[SOLVED] Preparing a mini-install from working F16 (gnome) install

[Crowhill]

Dear reader,

there's something that's been puzzling me for a long time. It's about a minimal installation of a Linux system on my laptop. There have been many posts on such installations but they all seem to be either too general or too specific. My question, I thinik, is somewhere in between and I hope you find the time to answer it.

The introduction to the question is this:

On my laptop (Lenovo X220) I have a dualboot W7 / F16. I haven't been on the W7 partition in like half a year. Now, I want to use the space W7 is taking away from me. I'd like to do it by a minimal installation since Gnome is making my Openbox feel "dirty". I only need the following software frequently:

firefox, vim, roxterm, gcc, gnuplot, octave, openssh, epdfview, pdftk, "some image viewer like 'eog' but definitely Gnome-unrelated (I still have to find it)", ffmpeg, wicd, wget, lm-sensors, conky, feh, openbox, vcl

The rest is bloatware.

The actual question is this:

Since I'm having a running installation of F16 with Gnome, how can I determine ALL the packages needed to get the hardware running like it is currently? Which firmware do I need to install manually? How about drivers? Then, there are the battery thresholds that F16 is taking over from the W7 installation; how do I do that without W7? Where are these settings? Overall, I mean to conclude, what's happening during the F16 installation? Which packages are needed for this detecting business to take place? If I do a minimal install I want as few packages as possible (see the list above to get a taste of what I really need), as much stability as I have now, and all that by doing a tiny amount of work.

I'm very much looking forward to getting some answers,
thanks a bunch in advance,
cheers,

Crowhill

[george_toolan]

Good luck with that ;-)

You could start with a Fedora 16 live cd with XFCE or LXDE and then install the additional software that you need.

But a "minimal" installation would require a lot of work.

[sea]

Originally Posted by george_toolan

But a "minimal" installation would require a lot of work.

True that, working for my personal minimal install for over 6 months now, and it isnt working as i'd like it just yet...

You can download the DvD-Install image, install the minimal (instead of desktop) choice and start from there, have fun

[Crowhill]

Thanks for the replies!

How good (or bad) is the hardware detection of the "mini" version? Is there something like a "server" version that takes care of the hardware detection but still just gives you barebones?

Thanks again!

Best,

Crowhill

[sea]

What hardware detection? ^^
You gotta know what you're installing, this meaning, which drivers (from the repo or outside), which tools etc.

You may however, change the minimal selection before you install its packages, this allows you to select additional packages from the repo, which can (or not) save some hazzle.

Hope this helps

[Crowhill]

I guess then, the following "really" is my question:

Given that I have a working F16-Gnome version installed, how can I locate (determine) the firmware that was added to the packages of the "mini" version?

Best,
Crowhill

---------- Post added at 08:47 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:45 AM ----------

Also, in the meantime I found a "hardware-support" collection of packages in the "yum add software" thingee. How can I see the actual packages contained in this collection?

[sea]

* yum groupinfo "hardware-support
If you're not afraid of bash scripts, have a look to the scripts in my signature, and and even closer look to the files in ./collection/set and/or ./system/lists

EDIT:
Important hint, the script is designed to be run AFTER successfull minimal installation, but BEFORE rebooting !
goto alt+ctrl+f2, chroot /mnt/sysimage
then mount the partitions where my scripts were installed, run /path/to/scripts, and head for the setup wizzard, easy doing

[Crowhill]

Sweet! It may well be this is all I need. Will dig deeper.

[glennzo]

I built my server from a Fedora 16 minimal install. 205 packages were installed initially. Took about 5 minutes. I've added what I need as I've progressed and am now up to 495 packages. Works well for the intended purpose.

[Crowhill]

Thanks a lot for all your replies. I feel, I know what to do next so that I'm going to mark this thread as "Solved" (if that's possible, somewhere, somehow). I'll be back if I have some specific followup questions.

Cheers,
Crowhill