Updated Fedora 8 Xfce Spin

RahulSundaram · #1 3rd January 2008, 06:42 PM

RFC: Fedora Xfce Spin
Fedora Xfce Spin is a variant of Fedora with a focus on low resource systems and in particular Xfce users. It is a live cd image that you can optionally install to hard disk or USB images.

I have a kickstart file available at

http://sundaram.fedorapeople.org/liv...dora-8-xfce.ks

This is meant for Fedora 8. You can either take a look at the list of packages or try creating a local image

# yum install livecd-tools
# livecd-creator --config <kickstart file>

You might want to use a local mirror and --cache option to livecd-creator. Creating local customizations is trivial. Comments, fixes and suggestions, welcome. My plan is to create a initial image for Fedora 8 and then create incremental revisions with a solid release as part of Fedora 9

JN4OldSchool · #2 3rd January 2008, 06:52 PM

Looks really good Rahul. I especially like the inclusion of abiword and the packages in that group. I just spun an Xfce version myself for personal use that is very similiar. I did not include Firefox, opting for Dillo, but as you are planning this as a release I agree with your choice.

Thank you for this, there are a few of us Xfce users who appreciate this effort and hopefully we will entice a few more to try this DE.

leigh123linux · #3 3rd January 2008, 10:58 PM

I think its a great idea

( I used your default kickstart with no mod's on x86_64 and the iso is around 745Mb )

I think it should also include " totem-mozplugin " and " wget " !

JN4OldSchool · #4 3rd January 2008, 11:01 PM

I started running the kickstart but my Revisor locked up in the download process. I dont know why it hung but I will try it again soon.

leigh123linux · #5 3rd January 2008, 11:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JN4OldSchool

I started running the kickstart but my Revisor locked up in the download process. I dont know why it hung but I will try it again soon.

Why dont you use livecd-creator ? ( you need selinux enabled on the host machine ! )

Code:

su
yum install livecd-tools
wget http://sundaram.fedorapeople.org/livecd-fedora-8-xfce.ks -O /usr/share/livecd-tools/livecd-fedora-8-xfce.ks
livecd-creator --config=/usr/share/livecd-tools/livecd-fedora-8-xfce.ks

RahulSundaram · #6 3rd January 2008, 11:12 PM

Hi,

Ugh. I actually wanted it be CD-size even on x86_64 with multi-lib. I have asked the Xfce maintainer in Fedora to take a look. We probably need to be pruning some packages off the list or finding some light weight alternatives to existing packages. I have added totem-mozplugin and made other minor adjustments now. wget was already included. Thanks for the feedback.

JN4OldSchool, I would recommend using just livecd-creator in the command line for testing this out. It is very simple and straight forward.

Rahul

JN4OldSchool · #7 3rd January 2008, 11:18 PM

ok, thanks leigh. Giving it a run now.

leigh123linux · #8 3rd January 2008, 11:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RahulSundaram

Hi,

Ugh. I actually wanted it be CD-size even on x86_64 with multi-lib. I have asked the Xfce maintainer in Fedora to take a look. We probably need to be pruning some packages off the list or finding some light weight alternatives to existing packages. I have added totem-mozplugin and made other minor adjustments now. wget was already included. Thanks for the feedback.

JN4OldSchool, I would recommend using just livecd-creator in the command line for testing this out. It is very simple and straight forward.

Rahul

You could prune firefox.i386 from the 64 bit livecd and it will probably then fit on a CD

( firefox.i386 drags in around 45Mb + in deps I believe )

Seve · #9 4th January 2008, 01:16 AM

Hello Rahul:

Just to confirm Leigh's findings
746.6 MB (782876672 bytes)

without any changes to your kickstart file

Here, I had to burn to a DVD to try it out.

Seve

RahulSundaram · #10 4th January 2008, 01:24 AM

Hi,

I have removed some packages to cut down the size. So try it out again. Btw, you don't need a DVD if you have a USB disk. you can transfer the image to USB using

# livecd-iso-to-disk <imagename> <devicename>

Then boot from the USB disk. Very handy for testing and regular installation.

Seve · #11 4th January 2008, 01:38 AM

Hello Rahul:
Thanks for the info, much appreciated.

Back on the DVD, just to let you know that it booted and ran really well here.
And also, the original kickstart installed 1,014 packages on my
64bit F8 2.6.23.9-85.fc8

Seve

Thetargos · #12 4th January 2008, 07:49 AM

Rahul, this is such a GREAT idea. Fedora was laging a bit in the support of XFCE, an excellent solution/alternative for resource tight systems (I've seen Fedora+XFCE run on machines with as low as 128Mb RAM

), this will be an interesting spin, for sure!

Seve · #13 4th January 2008, 07:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thetargos

Rahul, this is such a GREAT idea. Fedora was laging a bit in the support of XFCE, an excellent solution/alternative for resource tight systems (I've seen Fedora+XFCE run on machines with as low as 128Mb RAM

), this will be an interesting spin, for sure!

Hello:
I agree

It runs so well .... it's kind of scary

Seve

Thetargos · #14 4th January 2008, 08:03 AM

Hi:

Indeed it is scary, Seve!

Then again, I once saw a machine with FC2 (first 2.6.x based kernel Fedora) run on a laptop with only 64 megs of RAM with IceWM... and it was actually snappy and useful. Firefox ate all the RAM on that machine, though.

leigh123linux · #15 4th January 2008, 09:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RahulSundaram

Hi,

I have removed some packages to cut down the size. So try it out again. Btw, you don't need a DVD if you have a USB disk. you can transfer the image to USB using

# livecd-iso-to-disk <imagename> <devicename>

Then boot from the USB disk. Very handy for testing and regular installation.

