advice, building livecd for translators

[anthony baldwin]

Peter Garrett wrote:
> On Thu, 20 Dec 2007 19:17:11 -0500
> anthony baldwin <anthony.baldwin01 at comcast.net> wrote:
>
>   
>> 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.
>>     
> [snip]
> .
>   
>> 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.
>>     
>
> It does sound like what you want is very similar to Xubuntu - and the live
> Xubuntu CD is about 560 MB so you have some room to add things.
>
> Personally I'm a Fluxbox fan, but I agree that the average Windows user is
> going to bbe thrown by its interface ( pity really since it is hugely
> configurable and can be made rather pretty - see for
> example http://fluxbuntu.org ( unfortunately that is an installer disc, not
> a live CD, though).
>
>   
Heh...I didn't even know there was a fluxbuntu project.
It does look nice.
Damn Small Linux has flux and jwm, and I've played with that.
I even though of using DSL as a starting point for this.
Using remastersys, I could make a livecd from a system once I had it
up and together.  I wonder why they fluxbuntu folks haven't done that...

>> This is what I want on the disc:
>> must haves-
>> Openoffice
>>     
>
> Should be OK.
>   
>> Omega T
>>     
> Don't know this one...
>   
It's a translation memory program...only useful to translators.
>> Firefox &
>> Thundebird
>>     
>
>
>   
>   
>> a dictionary (like dict or kdict or something)
>>     
>
> I just spent a few minutes doing the little script below :-)  
> It works, but you might want to refine it somewhat. Should blend in well
> with any gtk desktop... and use very little disc space!
>   

I do want a graphical dictionary program.
Looks like I'm going with opendict.

>> xpdf
>>     
>
> Not a problem either - evince looks nicer, but xpdf works well :)
>   

Yeah, I just discovered evince...That'll do nicely.

>
> [snipped bits I know nothing about )
>   
>> an html editor like Quanta (I hesitate here, since I am trying
>> to stay lite, and OOo has an html editor).
>>     
>
> For some value of html editor... OOo used to produce some horrible html
> ( I haven't used it for that for ages, so it might have improved)
> Bluefish is nice. For wysiwig there's the Seamonkey/Mozilla "Composer."
>   

Ha...Moz composer is my favorite.
It's light weight and basic.
I can edit the html in one tab and do wysiwig in the other.
I have used to it build all of my websites.
(photodharma.com, baldwinlinguas.com, school-library.net and others)

>> 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 think it's possible - you might have to juggle your app choices a bit,
> of course. For what you are attempting, I think the Xubuntu live CD would
> be a good starting point for remastering.
>
> Peter
>   

I got a system scrunched into an iso at 738mb, but that was too big for 
a CD.
Then I dumped a bunch more stuff, and got it onto a Cd, but couldn't get 
it to boot.
Still working on it.
I'm going to be working from Xubuntu dapper, at this stage, and start 
the whole
process all over.
I think I'm going to build two isos...one full complete system on a dvd, and
another livecd for demo purposes that'll be very stripped down (no gimp, 
no ftp
various other stuff knocked off for space saving, so I can demo 
openoffice and omegat
to a professional translator assoc. to which I am supposed to present on 
FOSS).

thanks for your input.

/tony

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