Re: Towards an instructive minimalist intall of Openbox
On Tue 12 Aug 2014 at 09:15:59 -0700, Patrick Bartek wrote:
> On Tue, 12 Aug 2014, Brian wrote:
>
> > xserver-xorg-core and xinit are insufficient by themselves. To have
> > startx bring up X you need /usr/bin/X, which is in the xserver-xorg
> > package. But xserver-org depends on one of xserver-xorg-video-* and
> > one of xserver-xorg-input-* (I use xserver-xorg-input-evdev).
>
> Maybe, I should clarify: when I say I installed xserver-xorg-core,
> etc,, I don't mean I installed just THAT package. I let apt-get
> installed the dependencies, too; but not the recommends. The latter I
> did manually as needed.
The clarification is welcome but I had worked out that is what you did.
As it happens, xserver-xorg-core doesn't have any recommended packages
and xserver-org (and the other packages mentioned) really are needed for
a functional X.
> > Your notes are amongst the best I have seen on this topic of a minimal
> > desktop install. My objective has sometimes been a little different
> > and I've dispensed with the standard system utilities and got one or
> > two of its packages later.
>
> Thanks. But what I posted is a mere outline of my install notes,
> a synopsis. The actual notes themselves run the front and back of 4 or 5
> 8.5 x 11 inch pages in tiny handwritten print. They include the complete
> process, everything that was installed, the order that it was
> installed, and any problems and how they were rectified.
>
> I've yet to transcribe them to a more readable form -- even my
> printing is barely legible. ;-) The outline I posted here was done for
> someone on this list last year who wanted to do the same thing I did,
> but I sent it privately to him.
It's a good synopsis then. I hope what Andrei picked up on and what I
criticised leads you to improve on it.
> > Also, it can quite nice for users not to have type 'startx' and nodm
> > is a lightweight solution to that.
>
> I decide not to go that route as a safeguard. If something went wrong
> setting up X and the GUI, I could reboot and be at a working terminal
> to fix it or try something else. After everything was finished, I just
> left it instead of booting directly to the GUI. I don't reboot that
> often. I just run the system 24/7 only turning off the monitor when
> I'm finished for the day. So, typing startx two or three times a year
> is not inconvenient. ;-)
My users were expecting a 400 GBP SMART TV. They got a thin client with
a mini keyboard and a bash script using dialog. Having them not type
'startx' every time it was switched on was a concession. Why go looking
for trouble? Must keep the troops happy. :)
(Sometimes a technical solution to a social problem works).
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