Ubuntu on ICE (Bob Nielsen)

[paul cooke]

On Friday 29 April 2005 14:45, David James Pettifor wrote:
> On Mon, 2005-04-11 at 08:13 +1000, Colin McDermott wrote:
> > Yes you are correct there is an easy way to install Icewm on a fully
> > loaded tanked out ubuntu system.
> >
> > Yes you can have your ICEWM on a Full install of Ubuntu that is largely
> > unconfigured (I have not tried in Hoary, if someone has configured it I
> > apologise).
> >
> > I want to create a lighter version of Ubuntu that is designed for the
> > slower systems. Take out allot of unnessary apps. Configure Idesk and
> > get icons, etc.
> >
> > I recycle old computers and we need a stable OS for the older systems
> > that uses the latest apps.
> >
> > Just clicking session is not appropiate.
>
> If you have not come across the following you may find it useful.
> http://www.binonabiso.com/en/Ubuntu-miniRAM-HOWTO.html
>

some caveats for that article.

Firstly it was written when Warty was the current version, so you can now use 
the xorg server instead of the xfre86 server

# apt-get install xserver-xorg

secondly, there's an experimental version of icewm available now which has 
nice features so try that if you want to use it

# apt-get install icewm-experimental

and thirdly... read up on vi before you use it. The article fails to mention 
that you have to save the edited sources.list... and exit vi...

and fourthly... I'd take heed of his fourth item...
|If we go down to 64 or 32 MB of RAM we won't install OpenOffice. I recommend
|Abiword and Gnumeric instead. Also the Mozialla web broser could be a problem
|on such systems. Better to go with Firefox and Thunderbird/Pine.  

I'd dump OOo and Mozilla anyway even on systems with plenty of ram... low spec 
machines (processor wise) would seem to be crawling if you were using OOo...

Another suggestion that goes away from the icewm desktop is to use XFCE 
instead... It's very sprightly on low spec machines... you'll be pleasantly 
surprised.