MX Linux Forum

Hello all.

I am in the process of building and uploading an MX Linux 18 Continuum Minimal Install. This snapshot should be tested by someone other than me. :lipsrsealed:
The minimal install is about a 1.2GB image rather than the original 1.4GB. Hooray, but there's a lot less stuff. Remember to add the 'things' you want after installing.

Here is information on lhe MX18 Minimal Install it contains (should contain) all normal:
--- MXTools
--- Essential Accessories

Extremely limited:
--- Development Tools (only Geany)
--- Office Tools (no LibreOffice)
--- Graphics Tools (no Gimp)
--- Multimedia (no VLC)

It is devoid of:
--- Email Tools
--- Games

The complete list of changes (37 removed packages) made to the basic MX18 Continuum install set follows:

aisleriot
asunder
chromium-bsu
chromium-bsu-data
clementine
clipit
dict
fbreader
fbreader
feh
gimp
gmtp
gnome-hearts
gnome-mahjongg
gnome-ppp
gscan2pdf
lbreakout2
lbreakout2-data
libreoffice*
lightning
mc
mc-data
nomacs
nomacs-l10n
orage
peg-e
pppoeconf
samba
samba-common
samba-common-bin
samba-libs
smtube
swell-foop
thunderbird
vlc
xfce4-notes
xfce4-notes-plugin

You may obtain the iso here (I will leave it online for about 30 days):
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/w0g0nzahapkx ... NbePa?dl=0

I will keep this online for about 30 days. If the devs would like to host this, make it official, or tell me it's unwanted I'm happy to defer to their greater knowledge and insight.

Here is a script template of what I removed; it may be saved as another file and used as a script (should you prefer to run this locally rather than download another iso image).

#-------Save from here down -------

#!/bin/bash
sudo apt-get remove --purge gmtp orage nomacs nomacs-l10n pppoeconf asunder chromium-bsu chromium-bsu-data clipit gnome-ppp gnome-hearts lbreakout2 lbreakout2-data mc mc-data xfce4-notes-plugin xfce4-notes peg-e smtube swell-foop fbreader gscan2pdf feh gimp aisleriot clementine dict fbreader gnome-mahjongg samba samba-libs samba-common samba-common-bin thunderbird vlc lightning
sudo apt-get remove --purge libreoffice*
#
sudo apt-get autoremove --purge

The minimal install is about a 1.2GB image rather than the original 1.8GB.

The original is 1.4GB.

opps... good catch! Fixed (above).

gimp-data is not there. Sometimes it's a bit triggy with the 'data' packages. Not all will be deinstall via autoremove. Check this in particular by the games. LO deinstall is quite heavy. Maybe you can check after it all with deborphan --guess-all

@dphn... I'll add gimp-data to the script for removal.

I think a lot more can be removed with a little more work. Maybe have Synaptic sort the installed packages by their Download size and then go through them to see what can go. Fonts and icons are good targets, too.

Hi stevo,

in many ways it's not possible. MX-apps depends on faenza-icon theme, papirus-icons are used for the default Xfce-config. Maybe the Numix-icons can be removed.

Same with a lot of apps. When you replace featherpad for example with another editor you must change /etc/skel/.config/Thunar/uca.xml. There are entries for featherpad and with a new update from desktop-defaults-xfce-mx17 package you become all default configs back.

I suggest for a minimal install set iso, to remove all vpnc stuff as well as samba.

How minimal is minimal? I would suggest a minimal install should be way less than 1GB and closer to 500/600 MB max.

anticapitalista wrote: Fri Jan 11, 2019 4:35 pm How minimal is minimal? I would suggest a minimal install should be way less than 1GB and closer to 500/600 MB max.

Saving 200MB seems a bit underwhelming, I think people are better off starting with antiX if their objective is to save space (for some reasons that I don't fully get)

Well my 'proof of concept' has folks thinking.

