Guest gfa Posted July 22, 2003 Report Share Posted July 22, 2003 Hi All I'm wanting to customise mandrake for friends - basically i want a one-cd mandrake distro. that means cutting out lots of packages, and restricting choice of apps to maybe one or two for each task. (e.g. only have kmail, have konqueror and mozilla, etc, etc). looks like the way i could do that is with a package that's included on the cds called MkCD. the documentation is supposedly at http://people.mandrakesoft.com/~warly/files/mkcd/ - but nothing there. also nothing in the docs installed along with mkcd at /usr/share/doc/mkcd-3.3.5/mkcd.html . has anyone used mkcd, or can anyone point me towards any documentation. Google hasn't found anything :-( thanks for any help! gfa Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tyme Posted July 22, 2003 Report Share Posted July 22, 2003 are you planning to use this disc to install mandrake from or are you looking at running the o/s right off of the disk? (this will also help in where this thread should go, i moved it here from other distro's but it may fit better elsewhere...) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest gfa Posted July 22, 2003 Report Share Posted July 22, 2003 the idea is to continue using the cd to install from. i mainly want a smaller mandrake distro so that i only have to give away one cd each time rather than 3. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pmpatrick Posted July 22, 2003 Report Share Posted July 22, 2003 What you describe sounds like Alt Linux Jr. It's basically a modified mandrake. The installer is identical to Mdk; it fits on one cd; only has kde, uses apt/synaptic instead of urpmi for package management. Word of caution, if you have mandrake installed and just want to install Alt linux on your test partition, i'd advise against that. The use of the same installer as mdk causes mdk to see the Alt linux install as a new mdk install and mdk cd 1 won't reload lilo in rescue mode. Also, during install of Alt Linux, there's no option to not install a boot loader so your mdk lilo will get overwritten. Had a devil of a time straightening things out when I tried that. Apart from that, if your looking for a slimmed down/streamlined mandrake, you might want to give Alt Linux a try. Here's a link to a review: http://www.virtualsky.net/altlinuxreview.htm Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scoopy Posted July 23, 2003 Report Share Posted July 23, 2003 I think a one cd Mandrake release would be good... especially with the idea of passing out to those interested in making the switch or for promotional reasons. I would be really interested in what you learn on the subject. I will check out the links later (when I get back home). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Chadd Posted July 23, 2003 Report Share Posted July 23, 2003 I would second Altlinux Jr. I have not had the problems that pmpatrick had in a dual boot install. It does overwrite as pmpatrick said. Been vary reliable for me. edit: it has gnome and urpmi (no gui). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest gfa Posted July 23, 2003 Report Share Posted July 23, 2003 cool. i'm downloading alt linux junior now - looks like it could be what i'm after. i'll let you know how i get on. in the meantime, does it have mandrake control centre? cheers gfa Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest gfa Posted July 23, 2003 Report Share Posted July 23, 2003 Mmmm, done a bit more searching around, and found out that alt-linux is being developed independently of mandrake - so isn't a 'proper' mandrake distro anymore. this is certainly not a bad thing, but i am literally looking for a scaled-down mandrake because of the support available (like here and from other mandrake users), and other snazzy things like urpmi etc. i'll definately still try alt-linux out though (after it's finished downloading), and report back how i get on. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shen Posted July 23, 2003 Report Share Posted July 23, 2003 As far as I know I have found only 1 mdk clone.. But it's just that a clone 3 cd's to download and only a few additional apps added.. It's called EduLinux. Other then that I have yet to see a true MDK that is a single cd or a 2 cd install. Would be an interesting project to produce a single cd install of mdk without all the server software and such. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tyme Posted July 23, 2003 Report Share Posted July 23, 2003 gfa: if you're worried about support, we will help you here not matter what distro you use. if nothing else, just drop your issues in the other distro's forum, a couple of us hang out in there (usually helping people with gentoo, debian, red hat, or whatever they decide to drop on their box) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Chadd Posted July 23, 2003 Report Share Posted July 23, 2003 Mmmm, done a bit more searching around, and found out that alt-linux is being developed independently of mandrake - so isn't a 'proper' mandrake distro anymore. this is certainly not a bad thing, but i am literally looking for a scaled-down mandrake because of the support available (like here and from other mandrake users), and other snazzy things like urpmi etc. i'll definately still try alt-linux out though (after it's finished downloading), and report back how i get on. It has urpmi (command line). It has alcc not mcc. They are similar but mdk (I think) has more options. