advice, building livecd for translators

[anthony baldwin]

Greetings gentle colleagues,

Going way beyond the scope of my previous use, experience and
knowledge of Linux (even after 8 years use), I am attempting
to put together a LiveCD (but installable) based on Ubuntu,
with specific tools for translators.
I want to be able to use a LiveCD of Linux to demonstrate FOSS 
translator tools to
a professional assoc. to which I belong, and, I don't want it to 
frighten them.
This means, Omega T, Openoffice, and a few other things.
I am trying to streamline it as much as possible, to fit on one
CD.  Another translator colleague has made something similar,
based on PCLOS, but it requires a dvd, b/c it won't fit on a CD.
It has several translation memory programs, several project mgmt programs,
runs with KDE, has abiword and gnumeric, in addition to openoffice...etc.
I want something that will fit on a CD.
I also want to base it on Ubuntu.
Now, Gnome and Kde (my fave) are both just too darned fat.
I mean, I can't seem to dump stuff I don't need on this disc,
without dumping ubuntu-desktop or kubuntu-desktop, which,
to me, means that KDE and Gnome are just holding onto too much stuff
that I don't need.
I've made a 5gb partition to play with and installed ubuntu on it
and am trying to put together a slim system then make an .iso of it, etc.
So, I loaded up both IceWM and JWM to play with.
I like jwm and will probably leave it on there, since it takes up
no space at all, but, it's not that friendly to folks coming from the
proprietary world, now, is it?
I don't know...I might play with that some more.  If I load enough
apps into the menu, perhaps it will do the trick.
IceWM looks like windopes, but, the minute I tried to configure it a little
bit, I lost the toolbar and don't seem to be able to get it back.
I was pretty hopeful about IceWM, but, it doesn't seem to want to cooperate.
I want something that is at least mildly friendly to windopes users, 
but, at the same
time, isn't as fat as Aunt Gertrude.
I don't think that black box or fluxbox are quite what I want, although, 
I dig 'em.
I don't know...perhaps I should just be looking at Xfce/xubuntu.
I know xfce is supposedly lighter than gnome and kde, but, gosh, it's so 
pretty
and configurable and all...can it really be that much lighter?
So..I am looking to y'all for your advice.

This is what I want on the disc:
must haves-
Openoffice
Omega T
Firefox &
Thundebird
Sunbird or lightning ext. in tbird for calendar
a dictionary (like dict or kdict or something)
xpdf
a calculator (kcalc, gcalc, xcalc, yo mama´s calc...I don't care)
Kopete or gaim
a terminal (duh)
a gui ftp client (gftp or kftpgrabber, I don't care)
Knotes
xmms
gimp for editing images
maybe a solitaire game, but not a slew of games, no.

Also, maybe:
Ktranslator & Kbabel / or gtranslator
Kmymoney or gnucash for finance
Scribus
an html editor like Quanta (I hesitate here, since I am trying
to stay lite, and OOo has an html editor).

I want a pretty basic, but useful set up to demonstrate FOSS,
and be able to hand out CDs (not DVDs) to people at a demonstration.
I don't even know if the machines where I am to give this demo
even have dvd readers.

Is it possible to fit all of this on one live cd? Or am I trying to canoe
upstream without a paddle, here?

I don't need 12 different music applications like amarok, rhythmbox, 
kaffiene,
gstreamer, etc., etc., all on there.  Dig 'em, but don't need 'em.
I don't need 7 different digital camera applications or image viewers.
One image viewer would be fine.  like showfoto or kview.
I don't want evolution or kalendar or all kinds of stuff that automagically
gets installed with gnome and kde and seem impossible to extricate without
removing the whole desktop.
I figure FF, Tbird and Sunbird all work together, and are familiar 
enough to anyone
that's used a computer in this century, regardless of whta OS they use.

Stuff like that...

Your input and or assistance is greatly appreciated.

/tony


-- 
http://www.baldwinlinguas.com
Translation & Interpreting