I'm no expert but I would guess that antiX is the truly 'thin' distro 'in these parts' and designated to stay that way. I see no problem with that. I agree with what @anticapitalista stated above, i'm not sure that MX would much different (if at all) from antiX if it were whittled down to under 700MB. No point having two of essentially 'the same thing'.

I think of an application thin install of MX as filling a niche for those who don't want a lot of extra apps; or like me, they prefer to pick most of their own (yep... old cranky, opinionated. ).

When I was going through the list of apps to remove in the minimal install (proof of concept), I was thinking about those I keep and those I don't. For example I prefer Mousepad to Featherpad and do not see the need for both. For programming, html, css and the like, I prefer Geany (so what I like/prefer is a bit different from many). No big deal but just a thought to say, a nearly 'naked' install for the distro is 'largely' but will never be perfectly useful nor satisfying. You have to have an editor and someone will pick one, someone else won't like the one they picked. And, so it goes.

What is the base antiX origin for MX?
The antiX-base plus systemd-shim, systemd and what else?

Duplicated due to slow Internet.

manyroads wrote: Fri Jan 11, 2019 4:43 pm ... You have to have an editor and someone will pick one, someone else won't like the one they picked. And, so it goes.

Indeed.
Distro devs make choices - some popular, others not so. In that sense, as we all know, whatever (a) dev(s) choose, someone will complain either about bloat or lack of features - too 'vanilla'.

MX is built by d_o using the antiX build-iso set of scripts (created by BitJam). It is not built using the remaster/snapshot set of tools, but via chroot and debootstrap (to be technical). Using build-iso gives the dev(s) many advantages in building a consistent iso set up, but the dev needs to make sure that this actually will work with packages outside of the core - ie Debian (99%) and antiX.

MX's starting point is antiX-core, which does not give user an X environment. d_o then grafts on top apps/configs etc to produce MX. This is not as easy as it may seem. For example, installing antiX-core and trying to make it MX doesn't quite work, unlike doing it via the build-iso scripts.

My point - (finally) - For me a minimal MX iso that may be useful would be antiX-core plus X plus a few MX apps. But then, is it any longer MX?

As I've said before, we usually suggest that people start with an iso that has less on it than they want and build up rather than start with an iso that has more on it and whittle down.

In addition to what anticapitalista said, MX uses the antiX live system which (from my perspective) is what makes snapshots so stable and not flaky. It may seem trivial but it took a lot of hard work from us to make it easy for you. This is tied together with our build-iso system. Broadly speaking it works like this: Of course this happens with other distros but I doubt they have it as well integrated and automated as we do. Back when I was building this stuff we had very few devs at antiX and we were trying to put out six iso files every year plus point releases (which could add up to 12 or 18 iso files per year). I thought the only way this would be possible with any kind of reliability or quality control would be if we automated the build process as much as possible.

My focus for the last eight years or so has been to develop our live system and automate our build system. These are tied together and it only works because the pieces in the diagram above are highly integrated. IMNSHO, this was a big factor in the success of both antiX and MX. The way Mepis and antiX were previously being hand-crafted for each release was simply not sustainable. Too many bugs.

MX was a collaboration between Mepis and antiX. The name comes from the first letter of Mepis and the last letter of antiX. The lead Mepis dev had left. The forums and the community repos and a large number of devs were still here but the ability to put everything together and release an iso was missing. Then Jerry3904 came up with the idea of making a lightweight "version" of Mepis based on XFCE instead of KDE (I'm sure he can add some clarity about this). So, roughly speaking, the community repos, a large developer community, and the forums came from Mepis. The "putting it all together and making an iso" came from antiX. Then the MX XFCE desktop was built fresh, mostly by the previous Mepis devs.