Ok I ran your new kickstart with a little mod and the iso is 702.8Mb for 64 bit

Code:

# Fedora Xfce Spin 
# (c) Rahul Sundaram <sundaram@fedoraproject.org>
# GPlv2 or later


repo --name=fedora8 --baseurl=http://fedora.tu-chemnitz.de/pub/linux/fedora/linux/releases/8/Everything/x86_64/os/ 
repo --name=fedora8updates --baseurl=http://fedora.tu-chemnitz.de/pub/linux/fedora/linux/updates/8/x86_64/


%include livecd-fedora-8-base-desktop.ks

%packages

firefox.x86_64
NetworkManager-vpnc
NetworkManager-openvpn
NetworkManager-gnome

# we don't include @office so that we don't get OOo.  but some nice bits

abiword
gnumeric
evince
gimp
inkscape
#planner
#dia
galculator

# development 
#geany

# games. Which ones are light and good?


# More Desktop stuff 

xdg-user-dirs
@java
totem
totem-mozplugin
pidgin
claws-mail
# where is xfburn?
brasero
xchat-gnome
# is battery mon sufficient? This depends on xfce-xfapplet 
#gnome-power-manager
drivel
#exaile
quodlibet
gftp
mirage


# Command line

powertop
wget
irssi
mutt

# xfce packages

# xfce packages
@xfce-desktop


gtk-xfce-engine
orage
xarchiver

#this isn't packaged yet
#xfmedia

xfce4-taskmanager
thunar-volman
thunar-archive-plugin
thunar-media-tags-plugin
xfce4-battery-plugin
xfce4-clipman-plugin
xfce4-cpugraph-plugin
xfce4-datetime-plugin
xfce4-dict-plugin
xfce4-diskperf-plugin
xfce4-eyes-plugin
xfce4-fsguard-plugin
xfce4-genmon-plugin
xfce4-minicmd-plugin
xfce4-mount-plugin
xfce4-netload-plugin
xfce4-notes-plugin
xfce4-places-plugin
xfce4-quicklauncher-plugin
xfce4-screenshooter-plugin
xfce4-sensors-plugin
xfce4-smartbookmark-plugin
xfce4-systemload-plugin
xfce4-timer-plugin
xfce4-volstatus-icon
xfce4-verve-plugin
xfce4-wavelan-plugin
xfce4-weather-plugin
xfce4-websearch-plugin

# this one a compatibility layer for GNOME applets and depends on it
#xfce4-xfapplet-plugin

xfce4-xkb-plugin
xfwm4-themes



# language support

@afrikaans-support
@albanian-support
@arabic-support
@armenian-support
@assamese-support
@basque-support
@belarusian-support
@bengali-support
@bhutanese-support
@bosnian-support
@brazilian-support
@breton-support
@british-support
@bulgarian-support
@catalan-support
@chinese-support
@croatian-support
@czech-support
@danish-support
@dutch-support
@estonian-support
@ethiopic-support
@faeroese-support
@filipino-support
@finnish-support
@french-support
@gaelic-support
@galician-support
@georgian-support
@german-support
@greek-support
@gujarati-support
@hebrew-support
@hindi-support
@hungarian-support
@icelandic-support
@indonesian-support
@inuktitut-support
@irish-support
@italian-support
@japanese-support
@kannada-support
@khmer-support
@korean-support
@lao-support
@latvian-support
@lithuanian-support
@malay-support
@malayalam-support
@maori-support
@marathi-support
@northern-sotho-support
@norwegian-support
@oriya-support
@persian-support
@polish-support
@portuguese-support
@punjabi-support
@romanian-support
@russian-support
@samoan-support
@serbian-support
@sinhala-support
@slovak-support
@slovenian-support
@somali-support
@southern-ndebele-support
@southern-sotho-support
@spanish-support
@swati-support
@swedish-support
@tagalog-support
@tamil-support
@telugu-support
@thai-support
@tibetan-support
@tonga-support
@tsonga-support
@tswana-support
@turkish-support
@ukrainian-support
@urdu-support
@venda-support
@vietnamese-support
@welsh-support
@xhosa-support
@zulu-support

# dictionaries are big
-aspell-*
-man-pages-*
-scim-tables-*
-wqy-bitmap-fonts
-dejavu-fonts-experimental
-dejavu-fonts

# more fun with space saving 
-scim-lang-chinese
scim-chewing
scim-pinyin
-gimp-help

# save some space
-autofs
-nss_db
-sendmail

#system-config-printer does this better
-xfprint


%end

%post
cat >> /etc/rc.d/init.d/fedora-live << EOF
# disable screensaver locking
gconftool-2 --direct --config-source=xml:readwrite:/etc/gconf/gconf.xml.defaults -s -t bool /apps/gnome-screensaver/lock_enabled false >/dev/null
# set up timed auto-login for after 60 seconds
sed -i -e 's/\[daemon\]/[daemon]\nTimedLoginEnable=true\nTimedLogin=fedora\nTimedLoginDelay=60/' /etc/gdm/custom.conf
if [ -e /usr/share/icons/hicolor/96x96/apps/fedora-logo-icon.png ] ; then
    cp /usr/share/icons/hicolor/96x96/apps/fedora-logo-icon.png /home/fedora/.face
    chown fedora:fedora /home/fedora/.face
    # TODO: would be nice to get e-d-s to pick this one up too... but how?
fi


# xfce configuration

# create /etc/sysconfig/desktop (needed for installation)

#cat > /etc/sysconfig/desktop <<EOF
#DESKTOP="XFCE"
#EOF

# make fedora user use Xfce

echo "startxfce4" > /home/fedora/.Xclients
chmod a+x /home/fedora/.Xclients
chown fedora:fedora /home/fedora/.Xclients
EOF



%end