Re: Small Linux disto without X and with GCC

Douglas Mayne <doug@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Thu, 30 Apr 2009 11:18:56 -0700, Avatar Zondertau wrote:

I wish to install Linux on QEMU, but because my host system only has a
small disk and should contain images for several different
installations of operating systems for benchmarking I want the install
to be as small as possible.

My requirements are as follows:
- As small as possible
- I need GCC 4.x and make
- I need networking with DHCP (using QEMUs Realtek card) and would

<snip>

I do not have much experience with Linux, but I have quite some
experience with MINIX and with installing operating systems in
general.

Thanks in advance for any advice you may have.

This sounds like a difficult task for a newbie. It takes some experience
to know what is essential and what is not necessary. Dependancies are
another tricky complication. When it comes to cutting things which are
not necessary, you will stand a good chance of breaking a dependancy.

Advice: I think you're going to have to learn more about the specifics of
GNU/Linux before attempting this project. You may have to throw some
"actual" resources at the project.

It isn't that hard. The specs and directions are on numerous websites.

Personally, I would start with at least
8G disk space

That's absurd.

allocated to a VM (or real hardware) to start the project.
Read more below to see how I determined that 8G seems like the
"minimalist" choice in today's world.

Good grief! DSL is a _graphical_ minimalist distro and takes
only 126M when installed on a hard drive. And this guy doesn't
want X at all.

It depends a bity on your choice of distros. You want a modern kernel and
toolset, but no X. Others have recommended Slackware. I can't disagree
there. Slackware 12.2 meets your requirements for having a modern kernel
and modern development tools. It also comes "divided" in package groups.
When you have more experience, then you can fine tune the packages you
need. Slackware's main divisions are as follows (some groups omitted):

a: basic install
ap: basic apps

He doesn't need the vast majority of those.

d: developmental tools
l: some library dependancies (may be for X) n: network
x: X11
xap: X11 apps

He said he doesn't want X!!


I know that (a,ap) requires about 500M when decompressed. There are
very few packages in those groups which can be omitted.

That does it. YOU are the one who needs to put some "resources" into
learning linux.

You can build a linux OS without X or development tools that can
surf the web and view images and edit images and send and receive
email and access the usenet and view pdf documents, that takes
less than 50M of disk space.

How small of
target are you aiming for? For example, even with nearly no optimizations
and including (a,ap,d,l,x,xap), a recent 12.2 install uses about 4G
of disk space, (and includes OpenOffice.) 8G is roomy enough, but you
could cut it closer in a pinch. But, why? Disk space is cheap today. 1000G
for $99.

I run a recent slackware here. And it only uses about 300M of disk space.
One does not have to install all the garbage that comes with a distro.

Bombadil

.

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