[Gllug] Stripped down CentOS 5.3

[Stuart Sears]

On 25/05/09 16:01, Hakuna Matata wrote:
> Cool,
>
> Thanks for the TIP.
> what i want to my system for sure is Apache/Tomcat/Mysql  thats all.
> now i do not know who is the best contender to remove from the linux.

The package set you listed includes gnome-utils, which will have a huge 
number of dependencies on the GNOME infrastructure (here on Fedora 
almost-11 it requires 39 other packages, mostly from GNOME, which will 
all have their own deps).
This means the likelihood of you getting a noticeably minimal 
installation and still keeping gnome-utils is challenging.

Incidentally, at least in fedora, to get this information, you can do
yum deplist gnome-utils


** warning - destructive advice follows ***
You *could* do a fresh install using the 'kickstart' system with a very 
minimal package set. Many companies do this kind of thing with their 
standard builds. This may (okay, definitely will) take some tuning and 
experimentation.

The kickstart config used for your current installation is saved as
/root/anaconda-ks.cfg

You'll want to at least uncomment and possibly edit the partitioning parts.

in the %packages section you can trim right down to
@Base
# now list all the other things you require
httpd
php5
etc
etc

which provides the 'bare minimum' package set (with all its 
dependencies). This will also figure out the dependencies of the other 
packages. However, it is difficult to install packages that are not in 
the default install trees this way

or, for the braver of heart (this is where the trial and error begins)

%packages --nobase
and then list all of the package names you want, one per line.

Bear in mind that the --nobase bit effectively says "I know exactly what 
I'm doing, please leave dependency checking to me" and may take a while 
to get right. Dependency chasing is not fun when you have to do it mamually.

Once you've listed everything, save the file to a usb key, boot from 
your DVD/CD and at the 'boot:' prompt, type

linux ks=hd:sdb1:/path/to/anaconda-ks.cfg

(which assumes the USB key will be /dev/sdb)


If you want the most minimal with the least effort, I would suggest 
building from the @base option and then yum installing the other things.



Regards,

Stuart


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