Barebone installation

[freeworld]

I am new to this forum. However, i am not new to Linux. (I have intalled Ubuntu from a LiveCD)

I searched the internet and also this forum but i could got what i was looking for.

I want a total control of what i am installing. (Fedora 8 but not LiveCD)

The following are the steps i want to take.

1. Boot from the CD with the minimum required files for booting, partitioning and formatting. (I DONT'T want any other packages on this CD) (It would be nice to know which files does what job)

2. Install packages that i want individually (This will be on another CD)

Please help me with the installation.

Thanks

[markkuk]

Looks like Fedora isn't the right distro for you, try Gentoo (http://www.gentoo.org/) installation using the Minimal Installation CD (http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/handbook-x86.xml?part=1&chap=2#doc_chap2) method.

[forkbomb]

Well, I agree that Fedora may not be the best, but...

Fedora's installer does allow for a customized install - it's just a fairly time-consuming process of going through and unchecking packages you don't need (for instance if you don't need a GUI, uncheck all packages related to X, KDE, GNOME, etc. Somewhere in the installer there's an option to "customize now" or "customize later" with the former being the one you want to pick; the latter assumes you're going to do any package work you need after the default install is done. Unfortunately, there are some "meta-packages" that lump together some things you may need with some things you may not need, but you can at least go to the right direction if you choose to customize the packages the installer will install.

(I usually do minimal-type (for me, that means GUI-less) installs later in the release cycle of a given version because if you want to run an update after the install you'll need to download a bunch of stuff anyway.)

I've also heard that ArchLinux has a pretty good minimal installer.

[freeworld]

Thank you for the reply Markkuk,

The following is exactly what i wanted which i refer from the website link you gave:

The Gentoo Minimal Installation CD, a small, no-nonsense, bootable CD which sole purpose is to boot the system, prepare the networking and continue with the Gentoo installation.


However, it also says the following:

The Minimal Installation CD is called install-x86-minimal-2007.0-r1.iso and takes up only 57 MB of diskspace. You can use this Installation CD to install Gentoo, but only with a working Internet connection.


If i have all the required files on the CD, why i would need an *working* Internet connection?

This does not satisfy my purpose.

[markkuk]

The Gentoo minimal install CD doesn't contain "all the required files", only a minimal bootable Linux system just as the guide says. Everything that's installed to the final system is normally downloaded during the installation process. I guess it should be possible to copy the packages from a CD or other local storage, if you are an experienced Gentoo user and know exactly how the Portage (http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/handbook-x86.xml?part=3) package management system works.

[freeworld]

That is basically what i don't want - nothing to download. I have the DVD that contains all the files and packages. Besides i am not an experienced Gentoo user and don't know exactly how the Portage package management system works.

I think i have to give up fedora forums and look somewhere else for answers.