Re: Removing unwanted files at installation time
Sorry for the late answer, mail stream always seems bigger in winter ;)
IMHO, I don't think you can seriously reduce the size of the installed
system by merging or removing the files you specified. However, they're
some issue to work on that will really help:
1- Most of my disk full problem came when it's a long time I doesn't
upgrade my system. The combine size of download packages and
(to-be-)installed files easily fill the disk of small system. You can:
1a) Create a diff.deb package tools (like pydeb from Daniel Burrows) and
try to create a policy about how to manage those diffs (the gain is not
as good as it seems first and are more important for download time than
for disk space).
1b) (Ask to) implement a new feature in apt: apt should check the disk
space before downloading and, if the disk space left aren't at least
the sum of the download size + the install size, divise the download in
chunks than remove the rest. A clean up should be propose to the user
also. I would really like to see a third kind of clean in the apt-get
options: clean both old and already install packages. Currently autoclean
remove only unavailable packages, and clean remove everything in the
cache.
2) Adding a new option to dpkg-divert for diverting a file to /dev/null.
If we can make this option working for directories too, must of the
problem of installing unwanted doc/locale/etc... will be ease greatly.
This will also greatly help for installation of systems that use a
nfs /usr or /usr/share. Just dpkg-divert to /dev/null the nfs directory,
mount it normally, and install your local copy of debian to populate
unshared directories. Magic, not?
3) Implements the just-in-time feature in doc-base. One of the goal in
doc-base is to register the document and its format, and let it create
all alternatives formats on the fly. Normally, only sgml, or man, or
info files should be install and doc-base will take care to create the
html, text or ps/pdf versions you need. You could even ask doc-base to
create at installation time the default doc format you want.
Just my 2 c.
Fabien
On Sun, Jan 23, 2000 at 11:25:53AM -0600, MiniVend wrote:
> Is there some way to set up an installation so that it can be totally
> customized for a specefic user's needs. I want to have the following to
> be done when installing any system, upgrade, or application.
>
> 1. Be able to select which processor that system uses, i386, m68, alpha,
> etc from a menu. such that when the selection is made all installed
> software does NOT include references to processors that are not
> necessary. This would eliminate about half of the Kernel stuff that I do
> not need for starters.
>
> 2. Be able to select which language a system uses; so that all
> references to other languages are NOT installed from any software
> packages. i.e. I do not need docs in Polish, Chinese, French, or
> Japanese-- so these are NOT installed.
>
> 3. Be able to convert all of the files that are related to copyright,
> GPL, changes, and possibly others that are mostly duplicated in each
> applcation, to symlinks to cover dependencies, and set them up as a
> single document, that gives credit where it should but eliminates the
> MANY duplicated text files in a typical installation.
>
> Will these ever be a feature of debconf or some such application? I am
> not wanting to create a new distribution, only streamline my
> installation. My last upgrade gave me a disk full warning and it is on a
> 3.2 Gb drive. Granted it is an extensive setup, I still think a lot of
> disk space is being non-productively used, due to unnecessary files.
> Thanks to you developers, for all of the efforts! Potato Rocks!!
>
>
> --
> AdVance-Computing Systems
>
> We sell fine quality servers and workstations.
> We specialize in multiprocessor units.
> We install Debian Linux at no extra charge!
>
> John Foster
> jfoster@augustmail.com
> ICQ# 19460173
>
>
>
>
> --
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--
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Fabien Ninoles Chevalier servant de la Dame Catherine des Rosiers
aka Corbeau aka le Veneur Gris Debian GNU/Linux maintainer
E-mail: fab@tzone.org
WebPage: http://www.tzone.org/~fabien
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