CentOS - May 2005 - Re: Mini-centOS -- static libraries, XFCE

kenkensmile at netscape.net wrote:
> However, centOS is a bit heavy to run on my notebook (P III 1G, 256MB
> RAM). I need gnome, firefox, openoffice, realplayer, gaim, acrobat and
> thunderbird on my notebook, but if I install all of them (plus base-
> system), my notebook becomes very slow. I wish I could have a lighter
> version of centOS for notebooks and old desktops.
CentOS isn't the issue, but your application selection.  In fact, I have a
4 year-old Toshiba Satellitte 2805-S402 with a P3-850MHz, 256MB of RAM
that runs Fedora Core 3 just fine -- with _full_ GNOME.

OpenOffice 1.x, Acrobat and RealPlayer have their own, statically-linked
widget-sets.  I'm sure that's massively bloating the memory footprint.

Consider switching to OpenOffice 2.0 [betas] (natively GTK+ now I believe?),
HelixPlayer (GTK+ based) with the RealPlayer libraries added
(HelixPlayer is from Real, and the new RealPlayer is Helix+non-free libs).

As far as Acrobat 7, I'm not sure, but I think it's still statically
linked Motif.
But that leaves only one application that is not native.  I don't leave
Acrobat
running, which really saves me.

As far as GNOME, you do _not_ need to run GNOME session with nautilus
and metacity (GNOME 2.x file/window) to get full GNOME compatibility.
Run XFCE session with xffm and xfwm (XFCE file/window) and you'll see
your footprint go way down.

Shortly after Fedora Core 2 (what I call "RHCL4.0") was introduced
with
XFCE as a new, 3rd session/file/window standard option, which RHEL4
inherited its selection, I remember Alan Cox boasting he was running
it on a WinChip2 225MHz with only 48MB of RAM.  XFCE is GTK+ based,
but much, much lighter than a full GNOME environment, while being 100%
GNOME compatible at the same time.


Johnny Hughes wrote:
>It won't get much faster if you choose those products :)
As I mentioned, OpenOffice 2.0 and the new HelixPlayer are far more
"native"
in their libraries.  OpenOffice 2.0 is in beta and HelixPlayer should (?) be
included
in FC3/RHEL4, and it's simply a matter of adding the non-free libraries
which
turns it into RealPlayer.  I have to give Real a "thank you" for doing
everything
they could to make their offering to the community.
>There is XFCE-4.2 that you could install instead of GNOME or KDE
Well, you typically want to install XFCE _along_with_ GNOME, so it can use
GNOME components when necessary.  But just have the user (as well as system
for new users) default to XFCE.  XFCE takes some getting used to, but it's
definitely worth it for older systems.
>If you want to change permanently ... do:
>switchdesk XFCE
That's the 1 command I make sure I let _everyone_ know when they are
installing FC/RHEL on any new system and memory is going to be limited.
I really tire of the "Red Hat is bloated" comments, especially as of
FC2+.
Yes, you _do_ need a i686 class (PPro, K6, M2), but that's more to do
NPTL and other details than "bloat."

You can make Fedora-based distros as "lean" or as "bloated"
as you want.
And it's only going to get better in the future with more Fedora development
and a YUM-integrated installer.
> You can get a minimum install by doing a minimal install from
> anaconda ...
Yet another excellent recommendation that I see people forget about.
600MB of everything you should need to get using the system.
In actuality, there is also a really, really "lean" 90MB install that
you can
do from any FC2+ distro, but not from Anaconda.
> then doing:
> yum groupinstall XFCE-4.2 "X Window System"
"Office/Productivity"
> then install the individual things you want via yum...
> I'll do that on a test box and tell you how much space it is :)
With that said, I've seen no less than 5 YUM GUIs.
What does everyone like?



--
Bryan J. Smith   mailto:b.j.smith at ieee.org

On Fri, 2005-05-13 at 08:03 -0500, Bryan J. Smith  wrote:

<snip>
> Consider switching to OpenOffice 2.0 [betas] (natively GTK+ now I
believe?),
> HelixPlayer (GTK+ based) with the RealPlayer libraries added
> (HelixPlayer is from Real, and the new RealPlayer is Helix+non-free libs).
> 
I plan to build a CentOS-Plus version of OpenOffice 2.0 when it is
released (didn't want to do it as a beta) :)
> Johnny Hughes wrote:
> >It won't get much faster if you choose those products :)
> 
> As I mentioned, OpenOffice 2.0 and the new HelixPlayer are far more
"native"
> in their libraries.  OpenOffice 2.0 is in beta and HelixPlayer should (?)
be included
> in FC3/RHEL4, and it's simply a matter of adding the non-free libraries
which
> turns it into RealPlayer.  I have to give Real a "thank you" for
doing everything
> they could to make their offering to the community.
> 
> >There is XFCE-4.2 that you could install instead of GNOME or KDE
> 
> Well, you typically want to install XFCE _along_with_ GNOME, so it can use
> GNOME components when necessary.  But just have the user (as well as system
> for new users) default to XFCE.  XFCE takes some getting used to, but
it's
> definitely worth it for older systems.
> 
Yum installs a lot of the GNOME and gtk2 stuff as dependencies by just
installing the "XFCE-4.2" group.  If harddisc space is available, a
full
GNOME install and switchdesk XFCE is fine too.

<snip>
> With that said, I've seen no less than 5 YUM GUIs.
> What does everyone like?
I haven't found one that I like, but yum groupinstall is cool from the
CLI :)

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