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest gfa Posted July 24, 2003 Report Share Posted July 24, 2003 tried out alt-linux last night - looks really good. i think i'm happy :-) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iphitus Posted July 24, 2003 Report Share Posted July 24, 2003 I'm guessing here but you could shrink it easily to 2 disks. Use a normal 9.1 disk one and then just get RPMs and dependencies for heaps of software and throw it on another disk, Like what tyme did with the updates. If you can find a way of editing ISOs you could edit the first disk and remove KDE or Gnome, development stuff, whatever. You could put stuff in there instead. Just some suggestions, you have a good idea. James Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest seeds Posted July 24, 2003 Report Share Posted July 24, 2003 I work with gfa, and he gave me the alt-linux cd he downloaded to try out. It looks good - has all the software i usually use, and fits on to one disk. BUT, similiar to gfa we've been looking for a way to shrink mandrake onto one disk. The reason for this is that we work with campaigning and voluntary groups (http://seedsforchange.org.uk), and we've been doing some research on what kind of stuff people who are working on these kind of issues are wanting. They obviously don't want to mess around with learning gnu/linux, but they do want to get away from microsoft. based on watching people's use of the computers (under ms and linux), and talking to people of varying confidence / ability we've come up with the following criteria: - has to be on one disk (easy for us to distribute) - has to have easy font installation (to rescue all the fonts they are used to working with - has to have easy software installation/de-installation (this is what seems to confuse people the most) - has to be clear which application to use for which task. faced with several options people seem to give up, rather than just check each one out. - has to be easy to install - has to have the option of doing all configuration from the gui our conclusion is that mandrake fulfills most of these criteria. that leaves the need to fit onto one cd, and the need to somehow cut down on the menu options in kde or gnome, or even take out packages. using a popular distribution rather than rolling our own means that if people want more flexibity after a while they can just install the full version of that distro. so our ideal would be to install mandrake, take out superfluous packages, alter the menus, and somehow put that structure onto one cd for distribution. I was interested in gfa's MkCD package, but i too can't find any documentation on it. Does anyone else have any ideas of how to squeeze mandrake onto one cd and take a snapshot of the settings for easy transferral on other computers? (sure, alt-linux fits onto one cd, but the alt-control centre isn't as mature as mandrake's. we'll keep our eye on it, because it's a definite possible). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest seeds Posted July 24, 2003 Report Share Posted July 24, 2003 I work with gfa, and he gave me the alt-linux cd he downloaded to try out. It looks good - has all the software i usually use, and fits on to one disk. BUT, similiar to gfa we've been looking for a way to shrink mandrake onto one disk. The reason for this is that we work with campaigning and voluntary groups (http://seedsforchange.org.uk), and we've been doing some research on what kind of stuff people who are working on these kind of issues are wanting. They obviously don't want to mess around with learning gnu/linux, but they do want to get away from microsoft. based on watching people's use of the computers (under ms and linux), and talking to people of varying confidence / ability we've come up with the following criteria: - has to be on one disk (easy for us to distribute) - has to have easy font installation (to rescue all the fonts they are used to working with) - has to have easy software installation/de-installation (this is what seems to confuse people the most) - has to be clear which application to use for which task. faced with several options people seem to give up, rather than just check each one out. - has to be easy to install - has to have the option of doing all configuration from the gui our conclusion is that mandrake fulfills most of these criteria. that leaves the need to fit onto one cd, and the need to somehow cut down on the menu options in kde or gnome, or even take out packages. using a popular distribution rather than rolling our own means that if people want more flexibity after a while they can just install the full version of that distro, and not have to get to know all those little differences between distros. (sure, alt-linux fits onto one cd, but the alt-control centre isn't as mature as mandrake's. software de/installation is a bit confusing for a newbie. we'll keep our eye on it, because it's a definite possible). so our ideal would be to install mandrake, take out superfluous packages, alter the menus, and somehow put that structure onto one cd for distribution. I was interested in gfa's MkCD package, but i too can't find any documentation on it. Does anyone else have any ideas of how to squeeze mandrake onto one cd and take a snapshot of the settings for easy transferral on other computers? [/url] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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