Small ubuntu?

[Björn Lundin]

I've got a Dapper Drake machine running Mythtv. I compiled MythTv myself, and
all of its addons. Now, I'm thinking of rebuilding the machine. I've seen the 
myth-packages in the repository, and thinking of using them.

It is a dedicated front-end, the backend is another Dapper Drake, not 
scheduled for upgrade in many years...

Now, I also got a CF-card to IDE adapter, and thinking of installing it there 
instead, in order to minimize noise. 

So I'm looking for advice on what package to use
I see these:

<quote syntaptic>
ubuntu-mythtv-frontend:
Metapackage to setup and configure a "Frontend" profile of MythTV.
...
...

A machine already configured as a desktop should install mythtv-frontend 
instead. 
</quote syntaptic>

What does this mean? If I installed a desktop, use another package.
In what cases do I use this package?


<quote syntaptic>
mythtv-frontend
...
This package contains only the client software, which provides a front-end
for playback and configuration
...
</quote syntaptic>


secondly, I'd like to make the machine log to /dev/null, by making /var/log a 
ramdrive. It got 1Gb of memory, and I've never seen it use more than 500.
Any drawback to this approachm ore than the logs won't survive a boot?
Any other 'often written' directories that should be included?
Any pointers on how to do that? (Ok, I'll google first)

/Björn