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WoZZeR

WoZZeR

WoZZeR

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Joined
19 Jan 2007
Posts
2,066
Location
Northampton
I've got an old Dell Latitude PIII 500 with 256mb of RAM and 10Gb HD, a friend donated and XP ran like poopity poop so Linux was the answer. Only problem was the lack of CD drive or FD etc., a little program called Unetbootin helped me get a 'net install running.

I tried Ubuntu 8.04 and it was slow, I tried Xubuntu and more of the same, would only play MPEG4's with the sound off without horrendous HD noises. I tried to switch off the 'swappiness' but as soon as I enabled sound it was too much for the wee beastie.

I downloaded Puppylinux and this worked a treat, very, very fast and MPEG's played back seamlessly in fullscreen, a very fast distro. I'm not a huge fan of it though, a bit too techy for me, I do like the relative security of Ubuntu and the password/sudo malarky is peace of mind.

So, I had a nose at Fluxbuntu, it looks a little neglected so I have decided to assemble my own personal 'distro' with just the stuff I need.

Ths laptop is just going to get used on the road, occasional nights out in the truck etc., and so all I need is a web browser, seamless MPEG playback and a simple office/photo editing package.

So far I have followed this linky:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation/LowMemorySystems

Everything went well, and I have chosen Seamonkey as the web browser as it seems pretty fast.

I shall spend the next couple of days setting up Fluxbox and the like and then I need a wee bit of help streamlining it.

So I have a few questions chaps, if I may be so bold:

When you use 'sudo aptitude install blahblah' etc., loads of seemingly pointless things get downloaded, eg: the Xorg installation seemed to download all sorts of stuff for hardware irrelevant to mine. Is there a way to just download and assemble Xorg with just the modules you need?

The same with Fluxbox, can I uninstall some of the stuff that is embedded into it?

Similarly is it worth trying to minimise the Ubuntu install and get rid of excess baggage?

Maybe compile a Kernel for just this machine?

All thoughts appreciated, this is fun.:o
 
Arch linux, got it running on a 1.2ghz machine, and runs pretty well if you avoid flash heavy websites :).

Easy to install and not much fuffing about.
 
Get your self a gentoo or arch install disc and work from that :)

Just make sure you have a few days for testing etc....

Ooo and random point is ubuntu isnt really all that secure as your always running as a windows style power user and just have to authenticate any action, the traditional unix/linix way is to run as a restricted user and let the root account do major stuff (but thats a whole other topic really)
 
Ooo and random point is ubuntu isnt really all that secure as your always running as a windows style power user and just have to authenticate any action, the traditional unix/linix way is to run as a restricted user and let the root account do major stuff (but thats a whole other topic really)
Click to expand...

You're not always running as a 'power user'. You're running as a standard user who has sudo configured so that they can authenticate to elevate privileges to root and perform rooty actions. That certainly isn't that much different to running as a 'Jim' and having to 'su -' and enter a password for root. The only thing really different is that you have 1 password with which to authenticate and run commands as root. Sudo can be particularly useful at times but you need to be careful not to abuse it (sloppy configuration etc.).
 
The biggest failing with sudo is that you use your own password to authenticate.
So if your account gets hacked, which implies they now know your password they can also become root without knowing the traditional root pass.

Sudo is more convenient for using Linux as a desktop machine when you are still 'bedding in' as it were. Especially if you have an extremely strong root password.

Once you have everything totally setup there is a good case for removing sudo power on your own account and using the old style su to do anything admin related.
 
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I do think 'sudo' should have a different password since my friends know my user password and there is the off chance they could break my system. I managed to uninstall the gnome desktop ages ago.....:o I didn't realise until I rebooted........:o

Ta, for the distro tips, I shall have a crack at Gentoo ce soir, as long as I am learning and doing something new it remains interesting.

Should I do the same thing as before, install a command line distro and add xorg and the desktop of my choice?
 
If you have people on your machine on your account who know your password then remove yourself from the sudo group. Usually done by running visudo, or removing yourself from groups such as admin, sudo, wheel.
 
Wow, forgot there were so many problems with su and sudo :) the only one i could remember is typing "sudo su -" in ubuntu gets you to a root account thats apparently not really there or something weird....

anyway to WoZZeR, best way to get a small and streamlined install is to do as you say and start with a working commandline install, then do xorg and a windows manager over the top (especially when doing gentoo or arch to ensure you have everything in order)
 
MikeTimbers said:
real men run as root
Click to expand...
Funny you should say that as it's what I normally do :|
Although I normally don't run much other than really common programs that have no widely known exploits, and I don't have much that I care if anyone found so I can easily reformat!
 
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