Folks, I might be polluting this list, but I'm having several questions and observations, so I thought that sending a mail to Urs wouldn't be the bes t choice.
I was looking for a *reliable* Linux distro that would work fast with a 8-y.o. low-end laptop (HP Omnibook XE3, Celeron-128k, 850 MHz, 256 MB RAM PC-100, slow CD-ROM). Believe me or not, after having tried and ditched (or just ditched) sever al "lightweight distros", I've found SL 5.2 "mini_livecd" with IceWM as bein g remarkably fast and light, and this... even as a LiveCD! I had several reasons to choose this distro as a possible candidate: -- RHEL clone means something (including long-time support); -- I've used it in the past (alongside CentOS and StartCom); -- I'm always stunned when reading a SL release notes document (I've rere ad SL 5.3 Relnotes), because there are so many interesting additions "out of the box", i.e. on the install media: wireless, XFS, IceWM, etc. etc. -- I needed something to support more than the braindead ext3, whereas Re d Hat refuses to consider both XFS and JFS; I personally prefer JFS, but fo r some unknown reason the Linux developers chose to prefer to actively supp ort && improve XFS (am I wrong, or XFS is much older as a technology than the JFS2 that's used in Linux? then why is JFS so very much ignored?); -- and, of course, there is a mini_livecd that can be tested for that pur pose. ** Question #1: Can one perform an X install with IceWM by only using the disc1? (SL.53.031909.CD.i386.disc1.iso) Not knowing the answer to this question, I have installed from mini_livecd_SL52_2008-08-14.iso, and I've performed a full update afterwa rds. ** Issue #1: The install script assumes ext3, so I had to edit /usr/bin/livecd-install and to change "mkfs.ext3" with "mkfs.xfs -f", and then in a second place "ext3" with "xfs" (for fstab). ** Question #2: Urs, could the script be modified (e.g. for mini_livecd_SL53) to accept a CLI parameter to specify the filesystem typ e? ** Issue #2: Maybe I'm dumb, but the installed system was with autologin on sluser. As I am not used with autologins under Linux, I pathetically fail ed to change this behavior. What should I have done? Can't this default behavior be changed? ** Issue #3: Performing the full 5.2->5.3 update retrieves the kernel 2.6.18-128, but xfs-2.6.18-128.1.1.el5.i686 is not pulled in, so booting the new kernel leads to a panic. Should I take it as a bug? ** Issue #4: I noticed that on mini_livecd, IceWM has a limited menu, corresponding to the installed X apps. On the installed system, once I ad ded some more apps, only GIMP was automatically added to the IcewM menu. Is t his normal? I've seen on Debian a fully-populated IceWM menu! Should I force the reinstallation of IceWM from the repos, or should I install from the official CD-set (with Anaconda), would IceWM behave differently? ** Question #3: Urs, as the mini_livecd is very small and light, could yo u make (a future version of it) more usable by adding nedit on it, especial ly that nedit is now provided by the TUV itself? (Nedit is only on the LiveD VD.) ** Question #4: I understand that the number of SL-added packages has to be very limited for obvious reasons, however, as long as the mini_livecd is a small gem that deserves a larger usage (it's very usable as is, it just lacks a few apps), could you make the compromise of accepting to add a lightweight graphical filemanager on it? I have personally found Xfe very light and very nice. I have merely installed the following two RPMs, and it worked flawlessly! http://roland65.free.fr/xfe/data/fox-1.6.33-1.i386.rpm http://downloads.sourceforge.net/xfe/xfe-1.19.2-1.i386.rpm Of course, should you accept to add Xfe to the mini_livecd, it should be rebuilt, and hopefully you'll accept it as a general addition to SL (i.e. also in the repos). Or, should you find PCManFM a better choice... (I gue ss it's heavier though). Also part of the same question: obviously, post-install everyone could ad d whatever they want from all kind of repos (including ATrmps, DAG/RPMforge and possibly EPEL, although EPEL should not be mixed /enabled simultaneou sly with the others), but I hope someone will find motivating the idea to hav e an extremely functional mini_livecd. I therefore respectfully (but strongly!) suggest to add 2 more apps from EPEL (which is a trustworthy repo) on the next issue of the mini_livecd, and hopefully to integrate th em into SL as official additions: -- gqview (because it's light and it's even in EPEL5); -- rxvt-unicode-9.05 (aka urxvt), which is also in EPEL5. With nedit, xfe, gqview and rxvt-unicode, the "rescue minicd" would becom e a fully-fledged LiveCD usable "as is" for general purpose and by anyone! (A media player might be needed for recreation purposes; I prefer gxine-0.5. 11 from RpmForge, but for such a minicd, a console player might be a better choice, e.g. http://mp3blaster.sourceforge.net/pics/mp3blaster.png, albei t mp3blaster doesn't play streams.) I might be able to help with the testing (I guess), but I have never buil t a LiveCD, and it's not clear to me from www.livecd.ethz.ch if I would have whatever necessary (scripts, the step-by-step livecd building procedure) to cook my own spin of something like mini_livecd_SL53. I was not a fan of IceWM in recent times (I used to somewhat like it prio r to circa 1997-1999, when it was < icewm-0.9), but now that I discovered h ow *light* it is... whee! (Most of this is also on my blog: http://beranger.org/v3/wordpress/2009/03/23/dropping-lightweight-distro-a fter-lightweight-distro/) Sorry for the outrageous length && mess of this post. All the best, the said BĂ©ranger P.S. Is SL 5.3 Live planned to happen any time ever?