Lightweight Archlinux Install
smakked — Sat, 2010-07-03 20:53
A small guide on how to build a minimal and functional system within Nix'. I use Archlinux myself but i am sure you could acheive the same with any distro with a bit of work. I based my install on Openbox but you can use what ever you like, PekWM, Fluxbox, Blackbox, IceWM. All are light weight and pretty easy to configure. These applications are what I like, as always with Linux there are plenty of other alternatives.
This is ideal for older hardware with in the early pentium range, it will run fast and be very usable and get the job done, i have run a setup like this on a Pentium III 500 Mhz and 128 Meg of ram and found it very usable and still fast.
I start with athe base install of arch which is about 550 meg install, with these apps added my total install sits at about 950 meg maybe more.
The best Part? This make for a Lightning Fast system. Which was my goal. And also as a learning exercise, very handy if you want to know what your system could be like.
This is good fun and probably not for anyone who wants point and click install. Most you will have to configure yourself by hand.
Official Repo
nvidia - Nvidia Driver
Openbox - Window Manager
obconf - GUI for Config changes to Openbox
obmenu - GUI for Openbox Menu Changes
lxappearance - To change GTK themes
leafpad - Light text editor
nitrogen - Wallpaper Changer
pcmanfm - File manager
squeeze - Archive manager
gimp - Photo Editing
mirage - Photo Viewer
claws email - EMail Client
weechat - IRC Client
sonata - Music Player (mpd needed)
conky - system stats
atop - More System states
urxvt - Light weight Terminal
terminal - Terminal (supports copy and paste)
gmrun - Run Command
gnome-mplayer (mplayer) - Movie player
links - Text based web browser
netsurf - Basic Web browser
geany - Editor for Programming
mpd - Music Player Daemon
xpdf - PDF reader
flashplugin - TO get flash going on web sites
emesene - MSN Chat client
transmission - Torrent client
transset - Transparency for apps
volumewheel - Volume control in the systray
Fonts
ttf-liberation
ttf-dejavu
ttf-bitstream-vera
ttf-freefont
ttf-ms-fonts
ttf-cheapskate
AUR
simpleburn - CD/DVD burning program
skype - Chat/Webcam/Phone
chromium-nogconf - Google Chrome Webbrowser with out Gconf :)
bmpanel2 - Panel
firefox-pgo-beta - Optimized version of firefox
lostirc - Gui IRC client
abiword-light - Basic Word program
xcompmgr-dana - Shadows for windows
Tweaks
The main tweak i use to get fonts to look nice is using patched versions of freetype2, libxft, cairo, fontconfig. These are all available in the AUR for arch but same thing can be done with any distro.
freetype2-ubuntu
fontconfig-ubuntu
libxft-ubuntu
cairo-ubuntu
Then use a custom .font.config in my home directory.
I also use chromium-nogconf, which is just chromium compiled with out gconf, as i fond gconf slows applications down.
the main thing i try to do is stay away from apps that have heavy Gnome Dependencies such as gconf.
This is just a starting point and you can add what ever you like , but this set up should get you going with every day to day usgae on a Computer.