Up until two years ago (I think) anticapitalista was responsible for building both antiX and MX. This was too much work for one human being so dolphin_oracle (originally an antiX dev, I believe) took over building MX. He did a great job! I also got burned out working on two distro releases a year and took last year off. This was the 2nd time we skipped making an annual antiX release. The first was when the antiX devs were focused on getting MX off the ground. IIRC, the first MX release came out about 4 or 6 months after Jerry's original idea. This was only possible because we already had so much of our antiX build system automated.

HTH

BitJam wrote: Fri Jan 11, 2019 6:08 pm ...
MX was a collaboration between Mepis and antiX. The name comes from the first letter of Mepis and the last letter of antiX. The lead Mepis dev had left.

Ah,thanks for the info ... it's a scoop for me ;-)

@anticapitalista & @BitJam, I sure hope no one thinks I, in any way, devalue or am critical of the antiX-MX team efforts and history.

People simply stated they wanted a simple way to modify the MX application base. I offered what I do, my scripts. Then some suggested a new set of MX Tools that allowed checklists either pre or post install (add-delete); there was even a poll in the MX facebook group addressing the topic. In thinking about this discussion/request/need, it sounded like people were asking/considering what some of the arch-based distros offer. So I offered to run an editted version of my application removal script (posted in this thread) and create a snaphot (also linked here). Personally I have a universe of applications I like (by now most have seen them listed here or can if they haven't; they are in my original scripts). I am perfectly happy taking a solid xfce base distro (like MX) and tweaking it. That can be from a minimal (low application) base set; or from a full one (like I do now).

Where that leads, I have no idea. I like MX. It is easy to work with, easy to change (to my liking). I simply offered a set of scripts and a snapshot. If they are useful and people want to use them, I am pleased. If they don't that's equally fine. If the devs here would like to do more with what I have offered and I can be of assistance, I am happy to do that (assuming I have the requisite skills).

dphn wrote: Fri Jan 11, 2019 4:26 pm Hi stevo,

in many ways it's not possible. MX-apps depends on faenza-icon theme, papirus-icons are used for the default Xfce-config. Maybe the Numix-icons can be removed.

Same with a lot of apps. When you replace featherpad for example with another editor you must change /etc/skel/.config/Thunar/uca.xml. There are entries for featherpad and with a new update from desktop-defaults-xfce-mx17 package you become all default configs back.

Featherpad is a tiny package when you consider that Qt 5 is already installed, so that would be way down the list. That's why I suggested sorting them by size.

I tried getting MX 17 down to 700 MB with this method, but couldn't get it under 800 something, so abandoned the effort. But that's smaller than 1.2 GB.

It's the curse of Linux. Because you can tweak so much you are never going to be fully satisfied. I feel it's a slippery slope. I'm pretty happy with what I have, but not completely happy and will never be, see second sentence.

Sometimes I think it's boredom. How am I going to stimulate my brain if I stop tweaking (MX) Linux? Software is the only thing I'm passionate about and also the reason I get upset when I perceive something as a regression. I am very thankful for antiX and MX Linux because without these projects maybe I would have given up on Linux. There is no other distro I want to use and I am critical of the tech that dominates the Linux desktop today.

I'm OK with using Windows and I tweak that too. I don't like Windows 10 so Linux is the only thing that can give me a good old-school feeling and a sense of freedom.

I don't know what I want to say other than: There is no end to tweaking, no final destination. If you manage to create the perfect setup for you, then soon your base system (Stretch in this case) will be obsolete anyway and you have to start again. This is not to discourage people, just something that I have become aware of. Especially if you intend to support other people, you have to be aware that for example Chrome and Skype won't support Stretch forever.

I think an upgrade path to Buster would be the most valuable thing. Linux Mint is always criticized for not having an upgrade path between LTS releases which Ubuntu has. I have done a lot of personal tinkering with Linux so I feel supporting other people would feel more meaningful going forward, but I struggle with time and sleep like everybody else.

