installed it looks like most of it can be omitted.
Knoppix-lite or whatever it should be called needs to have one program for each popular activity. It should be modeled as far as programs that are installed goes like Mac OSX. I am stating that Apple spent alot of effort to include enough software to actually do something right out of the box. Trim out all the fat and leave software that the average Joe will use.
I know I am on a soapbox but I think the linux universe needs to start contracting back together. There are too many distros. There are too many people re-inventing the wheel. My dream is of a linux that can boot and install like knoppix, the great looks and simplicity of Lycoris/Xandros/Lindow and free like debian.

[A. Jorge Garcia]

Hear ye, hear ye!

I second this motion!

I think that 2 official versions of KNOPPIX by Klaus would be great: the present cram all you can on one CD and auto-detect everything in sight and KNOPPIX-Lite, the other Linux.

With a lite version, including one of each app (ie: why have gnome apps and toys when KDE will suffice, etc.), we would have space left over to add configuration files (knoppix.sh, etc.) as well as some space to add our own favorite apps in a remaster without having to delete stuff!

[Tigren]

I've got a better idea. How about we stop asking other people to do all the work for us, and do it ourselves? If you need a certain app, remaster yourself. Klaus has enough to do and has done enough for us, why not start to contribute yourself? That way, you learn much more than having someone do it for you. Then, after that, teach other people how to do it. Open source hasnt gotten this far by having people do things for other people, it is people doing things for themselves. Want someone else to do the work? Wait for MS to patch their system.

/end

[Tech2k]

I think Knopper does an excellent job and it is good that he put a lot of choices on the cd but even with all the duplicate cd burning apps and irc clients and window managers and stuff people are always asking for more.I think Knoppix is near perfect as-is and it comes with all the tools needed to build what you want from it.I am all for getting more re-mastered mini cd's on the web and have made many of them myself but I really am not sure about even trying to host one of mine because of all the people that will say "why dont you remove this and add that...why did you do that...bla bla bla" so I for now will just stick with the howto's and try to help "teach a man to fish".

People tell me they cant remaster because all there drives are ntfs...thats tough...I feel sorry for them...not

Prople say they dont have room...well I made room.

People say they dont have the ram/swap...thats no excuse with the new contributed cloop on the 01-01-2003 iso

You could always download the "knoppix lite" from here ftp://ftp.es.debian.org./pub/miniKnoppix then copy it to the hdd...boot the Knoppix 2003 cd and GET TO WORK!!!

First of all, I made no mention of wanting anyone to do anything. I have been following the topic of creating a small iso of knoppix. I did thank Mr. Knopper for such a fine job. I did pose a question why a 240 meg distro is still so obese. Why all the junk? A visit to Mr. Tech2k's ironically spurred me to write my first post. I cannot believe all the stuff he is cramming in there.

Maudite

[Alextreme]

Hmm, this seems to look like it's going the way i am going now...

on my site i've started work on a KnopBase distro, 72 megs and everything is ripped from it (well, everything should be when i'm finished with it). The whole point is that distro's should get LESS bloated instead of more, and this fits quite nicely: have a very (VERY) small base distribution (just like debian-base), and just be able to install to hdd and autodetect the configuration.

Now, KnopBase only has the knoppix console and a minimum of tools. What would an average user want with it? not much. But together with an enhanced tasksel (or multisession cd's?) you should be able to build your own distro/iso without too much cruft. Want a Server distro? get base and add a server-track. want a hardware-recovery distro? get base and add a recovery-track. Want a very light desktop distro? well, you get my point (tasksel was made for this purpose, but somehow it never got used much...

Now this might not look like anything earth-shocking, but i'm looking into a way for people to easily create their own tracks (without remastering their cd, just burning multiple tracks). The added flexibility should prove very valuable, the 600+megs of spare room to do what you want will be a relief, the speed of creating a distro will be greater and the system requirements for remastering will be a whole lot less (i understand tech's point, but i also want to be able to build a custom iso on my laptop, and not only on my blazing fast workstation at home

Oh well, messing about like always, after KnopBase (gotta think up some new, creative names has been decimated i'll work out that multisession idea. anyone willing to give me a hand is more than welcome (idea's, playing around with it yourself, sarcasm, the regular...)

