• [deleted]

Justin drools for the thought of ivybridge-optimized Solus build

    [deleted] It's potentially possible but you'd have to put in some hard compile time to get it there.

      Justin I think its mostly choice, not disk space or menu entries.

      sangheeta not really an issue with Solus software installer. Laid out nicely, and surely not enough software choices to overwhelm.
      Can't argue with the philosophy point. I do believe that should the Solus devs ever get some spare time(hehehe) they might possibly see room for something between a gentoo/arch build it yerself, and a solid minimal install with say budgie.

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      Justin Wanna lend buildserver? 😉

        For me, Solus is pretty minimal already, just the basics installed. Compared with Manjaro that bring 25 office suites, 32 video players, etc.. Solus only bring the necessary.

        Good discussion! Since I started using Linux about 15 years ago, I have developed simple bash scripts that removes and installs the things I need - nothing else. Everytime I need to reinstall and setup a new machine I can just reuse them. I understand that this is not for the general user but for me it is perfect. Sane defaults are fine, but I have yet to find one distribution that does MY sane defaults. Solus is close but not perfect in any way.

        I have read in earlier discussions that at least some of the Solus devs doesnt like Welcome screens or software. For me though, that would be brilliant. Startup Solus after installation, and BAM: "Welcome to Solus, what can we offer you now? Here is a link to the community. Here is where you can decide Chrome or Firefox, this or that. And, most importantly, here is a button if you just want to skip this whole damn thing and just start using the system using sane defaults."

        As for why I dont want for instance Libre Office preinstalled is that I dont use it. Why should I have libraries, prerequisities and stuff installed that can collide with other software I have installed? But as I said, not a big problem, I just remove what I dont need and let others decide.

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          tobcro What do you use instead of LibreOffice?

            Justin , in my case disk space is a factor. My NUC came with a 55G SSD, and already 70% is full. I am curious how much space would a 'bare' Solus install take, considering that I hardly added any extra software. I don't consider Solus a 'bloated' distro, compared to other 'light' ones I have used in the past. It feels very minimal as is. Shaving off a few Gigs would not make much difference IMHO.

              [deleted] My desktop sits idle about 18 hours a day and has 32GB RAM so, maybe? 😃

              elfprince Solus base install is very small to start with, the only thing that honestly takes up space is LibreOffice, it's huge. Take that out and that's about as minimal as you'd get.

              And, of course the browser, because no one needs more than lynx, right ? (I'm being sarcastic, just so you know)
              (Ok, now laughing) we could save space by just using wget and then a text editor to look at the results?
              Oh wait, a text editor might be overkill, we could just cat it and pipe to more.

              Firefox installed size 218MB.

              I did come back though to mention my install (a few days old) is <9GB.

              Libreoffice installed size (common package which is the bulk) is 672MB.

              Edit: /usr/lib64/libreoffice is 1GB according to ncdu.

              Edit2: Chrome + Spotify is 500MB also.

              Still 32G is used according to df -h . I removed what I could, but left LibreOffice and Free Office, plus Firefox and Chrome. Those are the heavyweights, I think. What else has so much weight?

                Well I expect you want it, but you could say the X-Window system has a very heavy footprint too. That'd be my guess for the next one. Followed by the windowing system (Budgie/Cinnmon/Plasma). I can't think of anything else that's awfully heavy, maybe the kernel and it's modules as a collection? But again, pretty strictly necessary.

                  XerXes Agree every single word except I've always known this OS to have a vison, or ethos, so go with it. It's a no frills install.

                  Personally i would like to have a "Alternative Downloads" section to get access to a minimal install iso, its a nice thing to have... i don't know if it's hard to maintain or something...

                  Would be nice to an i3 user to have a feature like that. Would be nice to a KDE Plasma tester, just download a netinstall with the proper integrity check and install, instead of using testing isos without a integrity check.

                  Also, besides we can consider this a "technical preciosity": less packages = less vulnerabilities to be explored.

                  I really like Solus, it's an independent distro focused on the desktop... no companies getting in the way, no mix of interests... but i must confess that i feel like sometimes Solus overprotect the user... i feel like, if that decision of do not produce a netinstall iso is based on pragmatism, than it's fine, but if its based on protecting a certain philosophy, then it's an exaggeration.

                  Obs: i also agree that for the average user an "out of the box" mindset is better, so, if a netinstall is hard to maintain, maybe the best decision is to extend this idea to future, when probably Solus will have more man work... i agree it's not an necessary thing.

                  Obs2: I really hope that the new Solus package manager will solve this "orphan packages" problems in the proper way, without harming the average user.

                  In the end, i think we should trust Solus leaders. They should know how much Solus can handle "non-essential" stuff, and how much that could hurt or take out the focus of the project or not. For now, for normal installations i keep my eyes on Solus, for minimal ones i keep my eyes on Void Linux or maybe Debian.