Sometimes I think it's boredom. How am I going to stimulate my brain if I stop tweaking (MX) Linux? Software is the only thing I'm passionate about and also the reason I get upset when I perceive something as a regression. I am very thankful for antiX and MX Linux because without these projects maybe I would have given up on Linux. There is no other distro I want to use and I am critical of the tech that dominates the Linux desktop today.

@dreamer: "Hear, hear"

I always tell people there are two things to know about Linux one is good news and the other bad.
The good news about Linux is: "You can do anything you want..."
The bad news is: "You can do anything you want..."

manyroads wrote: Fri Jan 11, 2019 6:50 pm @dreamer: "Hear, hear"
I always tell people there are two things to know about Linux one is good news and the other bad.
The good news about Linux is: "You can do anything you want..."
The bad news is: "You can do anything you want..."

Yep. You will feel empowered and you will feel like you don't know enough. The destiny of any Linux user is to become a geek or have another geek take care of the system. Window is also a little geeky, Mac maybe a little less. The popularity of mobile might be because it's so geek unfriendly. Android or iOS actively discourage you (actually stop you) from doing anything that can alter the system in any way. I think Wayland is heading the same way. Forbid tinkering and system will stay stable (or so they believe).

manyroads wrote: Fri Jan 11, 2019 6:30 pm @anticapitalista & @BitJam, I sure hope no one thinks I, in any way, devalue or am critical of the antiX-MX team efforts and history.

Not in the least! You should feel free to use any distro or OS you want! In addition, we tried to make it easy to customize so that people would customize it, perhaps in ways we had not envisioned. I hope you don't mind that we gave suggestions we think will make your task much easier.

I wasn't trying to be critical of you or your efforts; I was trying to answer Richard's question:

Richard wrote: Fri Jan 11, 2019 4:49 pm What is the base antiX origin for MX?
The antiX-base plus systemd-shim, systemd and what else?

One user already has put a Buster-Gnome respin up for download, even without us populating a Buster repo with MX apps--they apparently keep working fine on Buster. The upgrade procedure was not that hard, according to the user.

@BitJam I always 'try' to appreciate help. As my wife will tell you "I'm not 'real' good with criticism." :lipsrsealed:

If I was given a choice to have and use only one linux system. It would be AntiX every time..

@KoO Inquiring minds want to know ... where did you get 4.20???? Do I need a special decoder ring?

@manyroads,
I remember Stevo talking about it?

manyroads wrote: Fri Jan 11, 2019 7:34 pm @KoO Inquiring minds want to know ... where did you get 4.20???? Do I need a special decoder ring?

You have to fax a special message to Linus.

4.20 is in the test repo, and antiX also has a 4.20 kernel. You currently have to go outside the repo to get Nvidia and Virtualbox versions to build on it, though Debian is working on Vbox 6.

manyroads wrote: Fri Jan 11, 2019 7:34 pm @KoO Inquiring minds want to know ... where did you get 4.20???? Do I need a special decoder ring?

No way i,m given away them sort of secrets I would be kick out of the LinusBroClub we have a guard at the gate.

cli-aptiX
Search for antiX kernels
29)

I wonder if 4.20, the last in the 4 series, will become an LTS?
Perhaps, 4.19-bpo will absorb some of the goodies from 4.20 over the next few years?

oooh Gents. Do you notice how much better my posts look in 4.20????

manyroads wrote: Fri Jan 11, 2019 3:44 pm I am in the process of building and uploading an MX Linux 18 Continuum Minimal Install.

Thanks manyroads for this initiative. It will be great if you with help of others, managed to select the minimal set of packages which give users the basic and then install more on their own. For me "minimal" doesn't mean size of iso, but number of software packages. Keep-up with the good work.

manyroads wrote: Fri Jan 11, 2019 8:49 pm oooh Gents. Do you notice how much better my posts look in 4.20????

It was so good before now it is Awesome and So Good. Nothing like a shiny new kernel. Keep the Brasso on that one..

800 MB. Think this might be possible. Look at Q4OS. It's only a core system. There are post-install routines for popular standard software. That's also a good choice for creating systems.

