[Lilug] Stripping down an Ubuntu Image?

[Chris Knadle]

On Thursday 26 February 2009, dotCOMmie (Ilya S.) wrote:
> Kenneth Downs wrote:
> > Question is, an installed Ubuntu seems to take > 3G.  I'm sure
> > that can be compressed, but does anybody know what can be safely
> > purged to shrink that down?  Or can anybody point me in the right
> > direction?
>
> Why ubuntu? Use a different distro, maybe DSL will fit the bill
> better? Failing that I'd recommend doing a minimal debian install
> (skip software installation stage (dselect) during install
> process), and then install only the components you need. Building
> up is a lot easier than stripping down.

To get the minimum on Debian you also have to unselect "standard 
system" during the install.  If you want to build a script that does 
the installation, then I suggest looking carefully at 'debootstrap', 
which is actually a lot of fun to use.  A minimal Debian installation 
is around 300 MB (at least for Etch).  DSL [Damn Small Linux] only 
uses about 50 MB and is upgradable to Debian if needed -- thusfar 
I've stuck with Debian because the systems I run have the extra space 
for it.

Of course it's also possible to strip down Ubuntu, but it will take 
longer and you need to know enough about the package manager to know 
how to look at the rdepends and how to clean up the leftover package 
files after purge or removal.  If you start with Ubuntu "server" 
you'll likely start off with a much smaller starting image point than 
the Ubuntu "desktop".

  -- Chris


-- 

Chris Knadle
Chris.Knadle at coredump.us