Over in the Ideas topic I asked for a base release iso that matches the full iso when each new release is posted to the mirrors. That way updating our customizations are a matter of adding to the base only. I am guessing a base iso would be very small but I don't yet know how small is the smallest it can be. I thought of this because although there are many small distros, they all seem to be based on older KNOPPIX versions. I need the latest. And when the next version of KNOPPIX comes out (3. I will have to start over with the full version and experiment to reduce its size. It will be so much nicer to have a base iso release to build from.

If you like this idea, go over to Ideas and add to the thread any ideas you have in support of base release or just show support by your vote.

In the mean time, since I have my remaster small enough to fit on CDRW I can start working on configuration. I'm after a kiosk like environment that can run on many different laptops. I would like to be able to get the size down to miniCDR or smaller since I will have to burn a couple hundred. I started the query-diff. I have the base-line for 3.6 but when I listed my remaster, since all my packages are marked hold the diff caught every line. I have to brush up on sed or something else to strip parts of each line. Also, I want to pull a few more packages and get the size right at 500mb. I expect to have that list later today no problem. We don't have to wait for a diff you know. If I can send my remaster dpkg list output to you, you can see the status of every package. The best of course would be if I can figure out how to automate generating a kicklist from the original and remaster lists.

My first attempt at kiosk was going to use kde and konqueror. Fabianx has built in a kiosk desktop mode that uses mozilla. If that works out I won't need any of the kde stuff and I could remove it. Before I do, did you want kde on your USB? I can avoid removing it for now to get a 500mb or just go to town and get the smallest I am able to fit on a miniCDR.