@dphn I think much of that installation related discussion is beyond my skill level. I can clean out many of the "optional" applications, but even then some will still remain. I think even the thinnest install needs a browser, editor, gparted, the MX Tools and such. I suppose we could go with Midori or Falkon rather than Firefox but, I'm not certain that's going to make a 'more popular' choice. Personally there are still a number of items on this 'pruned' version that are not favorites of mine. :lipsrsealed:

well, if you don't use or have a scanner, you can get rid of simple-scan,
if you don't use torrents, special kind of download (especially for music and movies), you can get rid of transmission,
and there are some games like mahjongg, aisle-riot, ....
disk manager, if you don't play too much with partitions would be enough, so then gparted is not needed too ;-)
The rest browser and/or editor I would personally not touch,
Kind regards,
jp

manyroads wrote: Sat Jan 12, 2019 9:17 am I suppose we could go with Midori or Falkon rather than Firefox but, I'm not certain that's going to make a 'more popular' choice.

Don't replace any software, either keep or remove. We don't want user to wonder which installer to use...... the minimal with Midori or standard with Firefox. Both installers should feel same, only a question of less packages.

@jeanpaulberes & @rasat... I have listed everything I remove in the OP (please take a close look). Please let me know what I may have missed or where I went too far. I agree fully with leaving those standard items I personally don't use, like firefox and Featherpad, because I believe a browser and editor are very basic items required for any installset.

@manyroads,
Here are the results of my testing on the 32 bit EeePC.

Memory usage dropped ca. 35 MB at idle after boot,
probably due to removal of Samba.

Going to try install Xfce4-lite on antiX for comparison.

@Richard would you evaluate that as good? I know less memory use is better than more. But is that a decent % reduction to you mind?

it's not so easy to create a minimal-version. A browser app is needed on every system. That's right. Most users expect here a popular app like firefox, but FF becomes bigger and bigger. So what are the alternatives? You can install waterfox or pale moon, but these apps are too unknown and people think, what's this?

E-Mail is optional in my opinion. TB is not necessary for a system. Users can install it, other users use a webmail client only. Maybe a small app like geary could be preinstalled.

A set of basic system tools are needed. On a live system you must have tools like gparted not only for the install process. I'm using it for usb-sticks. Better than gnome-disk-utility. Most distributions ship it and many of them deinstall it after the install-process. See Ubuntu/Mint.

I download the snapshot, run in CD, works well. Aim to see what apps does minimal include as per Xfce menu (first impression when exploring the desktop). Quite well trimmed to minimal but still many small apps which common users may not use. In my opinion, these can be removed.

My older 700 MB Core versions used claws-mail, SMPlayer with mplayer backend, and I think Pale Moon, but the PM browser deb was about 10 MB smaller in those days.

There's a lot more that can be weeded out. Do you really need to ship Hexchat, for example?

There is probably a clash of terminology and aims. Some users (manyroads the OP may want a 'fat' minimal installation, while others see a minimal installation as something completely different (me)),

IMHO (again) a minimal install really does have the bare minimal for it to be clearly MX (and not antiX or Debian). So, it should come with xfce, a browser, MX tools and that is it. Then user can install whatever they want.

Is it noob-friendly?
No. Since user would have to build up and that means having some knowledge of what apps to install e.g. thunderbird or claws-mail, etc etc. (many of the options are in MXPI).

Since this is manyroads thread, I'll let him fine tune the way he sees his iso, and back out

anticapitalista wrote: Sat Jan 12, 2019 4:03 pm Since this is manyroads thread, I'll let him fine tune the way he sees his iso, and back out

What I understood, manyroads is suggesting this minimal to become official, if the developers are interested. Its not for him, so he is asking feedback and suggestion from everyone.

