Command-line Fedora

[tomoir_III]

Hey, everybody.

I've got this old, and I mean really old laptop that I want to reincarnate. I managed to install Puppy Linux and Red Hat 6.2 successfully, but Puppy Linux was mind-numbingly slow and Red Hat was pretty sluggish.

But what I want to know is whether it is possible to install Fedora Core 6 but only the command-line. Is it as easy as unselecting Gnome and KDE in the package choices during the installation?

If a command-line Fedora is not possible, then could anybody recommend an alternative Red Hat based command-line capable distro?

Thanks!

[Time2IPL]

Hey, everybody.
But what I want to know is whether it is possible to install Fedora Core 6 but only the command-line. Is it as easy as unselecting Gnome and KDE in the package choices during the installation?


At the "boot:" prompt try "linux text"; the installer should eventually get around to giving you a menu with "server", "workstation" and "custom". "Server" should give you what you're after.

Alternatively you can install the OS && then change /etc/inittab so that the OS only boots to runlevel 3 (not 5); that'll keep gdm from ever starting up (you can start the X server after you log in by using 'startx' ("startx > /dev/null 2>&1 &") or by running 'xinit' directly).

After you have the OS installed, you can save a lot of resources by shutting off anything you don't use via chkconfig && ntsysv; regardless of how I install RHL or Fedora, I always find that there are a LOT of "extra" services running that I don't want and don't need.

My lab LAN still has quite a few PII 233s w/256Mb RAM running command line only variants of RedHat && Fedora; I keep machines like that in service & use them for DNS servers, mail servers, etc.; with SSH && X setup properly, I can run an X app that renders on a remote host's X server whether X is running on that machine or not.

Not sure how dated your laptop is in comparison; I'm not ready to retire any of the 233's or above any time soon (unless they bite the dust). For what it's worth, my wife uses a PIII 450 w/ 384Mb RAM w FC6 on it && Gnome as her "regular machine"; it's surprisingly fast. For anything of any complexity she starts up a VNC session or runs X apps remotely (with them rendering on her local server).

Good luck

Larry