Hi! and a warm hello to the CentOS team. I have a work for which I need some solution from you. Actually we have some thin clients where we want to put a light weight Linux distro for users. As of now I have tested with Fedora and Ubuntu distros but the issue I am finding is they are not able to fit in my requirement of flash based hard disk consumption (~500 MB). although a distro named TinyME which is a custom version of PCLinuxOS seems to be very near and with a little customization by putting XFCE it was around 600MB. but it is not well known and supported. I have also tried CentOS 5 and 4 (with bare minimum installation) but it is coming little heavy, however later on I came across a link (http://www.owlriver.com/tips/tiny-centos/) providing a kickstart file for a bare minimum CentOS 4. It gave me CentOS 4 which ate around 400 MB. However it was little near to my specs but without a usable Desktop (KDE and Gnome seems to be out of question because of heavy size). Now I need some suggestions from you to make it work on my system. I need a light version of CentOS (I am very much particular about OS identity and the final product will retain the parent OS identity and quality). Can you provide me some kickstart file or something else which can help me in making a final thing. I do not need eye candies/OpenOffice/Adobe flash/Games/Media Player etc. Just a usable desktop, a lightweight file browser and desktop with icons (may be XFE). Redundant locale, man, doc, /lib/modules etc. will be removed as well. Karan told me that he heard someone installing CentOS 5 in 500MB. Can anyone point me in right direction. any kickstart file or iso will be of great help. At my personal end I would prefer to put CentOS (As it is based on RHEL and has an excellent community around). Looking forward to hear from you. Thanks and Regards, Puneet
on 10-21-2008 2:56 AM Puneet Goel spake the following:> Hi! and a warm hello to the CentOS team. > > I have a work for which I need some solution from you. Actually we > have some thin clients where we want to put a light weight Linux > distro for users. As of now I have tested with Fedora and Ubuntu > distros but the issue I am finding is they are not able to fit in my > requirement of flash based hard disk consumption (~500 MB). although a > distro named TinyME which is a custom version of PCLinuxOS seems to be > very near and with a little customization by putting XFCE it was > around 600MB. but it is not well known and supported. > > I have also tried CentOS 5 and 4 (with bare minimum installation) but > it is coming little heavy, however later on I came across a link > (http://www.owlriver.com/tips/tiny-centos/) providing a kickstart file > for a bare minimum CentOS 4. It gave me CentOS 4 which ate around 400 > MB. However it was little near to my specs but without a usable > Desktop (KDE and Gnome seems to be out of question because of heavy > size). Now I need some suggestions from you to make it work on my > system. I need a light version of CentOS (I am very much particular > about OS identity and the final product will retain the parent OS > identity and quality). Can you provide me some kickstart file or > something else which can help me in making a final thing. I do not > need eye candies/OpenOffice/Adobe flash/Games/Media Player etc. Just a > usable desktop, a lightweight file browser and desktop with icons (may > be XFE). Redundant locale, man, doc, /lib/modules etc. will be removed > as well. > > Karan told me that he heard someone installing CentOS 5 in 500MB. Can > anyone point me in right direction. any kickstart file or iso will be > of great help. > > At my personal end I would prefer to put CentOS (As it is based on > RHEL and has an excellent community around). Looking forward to hear > from you. > > Thanks and Regards, > PuneetI think it will be difficult to put a current CentOS on a 500MB flash. You would have to customize it heavily, use busybox for many of the binaries, add enough memory so you could minimize swap, and I doubt you could even get XFCE on it. If you do get it to work, it will have to be done by hand, and then the resulting image copied by dd. I think trying to kickstart it would be extremely difficult. You might have to put as much of the system as you can into a compressed filesystem like cramfs, leaving just enough writable to save states and local settings. You might need to settle for something designed for this space If you could live with CentOS 4, you *might* just get it to fit. There are some distros that have done most of the work for you like DSL http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/ or puppy http://www.puppylinux.com/ but they are not CentOS. You have to decide how much work you are willing to do. -- MailScanner is like deodorant... You hope everybody uses it, and you notice quickly if they don't!!!! -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 250 bytes Desc: OpenPGP digital signature URL: <http://lists.centos.org/pipermail/centos/attachments/20081021/2f2c719a/attachment-0003.sig>
On Tue, Oct 21, 2008 at 5:56 AM, Puneet Goel <puneet.maillist at gmail.com> wrote:> Hi! and a warm hello to the CentOS team. > > I have a work for which I need some solution from you. Actually we > have some thin clients where we want to put a light weight Linux > distro for users. As of now I have tested with Fedora and Ubuntu > distros but the issue I am finding is they are not able to fit in my > requirement of flash based hard disk consumption (~500 MB). although a > distro named TinyME which is a custom version of PCLinuxOS seems to be > very near and with a little customization by putting XFCE it was > around 600MB. but it is not well known and supported. > > I have also tried CentOS 5 and 4 (with bare minimum installation) but > it is coming little heavy, however later on I came across a link > (http://www.owlriver.com/tips/tiny-centos/) providing a kickstart file > for a bare minimum CentOS 4. It gave me CentOS 4 which ate around 400 > MB. However it was little near to my specs but without a usable > Desktop (KDE and Gnome seems to be out of question because of heavy > size). Now I need some suggestions from you to make it work on my > system. I need a light version of CentOS (I am very much particular > about OS identity and the final product will retain the parent OS > identity and quality). Can you provide me some kickstart file or > something else which can help me in making a final thing. I do not > need eye candies/OpenOffice/Adobe flash/Games/Media Player etc. Just a > usable desktop, a lightweight file browser and desktop with icons (may > be XFE). Redundant locale, man, doc, /lib/modules etc. will be removed > as well. > > Karan told me that he heard someone installing CentOS 5 in 500MB. Can > anyone point me in right direction. any kickstart file or iso will be > of great help. > > At my personal end I would prefer to put CentOS (As it is based on > RHEL and has an excellent community around). Looking forward to hear > from you.I think you are probably looking for something like 'Thinstation'. With RHEL/CentOS being LAMP oriented, it will always pull in a lot more then you really want. Another option would be to have the OS run over the network by making your stations use NFS mounts to mount a common OS tree that is managed centrally. You can look at the K12 LTSP project for that, they even have a CentOS variety. -Ross
Puneet Goel wrote: > I need a light version of CentOS (I am very much particular> about OS identity and the final product will retain the parent OS > identity and quality). Can you provide me some kickstart file or > something else which can help me in making a final thing. I do not > need eye candies/OpenOffice/Adobe flash/Games/Media Player etc. Just a > usable desktop, a lightweight file browser and desktop with icons (may > be XFE). Redundant locale, man, doc, /lib/modules etc. will be removed > as well.Take a look at the CentOS-5.2 LiveCD - thats a good place to start, Can you work with that ? Its got a fully functional gnome desktop with a lot of other things that you can get rid of if you dont need. I've seen usable CentOS + Gnome desktops running from a 480MB squashfs store. -- Karanbir Singh : http://www.karan.org/ : 2522219 at icq