Here are screenshots pasted into one shot showing the current snapshot's Xfce menu apps. With red dot, I marked apps to remove. Others can also suggest with the help of this image.
http://amurt.ro/download/MX/Xfce-menu-a-x.png

Thanks @stevo, @anticaitalista, @rasat et al... I am happy to add all the items mentioned into the script and build a new snapshot. By tomorrow it should be online in the same DropBox folder mentioned in the OP.

As for who this work is for... I'm doing it as a proof of concept and I'm happy to provide my snapshot, scripts, etc. back to the community. I personally like what I have installed. I'm doing this because some folks have asked for an option like this (btw. I'm not one of them). Any reluctance I have is because I am skeptical as to my abilities to make anything much fancier than a snaphot.

Ok Boys & Girls... I have the MX18 Continuum installset down to 991MB. There is one small bug that needs fixing (the FF icon on the panel needs removal ). Beyond that the install is pretty much devoid of apps. I believe all MX related functions, especially the tools, remain. Please test and let me know what you unearth.

I believe there is space to be saved yet by font removal, theme removal, icon removal...

The current 991MB version may be downloaded from my Dropbox folder:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/5d2pwt2woq7h ... EB2Oa?dl=0

The script ith the list of removed apps is in this folder:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/33ksvg28axkv ... XngOa?dl=0

Do not see the 991mB file there, only the md5 and sha fiiles?

manyroads wrote: Sat Jan 12, 2019 2:30 pm @Richard would you evaluate that as good? I know less memory use is better than more. But is that a decent % reduction to you mind?

Well, when you only have 995 MB, less is better. :)

I didn't take out everything on your list, but then not much is running at startup,
so it's a reasonable improvement. It is actually about 13% less memory usage,
which is great for a 1 GB netbook (ASUStek EeePC 1005HA with 150 GB HDD)

antiX with IceWM on the same nb starts using 65 MB;
while with Xfce4 it uses about 135 MB out of the box. Probably can be tweaked a bit.

But it all comes down to what you need to have running for a particular use.

when you get rid of FF, you must edit the default configuration. /etc/skel/xfce4/panel. Here is the link to FF and Thunar, and /etc/skel/xfce4/xfconf/xfce4/xfce-panel.xml and same with /root folder.
That's a problem. An update from desktop-defaults-xfce-mx17 package brings the defaults back and overwrite these files. There is new package needed, maybe desktop-defaults-xfce-minimal, with preconfigured minimal apps in the launcher.

On my MX-LMDE I have no desktop-defaults packages installed, only the necessary files copied in the system to run systemd-shim and the contents for /usr/local/bin to run the MX autostarts.

anticapitalista wrote: Sat Jan 12, 2019 4:03 pmIMHO (again) a minimal install really does have the bare minimal for it to be clearly MX (and not antiX or Debian). So, it should come with xfce, a browser, MX tools and that is it. Then user can install whatever they want.

Strongly agree. Actually, I would even remove the browser though I do realise that many would not agree with that.

anticapitalista wrote: Sat Jan 12, 2019 4:03 pmIs it noob-friendly?
No. Since user would have to build up and that means having some knowledge of what apps to install e.g. thunderbird or claws-mail, etc etc. (many of the options are in MXPI).

True... but then again a complete noob should probably start with the full install and perhaps sort of "graduate" to a minimal install once s/he is more experienced. IMHO of course,

Hello all. I'm building and will upload my final Minimal Build this morning (my time). I will also remove the earlier versions. I believe that there are opportunities to thin the build further but someone who knows the MXTools and can make changes to them needs to be involved. It looks to me like multiple icon theme dependencies are tangled around various of the tools. If the tools standardized on one icon theme, others could be stripped. Beyond that, I think we start hitting MX Tool removal, which I did not do...

