opensuse minimal desktop
Table of Contents
about
trying out susestudio to build opensuse minimal desktop
only minimal X + lxde
features
NEWS!
- now use kdebase instead of lxde
- on susegallery http://susegallery.com/a/05qOA7/dennyhalimcom-kde-minimal-desktop
- my other appliances on susegallery http://susegallery.com/a/05qOA7
releases:
- all latest releases will be at http://susegallery.com/a/05qOA7/dennyhalimcom-kde-minimal-desktop
- opensuse lxde livecd 0.4.17 add composite effect.
- opensuse lxde livecd 0.4.13 fix wicd, shutdown. tested and works on qemu.
- opensuse lxde livecd 0.4.12 opensuse 11.2, slim, official lxde repo. MD5: 9a31b5ee6e21f2d73e2c977cf4f33b9b SHA1: 89fbace451c2aa8111b065f7b6f8e08a051e3376
- opensuse lxde livecd 0.3.10 use official lxde repo. install slim. not working.
- opensuse lxde livecd 0.2.9 fix few bugs (not tested yet;)
- opensuse lxde livecd 0.2.8 avoid xdm.bin autologin keyboard bug
- opensuse lxde livecd 0.1.6 firefox 3.5
- opensuse lxde minimal desktop livecd 0.1.5 compcache works as expected
- opensuse lxde minimal desktop livecd 0.1.3 fix audio
- opensuse lxde minimal desktop livecd 0.1.2
- opensuse lxde minimal desktop livecd 0.1.1 add audio
- opensuse lxde minimal desktop livecd 0.1.0
- opensuse lxde minimal desktop livecd 0.0.5
- opensuse lxde minimal desktop livecd 0.0.4
- opensuse lxde minimal desktop livecd 0.0.3
- opensuse lxde minimal desktop livecd 0.0.1
- username: tux ; password: linux ; root: linux
requirements
- any pentium computer
- minimal 64MB ram. recommend 256+ MB for pleasant experience.
- anywhere win xp can run or vista can crawl, this one can fly.
Thanks for your image. I've been eyeing suse studio with the idea to create my own image. Is there a way I can "import" your image and make my changes from there for personal use? I noticed none of the yast2 modules are included…was this intentional? I'm just wondering how to go about configuring network and other things without them.
yast2 is there.
just open up lxterminal and then:
about importing the image, i'm not sure it can be done or how…
you can asked on susestudio forum here:
http://susestudio.com/forum/
there will be some suse people might help you there.
and, thank you for your inputs. keep them coming…
i might try to setup easier guide when i have time, to let you and others do this yourself.
http://it.dennyhalim.com | http://wiki.dennyhalim.com | http://twitter.com/dennyhalim
When I click on the choices under system for yast like "network devices" for instance they don't open yast and run or prompt me for the root password however if I open a terminal and run them as root they run as normal. FYI, this is why I thought yast wasn't included.
yes. only minimal yast2 was installed.
also, it looks somewhat ugly…
and yast2 is not within PATH too.
so that's how you call it, unless you install full yast2 with zypper.
http://it.dennyhalim.com | http://wiki.dennyhalim.com | http://twitter.com/dennyhalim
If you go to the start menu, click on system and then administration you get a long list of choices you can select….yast2 not being in the path for normal user is probably why these don't work. I hope that's something that can be corrected.
I installed your iso to a dell latitude c500 laptop…some quirks I noticed is…even though I created a new user and told it to not auto log in…it's stilll logging in as the polaris user on both first console and in lxde….and when I open lxterminal the keyboard is not able to type….if I log out of the session and back in as either polaris or my user the terminal works fine so apparently it's something that only occurs on initial boot….the inability to type occurs on both the live cd and when it's been installed by the live installer. The user "polaris" also can't be deleted since it's always "in use" because it's auto logged in to the ctrl alt f1 console….if I exit out of the console it relogs in as polaris right away without giving me any option to change user. Some of this may be a suse studio quirk.
thank you for your feedback.
i think it's susestudio problems.