Cheers!
alex

[Tech2k]

[snip]
First of all, I made no mention of wanting anyone to do anything. I have been following the topic of creating a small iso of knoppix. I did thank Mr. Knopper for such a fine job. I did pose a question why a 240 meg distro is still so obese. Why all the junk? A visit to Mr. Tech2k's ironically spurred me to write my first post. I cannot believe all the stuff he is cramming in there. [snip]

Maudite,your right and I am sorry if my post seems harsh.The great thing about GNU/Linux is that everyone can work together and contribute to it.I get hammered with e-mails with everyone wanting my mini-cd and people wanting me to re-master for them and was not in the best "mood" when I posted that last night (should have done the 10 count before hitting "submit").I am on a dialup connection and could not host one of mine if I wanted to

People are needey and the old saying is too true about not being able to please most of the people most of the time.In fact I made one of the very first post on these forums "asking" for a "base install".Now Alextreme has done such a thing and is sharing it on his server.I hope that helps many of you and I take my hat off to him for doing this.

I had just gotten started in remastering when I wanted that base and have since made it along with many differiant mini-cd's.This is all just a hobby for me and I am a prefectionest whose work is far for perfect.It would just "kill" me if I ever get a mini cd on the net for download because I will have one made that I like better the very next day and feel like the one on the net sux.

I do it all the hard way removing one package at a time and hope someday that someone will write a script that will make it easy for people who dont have the time to do it like that.

Bottom Line is :

Tech2k is sorry for his previeous post on on this page and he thanks everyone who has posted howtos and even remastered cd's and also encourages anyone who has not yet tried their hand at remastering to give it a try.It's very addictiave and no rocket science is required.Believe me if I can manage to do it then anybody can because I am far far from being a guru.If I can help anyone fish please let me know.

[Alextreme]

Tech2k is sorry for his previeous post on on this page and he thanks everyone who has posted howtos and even remastered cd's and also encourages anyone who has not yet tried their hand at remastering to give it a try.It's very addictiave and no rocket science is required.Believe me if I can manage to do it then anybody can because I am far far from being a guru.If I can help anyone fish please let me know.

That took courage to post, and, well, posting at 3 am should be blocked anyways

Your dialup is however bad fortune, if you want to you (or anyone working on remastered cd's) can get some spare room on my server to host prototypes. It's slow, but as long as we arn't flooded it'll hold until some more advanced versions arise and there are more mirrors or until we've had our fun and we move on to other projects.

It's not the strength of few, but the qualities of many that make open source great...

(but then again, if you want to tweak your distros into perfection before making them public, be my guest and i'll stop whining

[eadz]

Tech2k is sorry for his previeous post on on this page and he thanks everyone who has posted howto<snip>

That took courage to post, and, well, posting at 3 am should be blocked anyways

from bottom of page : All times are GMT + 12 Hours

Your dialup is however bad fortune, if you want to you (or anyone working on remastered cd's) can get some spare room on my server to host prototypes. It's slow, but as long as we arn't flooded it'll hold until some more advanced versions arise and there are more mirrors or until we've had our fun and we move on to other projects.

hehehe yeah we are in opposite boats, i have decent bandwidth ( tho not enough for a full knoppix mirror ) but only 500MB left on my server ( www.knoppix.net/1U/ ). Your server is sooOOO slow.. I am getting about 1MB every 5 Minutes. I will test your KnopBase soon

I have sucessfully remastered a 195MB KDE3.1-rc6 version, that I plan to upload later today. package list : http://www.knoppix.net/packages.txt

also I have added a new page on the wiki :
http://www.knoppix.net/docs/index.ph...Customizations
... going to be quite a collection soon

[Alextreme]

hehehe yeah we are in opposite boats, i have decent bandwidth ( tho not enough for a full knoppix mirror ) but only 500MB left on my server ( www.knoppix.net/1U/ ). Your server is sooOOO slow.. I am getting about 1MB every 5 Minutes. I will test your KnopBase soon

I have sucessfully remastered a 195MB KDE3.1-rc6 version, that I plan to upload later today. package list : http://www.knoppix.net/packages.txt

also I have added a new page on the wiki :
http://www.knoppix.net/docs/index.ph...Customizations
... going to be quite a collection soon

Hehehe, tell me about it! (the virtue's of having broadband and a 180gig raid with a crappy 16kb/s upstream *sigh* )

Oh well, i'm just slicing of the cruft, getting more every hour (you were right with that 87 mb's, but that means that by the time you finally downloaded it, you can start over again: 57mb and falling. I'll put them online after i find out that they actually work, and i still need to get that latest knx-install. Are their major differences with the 12-12 version?)

Hmm, once i've got one of 40megs or less i could put them in my homedir on the uni... that or maybe i could send a slimey mail to my provider

Oh well, at least it keeps us all busy, the more the merrier

[Edit]
hmm, that really went bad. lost awk along the way, pomdipom...

[Edit #2]
Nice 1U server! You kiwi's remain a weird bunch