MiniUbuntu

This is a discription of a minimal grafic Ubuntu system on an old PC with a harddisk of 1.2GB and 128MB ram (an old win98 PC ?)

Boot from an dapper (6.06) or a edgy (6.10) CD,
Choose for installation of a text system, commandline system or server install (so not the 1st option !).

After the installation and rebooting your system, you have a minimal Linux system, running Ubuntu from the command line.
Type: sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list
remove the "#" in front of line beginning with"deb".
With "cntrl X" and after that "y" you can save the file on your harddisk.

Type: sudo apt-get update
The list of available program's is now updated.

Now you must install the following programs with the command
sudo apt-get install <program-name>

x-window-system-core                    You need it, if you want a graphical system.
gdm                                     Gnome Display Manager, to log in to.
xfce-panel                              Fast and small window manager.
xfce4-goodies                           Extra program's that you'll need.
xubuntu-default-settings                XFCE setting, so you can start after installation.
xubuntu-system-tools                    To make life easier ...
samba                                   Sharing files with Linux and windows computers.
ntp-simple                              Synchronize time and date.
synaptic                                Install software in a graphical way.
thunar                                  File manager, you can's without.
mousepad                                Simple good word processor.
update-manager                          Automatic updates for your safety.

It is possible to make a script that will install all of these for you, put the following commands in that script file:

sudo apt-get install x-window-system-core
sudo apt-get install gdm
sudo apt-get install xfce-panel
sudo apt-get install xfce4-goodies
sudo apt-get install xubuntu-default-settings
sudo apt-get install xubuntu-system-tools
sudo apt-get install samba
sudo apt-get install ntp-simple
sudo apt-get install synaptic
sudo apt-get install thunar
sudo apt-get install mousepad
sudo apt-get install update-manager

Now you can tweak you're system and modify it tha way you want, the result is a small fast and stable Linux system with a graphical desktop
If you also want a web-server than you need to install apache2, if you want also PHP support, you need to install libapache2-mod-php5.
Don't put a (my)sql server on it, it will slow down you're system too much.

There are a lot of things you can do with an old PC, this is just an example.

MiniUbuntu (last edited 2008-08-06 16:41:25 by localhost)