[Debian-eeepc-devel] Minimal X installation for 2Gb eeepc - what do I need?

[Trent W. Buck]

Chris G <cl at isbd.net> writes:

> I have just installed DebianEeePC on my Asus Eee Pc 2G Surf, it's all
> up and running.  I'd previously tried adding 'Desktop' to the software
> to be installed but it ran out of space so all I have installed at the
> moment is the base system.
>
> What's the minimum I can install now to get a working X?

aptitude install --without-recommends xserver-xorg-core

> All I really want is to run Firefox and a terminal window

Then also install, say, iceweasel and xvt.

> I'm even happy going for a non-mainstream window manager if that's
> more economical on space, I used fvwm for many years for example.

You don't need to run a window manager at all (and you won't get one
with the above).  tinywm is probably the smallest, otherwise looks for a
package that Provides: x-window-manager with a relatively small
Installed-Size and a minimal number of additional dependencies.

                                 * * *

You can also get significant savings by adopting emdebian grip 2.0
(which removes localization and documentation), or by using live-helper
on a "real" machine to generate a LZMA-compressed OS image.  For
example, I generated an Ubuntu 10.04 kiosk image for a customer, running
X, mplayer and surf (webkit) in 180MB.  Uncompressed, it would've
required 470MB.  Of course, such techniques require additional pissing
about, which you might not care to go to.