especially the keyboard problem. it's also happen to me sometimes.
see this:
http://n2.nabble.com/Keyboard-in-LiveCD-editions-tp3406136p3406136.html
but, on my system, tty1 is not autologin. it's only autologin to xdm.
i was wrong. i used to autologin only to xdm. but now it also tty1.
it's autologin on tty1, try check /etc/inittab and remove/replace polaris autologin.
i'll check on susestudio see if the problems on their side…
http://it.dennyhalim.com | http://wiki.dennyhalim.com | http://twitter.com/dennyhalim
How can I stop the autologin for xdm as well?
Deleting the polaris user took care of the auto xdm login. You might want to look at "consonance" as a simple gtk based music player that works well with lxde….had to add alsa-firmware on install or my sound card would not work…it didn't work on the live cd either as the maestro soundcard requires that package. Any recommendations of a simple network connect/disconnect util like "waveselect" on kde-apps.org but for gtk?
Thanks again for the iso…made a big diff on my old laptop.
thank you again for trying this and also the feedback is greatly appreciated.
i tried on 3 different system, sound works without any firmware.
but if more system require this, i will put it into the iso.
consonance: first of all, it's nowhere to be found in opensuse repo. and i have yet to understand opensuse build system…
second, this was design to be as minimal as possible. yet functional and useable and if possible, nothing need to be removed from this iso. and users can easily add any apps they want.
so, for fancy stuffs like that, it's up to users to choose.
for networks, there's lxnm and it's installed.
(i have not yet try it though…)
http://it.dennyhalim.com | http://wiki.dennyhalim.com | http://twitter.com/dennyhalim
it seems like xdm autologin that causing the keyboard stop responding.
download the latest iso which i use alternate autologin to avoid this bug.
this is how i do it:
http://it.dennyhalim.com/2008/10/linux-automatic-login-startx-and.html
http://it.dennyhalim.com | http://wiki.dennyhalim.com | http://twitter.com/dennyhalim
Denny,
In your latest iso did you update the firefox version? I noticed some issues upgrading to 3.5.2 with some sort of xulrunner mismatch…just a few comments on things I found….
compcache and it's kernel don't appear to need to be installed when installing to HD from the livecd as my understanding is they are only used in places where you don't have the ability to have a swapfile/swap partition.
I added findutils-locate( I would have preferred slocate but couldn't find it for suse), nano (pico clone), an alias for "yast2" so it calls "yast2 —gtk" as it always tries to use the QT gui. The menu items for yast for lan etc would work if 1) it prompted for root password like you have "Install software" doing and it passed the —gtk option for the gui. I can't find where these menu items are coming from to alter them as they don't appear to be in .config and when I alter them as a user they revert to what they were before my changes.
For laptops ndiswrapper , wpa_supplicant and wireless-tools were must haves…I also had to add the alsa-firmware package for my laptop sound…it's not needed for all soundcards and the suse site actually has a list of the soundcards that require it. (I know cause I initially reported the bug on bugzilla for the livecd when it was left off)
wicd is also a good wired/wireless network manager that will work well in lxde. touchfreeze is small app so that when you are typing on keyboard on laptop it disables the touchpad temporarily….so it doesn't shove the mouse around.
Oneclickinstall's don't work in firefox by default but if you install the yast2-metapackage and create a 2 line script in /sbin/FirefoxOCI with:
#!/bin/bash
/sbin/OneClickInstallUI —gtk $@
It will open them in yast gui as "normal"..this is useful for doing installs from the build service at http://packages.opensuse-community.org/ You would still have to go into firefox and associate .ymp files to call the script you saved to /sbin.
pidgin works great as an IM client if needed.