Edit: Major changes from v2 include:

• fix of /etc/skel; added the new panel layout defaults

• removed residual file directories (I was able to find) of removed apps

manyroads wrote: Sun Jan 13, 2019 9:36 am Hello all. I'm building and will upload my final Minimal Build this morning (my time). I will also remove the earlier versions. I believe that there are opportunities to thin the build further but someone who knows the MXTools and can make changes to them needs to be involved. It looks to me like multiple icon theme dependencies are tangled around various of the tools. If the tools standardized on one icon theme, others could be stripped. Beyond that, I think we start hitting MX Tool removal, which I did not do...

Edit: Major changes from v2 include:

• fix of /etc/skel; added the new panel layout defaults

• removed residual file directories (I was able to find) of removed apps

Can you list some problematic dependencies, we'll check to see if it's possible to remove them in future tool updates, some might be listed as recommended instead of hard dependencies...

Hi @Adrian, I will provide a list of questionable items for removal.

Hello all.

I have uploaded what I believe to be a release candidate version of what I think is best called "The Essential MX Linux Continuum" it loads zero apps aside from those required to manage and build a fully custom MX Linux install. The following image folder provides an indication of what the actual install looks like & contains (Screenshot saved me a lot of typing :lipsrsealed: ).

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/msfqscrtsqq3 ... GLyMa?dl=0

Suffice it to say, you need to know what/ which Linux apps you want to run in order to use this modified MX Installset. This version of MX is neither recommended for newbies nor the faint of heart'.

Here is the download folder:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/5d2pwt2woq7h ... EB2Oa?dl=0

@Adrian here are the items referred to earlier; all show mx-tweak-data as a dependency.

Numix (Icon & Window Themes)
Faenza (Icon theme)
Faenza-cupertino (Icon theme)
Arc (Window Theme)

manyroads wrote: Sun Jan 13, 2019 11:26 am @Adrian here are the items referred to earlier; all show mx-tweak-data as a dependency.

Numix (Icon & Window Themes)
Faenza (Icon theme)
Faenza-cupertino (Icon theme)
Arc (Window Theme)

Thanks, I forwarded this to Dolphin_Oracle since he's the maintainer of mx-tweaks, he said he will be able to clear some dependencies.

@Adrian Thank you. I hope we get some testing on the Essential MX Continuum. I can't believe I haven't broken something crucial.

manyroads wrote: Sun Jan 13, 2019 11:41 am @Adrian Thank you. I hope we get some testing on the Essential MX Continuum. I can't believe I haven't broken something crucial.

Hopefully the people who requested this and complain about MX being too big will give it a thoroughly test and report issues... personally I have no interest to save 200-400MB just to have to re-add the apps back in, but this is a useful endeavor if nothing else we'll figure out and remove some unnecessary dependencies and have a list of apps that we can consider to remove next time we do a release in case we are hard-pressed for space.

Adrian wrote: Sun Jan 13, 2019 11:53 am Hopefully the people who requested this and complain about MX being too big will give it a thoroughly test and report issues... personally I have no interest to save 200-400MB just to have to re-add the apps back in, but this is a useful endeavor if nothing else we'll figure out and remove some unnecessary dependencies and have a list of apps that we can consider to remove next time we do a release in case we are hard-pressed for space.

@Adrian, I agree. Although now that I have done this, I'm thinking of using the final version as the base for the Children's MX Desktop I'm building.

manyroads wrote: Sun Jan 13, 2019 12:26 pm @Adrian, I agree. Although now that I have done this, I'm thinking of using the final version as the base for the Children's MX Desktop I'm building.

Now that you mentioned that I think I might use this for the MX Workbench respin that I make too, where's the list of apps you remove (or script that you use).

Adrian wrote: Sun Jan 13, 2019 12:47 pm Now that you mentioned that I think I might use this for the MX Workbench respin that I make too, where's the list of apps you remove (or script that you use).

The script is in the Dropbox folder here: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/33ksvg28axkv ... XngOa?dl=0

Edit: @Adrian the script does not include the unused directories that I removed.

