"Mini Suse"?

English Soapbox
1

Not sure if this is the appropriate thread for this. But, I’ll post it anyways and if need be. A moderator can move it to where its better suited.

I am a longtime user of PCLinux’s “MiniMe” setup. I absolutely LOVE it because it gave ME the user complete control over what things I wanted to use for whatever that machine will be used as. I honestly think it is a great concept and works out for users that are beyond the novice level. And know what they want/need.

I bring this up because I have did alot of digging around and sampled alot of popular distros, like Suse & Ubuntu. But I noticed that despite having these “net-installers”. The user still has no absolute control(unless he/she is a linux pro or developer*) over what goes on that system. Necessary core files and the like are fine. But what if that person did not want any games. Or does not want “Kaffeine” or any media playback at all? I came to Linux from Windows because there was supposedly, this big hullabaloo about “freedom and choice”. So far I hav’nt seen that unless you was some code junkie guru that knew how to break and reassemble the thing as you wanted.

Not till, I came across PCLOS and found their MiniMe variant did I truly fall in love with Linux. But, the point Im getting at is: “As big and well renowned as OpenSuse is. Why is’nt there such a minimalistic installation for it?”.

Im sure alot of you will be saying “oh well, just use the net-installer”. Trust me. I heard enough of that from the Gentoo & Ubuntu guys. Heck, Even Debian shoves a whole bunch of bloat onto my system and does’nt give me absolute control over whats going on there!

So, I am making this post assuming that possibly 1 of the lead devs may see and consider the validity of such a project and take it on. Making Suse the 1st at the gate in front of Ubuntu & others to have a recognized destro using that concept.

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Welcome to SUSE Studio

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> So, I am making this post assuming that possibly 1 of the lead devs may
> see and consider

highly unlikely any dev will see or consider…unfortunately they are
so busy that they live on mail lists/IRC and rarely drop into simple
user’s hang outs like these fora…

if you wanna talk to them, try http://en.opensuse.org/Fate to log
your feature request, or if you wanna try to talk with them see the
secret passage ways (mailing lists & IRCs) to their dens, here:
http://en.opensuse.org/Communicate

that said, what you want you can have today–just follow syampillai’s
posted hint (SUSE Studio)…and you have total control, including you
can rebrand at will and issue a Phyerboss Mini distro, and watch it
zoom from distro number 308 to who knows where at
http://distrowatch.com/stats.php?section=popularity

–
palladium

4

I always select the software I want, and delete the software I don’t want during an installation, the amount of control in the openSUSE installer is great, it’s a simple matter of making the choices you want and don’t want.

That said I am no programmer, or developer, just a desktop user who makes choices about my installation.

If you choose not to make those choices, then I simply don’t understand the thought process of there is no choice. rotfl!

You can do as minimal an install, as complex as you want, the choice of desktop gUI’s, software, network configuration, partitioning, hardware configuration, it is endless what you can do with the installation.

If one chooses to let the system “auto-configure” than it is obvious you won’t be getting choices because you told it not to offer them :wink:

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In addition to SUSE Studio (which has been mentioned already), have a
look at “SUSE On Active Diet” - or SOAD.

Jim

–
Jim Henderson
openSUSE Forums Moderator

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Thanks guys. I’ll check those out