I realize that some or all of this may not suit your purpose for this distro. I still can't thank you enough for making it available. At some point I hope to use the howto you mentioned adding at some point in future to add in some of the things I need/use. I have a susestudio account. Do you have a list of packages etc you included in your iso? Are you having to do alot of behind the scenes manipulations or is it basically add them in and click build iso? Sorry for running on. :)
i didnt test the firefox. if the repo updated, then the iso is updated. that's how it works.
maybe the repo update the firefox but the xulrunner not yet updated? i dont know…
compcache…
here, where i live, there're still lots lots of people using 'old' computers like pentium/celeron 3/4 with 256meg sdram, etc…
and because mostly these pc still using sdram, it became expensive to upgrade. meaning it's very hard to find sdram and if you can find it, it is priced twice ddr price.
this is the original reason i build this iso. to maximize the use of these called legacy systems with the latest linux and latest apps.
on these system, compcache is a big help. even with big harddisk swaps.
ramswap is much much faster than harddisk. and compcache compressing the ram swap.
the effect is almost like doubling the ram without actually buying it.
all menus built from /usr/share/applications/*.desktop
one click install. yes i know this problem and have not yet find out how to fix it.
any idea/suggestions?
pidgin. yes this one is great. i use it a lot. but i think it's too big to get into default iso. i prefer ayttm because it's much smaller and fits the purpose. but have not tested it. coz in ubuntu, ayttm is very lag behind and cant connect to yahoo and crash a lot…
susestudio:
basically i just add the repo, add lx* packages and tell the system to use lxde as default wm instead of icewm.
and .bashrc for autologin
that's all it.
http://it.dennyhalim.com | http://wiki.dennyhalim.com | http://twitter.com/dennyhalim
Thanks for the fast followup Denny…..re compcache…but where are you telling it to use compache swap FIRST and then the hd? When I did a swapon -s the compcache swap area was listed 2nd. I have a celeron 700 with 512mb (max memory for old laptop) and if it can benefit from compcache I'd leave it running. Also by default it uses 25% of available ram…are you adding or subtracting from this based on available ram?
As for the oneclickinstall issue, perhaps a shell script with commands that could be ran on first boot which would setup things like the oneclickinstall script and alter the file association in firefox would work. You could also do any other "housekeeping" you needed done in this script.
compcache is installed as is.
meaning, it does everything itself. all i do is activate the service.
so, everything is default. it use fixed 25% ram by default.
by default it's prioritized before harddisk swap. you can check with
i'll try setup oneclick install. and perhaps lots other stuffs (as i'm on with opensuse lxde team) and this might grow become full opensuse distro in addition to kde/gnome.
http://it.dennyhalim.com | http://wiki.dennyhalim.com | http://twitter.com/dennyhalim
The yast2-metapackage-handler gives you the scripts and if you associate .tmp with the OneClickInstallUI it works provided you have set the "DEFAULT_GUI" in yast2 under sysconfig from auto to GTK (this takes care of the —gtk necessity)….xdmsu -c can be used on the .desktop files in /usr/share/applications/YaST2 to make them run correctly from the menu. ivman can be installed and it will work with HAL to automount cdrom and usb drives to the /media directory. Graveman is a passable gtk front end to the cdrao utils etc and has almost identical requirements as "alsaplayer" for a music player. kdocker can be used to dock anything to the systray. I like keeping a terminal on there since no "yakuake" like app exists. If you compile your own kernel you will also have to compile the compache src rpm and manually copy the two .ko's and the "sub-folder" dir to /lib/modules/<your kernel>/updates
If you put .desktop files in ~/.config/autostart they will auto run when you log into the shell.
LXDE quirks: Adding volume control to lxpanel does not work..nothing shows up even though it says it's added. Network manager also didn't seem to work so I used wicd. There's currently nothing to handle dialing a modem via gui. Bleachbit (requires python-xml even though it doesn't say so) is a junk file finder and deleter that runs for both user and root. Deletes all the extra Locales you don't need etc…cleaned about 40mb on my machine. alsamixer can be ran from command line to adjust sound volume since volume control in lxde is broken.