I think this is really just an exercise for people who have limited hardware,
or an obsessive desire for speed. :)

On the T430 in my sig on a new install I removed the following, which I never use, after saving copies of the art work to put back into /usr/share/backgrounds/, after this operation: Removing mx*-art removes the lightdm-greeter-mx17 --which I find leaves the login a bit uglier,
but it boots an order of magnitude noticeably faster.

On the EeePC in my sig, I remove things that I personally don't use, just to conserve space and memory.
On a clean install I removed the following, using manyroads script as a guide: ### this removal took out the following, which I reinstalled afterwards:
mx-live-usb-maker, live-usb-maker, normalize-audio, libimage-magick
### I usually install LibreOffice fresh from the LibO web site. Perhaps I will try the latest via MXPI
### The EeePC still boots and runs with no apparent untoward effects.

Hi Richard,

save the file lightdm-gtk-greeter.conf from /etc/lightdm. This is the MX login config.

Another nice one is slick-greeter for login. This is used by Mint/Ubuntu and there are many more greeters for lightdm in the repos.

Yes, lightdm-gtk-greeter.conf stays.
Only downside is that I have to type user name --maybe I can tweak it a bit.
It looks okay, just have to type. Lazy and all that.

NOTE: Found it in /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf
[CORRECTED: Removed duplicate greeter-hide-users]


[SeatDefaults]
. . .
greeter-hide-users = false
. . .
user-session=richard


And now it works as desired.
It's pretty enough. :)

O.k. I thought you have the ugly default with no background and theming.
For the user entry you must tweak /etc/lightdm.conf, not the greeter.

@Richard there are numerous options beyond lightDM. Here is a very light one:
https://packages.debian.org/buster/slim

Here's a complete list of what works with Debian:
https://wiki.debian.org/DisplayManager# ... y_managers

Thanks, LightDM's working fine now; only need the password.

and Thanks for your efforts to document what can, can't and shouldn't be removed
while trying to lighten or remove required parts of MX installs.

@Richard... you are most . I am trying to figure out how to use the Minimal MX to build my Children's Desktop. btw. my grandson had a wonderful time using the Desktop today.

The minimal is stating to look good. I boot up minimal-v2 again and did "sudo apt-get remove --purge <pkgs>" as per script ... great!! I would have kept Firefox for start-up MX Welcome info box needed for web links.

We updated mx-tweak today so that you can remove some of the icon themes without removing mx-tweak. Should hit repos soon.

dolphin_oracle wrote: Sun Jan 13, 2019 4:51 pm We updated mx-tweak today so that you can remove some of the icon themes without removing mx-tweak. Should hit repos soon.

Thank you @dolphin_oracle

@D_O,
...and it works to remove Faenza icons leaving MX-Tweak.
Thanks.

hmmh, for what are the faenza-icon set used in mx-tweak before?

I have no idea ... but I removed them. I'd guess they may have been a preferred icon set before papirus...

By the way here's the final release...

viewtopic.php?f=39&t=47910

dphn wrote: Mon Jan 14, 2019 12:59 pm hmmh, for what are the faenza-icon set used in mx-tweak before?

Could it be for one of the theme sets in MX tweaks ?

asqwerth wrote: Mon Jan 14, 2019 8:11 pm

dphn wrote: Mon Jan 14, 2019 12:59 pm hmmh, for what are the faenza-icon set used in mx-tweak before?

Could it be for one of the theme sets in MX tweaks ?

Dependency no longer exists @dolphin_oracle 'fixed' it.

asqwerth wrote: Mon Jan 14, 2019 8:11 pm

dphn wrote: Mon Jan 14, 2019 12:59 pm hmmh, for what are the faenza-icon set used in mx-tweak before?

Could it be for one of the theme sets in MX tweaks ?

yes, the "nichi" themesets use it.

After removing apps from those commands, android phone is not being connected through usb whats wrong?
It works fine on normal version. please help

Mod note: please start your own thread instead of digging up an old one. Thanks.

Closing this one.