Now that I basically have my laptop running the way I want, any suggestions for a backup app thats lite to create an image file? Hope some of this rambling was of use.
superb!! keep them coming…
thanks a lot! it will surely save me at least hours of googling…
for yast2, there must be better way than changing all .desktop files.
i remembered some of them correctly asking for root password…
and i think the team have choosen lxmusic for default player
backup to create image file… did you mean to do full partition backup?
usually dd can do the job. then gzip it.
http://it.dennyhalim.com | http://wiki.dennyhalim.com | http://twitter.com/dennyhalim
Theoretcially you could rename yast2 to yast2.bin and create a one line shell script named "yast2" in /sbin that said "xdmsu -c yast2.bin $@" and it would call su for anytime yast2 got called…I did this originally to make the —gtk parm always get passed. The ones you see that pop up a little text window asking for password are using xdmsu. Just right click on and look at properties and it will show you the command line being used.
As for backup….I installed yast2-backup which allows you to specify only back changed…full backup…split at cd size etc….just backup to a /backup dir and make sure that one is excluded from the included dirs….
You may want to look at the SVN lxde packages….swyear has a different build service for those but they include some newer versions with more features. Finally a screenshot of my desktop running your version but using the nice green and black opensuse wallpaper I found on kde-look.org which I think gives it a nice look.
http://i25.tinypic.com/nmhr3l.jpg
great desktop you have!
i never good with graphics…
oo.. no you cant just rename yast2.
when you upgrade with latest yast2, it might get replaced.
must be an elegant way. because this will be opensuse official distro, it must be done elegantly.
we now have new x11:lxde repo which also contain slim and other latest builds. but it's still not ready for production.
http://it.dennyhalim.com | http://wiki.dennyhalim.com | http://twitter.com/dennyhalim
Forgot to mention when installing to HD it gives you an error because it can't find the license file and you have to check the box that you accept a blank license to continue. Minor but could be confusing for some.
Can you list what you fixed in 0.2.9? I'd like to fix my installed version if it's an ongoing bug…specifically if you figured out how to make those menu entries work…even after I changed the item to call xdg-su it still doesn't appear to work.
http://packman.links2linux.de/package/ayttm/
You showed an interest in this package. I requested it on the packman site and they sent an email today showing they were nice enough to build the package.
that's cool! tnx!
what i (try to) fix on the latest iso is the oneclick install. the handler alone does not work with firefox.
the menu problem (afaik) is lxde problem. lxde should know (somehow) that those apps need to be run as root…
http://it.dennyhalim.com | http://wiki.dennyhalim.com | http://twitter.com/dennyhalim
Well all I did to fix it was to click on a .ymp file and tell firefox to open /sbin/OneClickInstallUI and it handled it from there.
While ayttm ran ok on my laptop while testing it at a local coffee shop it froze and basically was unstable on my main x86_64 desktop….will have to play with it more but I think I'll probably stick with pidgin in both places..I also installed brasero for cd burning after several coasters with xfburn…and exaile for music….They seem to run fine on my particular laptop.
on build system, you do not run firefox.
so, it need to be configured first without running it.
and it should apply to all current and new users without the user need to do anything.
http://it.dennyhalim.com | http://wiki.dennyhalim.com | http://twitter.com/dennyhalim
Denny,
Was wondering if you had any idea what might be causing this..if I run the custom kernel I compiled when I get to the xdm login screen I can't see the text when typing in my userid or password……when I run the kernel YOU included everything works fine though. Any idea what would cause that? I can type my username and password without having to see the characters but it's annoying.
no. no idea.
but you need to know one thing.
the xdm.bin came with susestudio is not the same xdm that came with x.org
even the x.org people do not know about this file.
it's built especially for susestudio uses.
try install the real xdm. or perhaps slim or others…
http://it.dennyhalim.com | http://wiki.dennyhalim.com | http://twitter.com/dennyhalim
Do you have a rss feed for your page that can be used to get notified when the page is updated/new iso version is out?
please follow my twitter:
http://twitter.com/dennyhalim
I used Yahoo pipes to filter your twitter rss feed and only show the items with "opensuse" in them. It's available @ http://tinyurl.com/opensuse-lxde for anyone who wants to use it.
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