Hi ALL,

I need a lightweight Slackware distribution at my workplace. For this
reason I want to build custom distribution seprately for both server
and desktop versions based on Slackware.

Being new to Linux I am seeking all your help . Please guide me how
should I proceed further and any links to online reources is
appreciated.

Changing the Installer to suit my needs will be sufficeint as of now.
Please brief me how can i achieve it .

Thank you in advance

Kanthi kiran

Kanthi Kiran Narisetti wrote:
> Changing the Installer to suit my needs will be sufficeint as of now.
> Please brief me how can i achieve it .

if by changing the installer you mean selecting the packages that it
installs, you probably want to read about package management:

http://www.slackbook.org/html/package-management.html

and especially about creating tag files for the installer:

http://www.slackbook.org/html/packag...-tagfiles.html

if you want to add custom packages onto the install cd, read the README.TXT
in the isolinux/ subdir of the slack cd, which will tell you how to create
a bootable cd.

--
Joost Kremers joostkremers@yahoo.com
Selbst in die Unterwelt dringt durch Spalten Licht
EN:SiS(9)

On 2006-01-06, Kanthi Kiran Narisetti <TechAlerts@gmail.com> wrote:
> Changing the Installer to suit my needs will be sufficeint as of now.
> Please brief me how can i achieve it .

The good news is that you chose the right distribution for this kind
of work. The Slackware Linux installer is just a bunch of shell scripts,
and the package system is easy to comprehend. The following pointers
may be handy:

Doing a custom install, and creating a custom installation script:
http://www.slackbasics.org/html/cust...tallation.html

Tagfiles, and how you can create them:
http://www.slackbasics.org/html/pkgm...gmgmt-tagfiles

Peter Kaagman wrote a simple script named 'tagger', that builds
tagfiles based on the packages that are installed on a system:
http://www.bilbos-stekkie.com/tagger/index.html

Along the course it may be handy to know a little about (bash) shell
scripting:
http://www.tldp.org/LDP/abs/html/
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/bash2/

-- Daniel

"Kanthi Kiran Narisetti" <TechAlerts@gmail.com> schrieb:

>Hi ALL,
>
>I need a lightweight Slackware distribution at my workplace. For this
>reason I want to build custom distribution seprately for both server
>and desktop versions based on Slackware.
>

try www.slax.org

I apologies for not being clear.

Even though I prefer Slackware for my purpose, I have to think about
installer not being GUI.
I am thinking if any slackware based distribution available with GUI
installtion.

I am making own distribution for a small SME which is migrating to
linux desktops and server soon. All the users are new to linux addicted
to XP

Taking this chance i want to build a custom linux for my workplace with
Server and Desktop version. I am thinking of customising the basic
theme to reflect the unique name i give to my distribution. Even i need
to work on KDE start menu to make it feel like XP.

I seek your suggestions in this regards.

Thank You,
Kanthi

"Kanthi Kiran Narisetti" <TechAlerts@gmail.com> wrote:
> Even though I prefer Slackware for my purpose, I have to think about
> installer not being GUI.

Why whould you want a gui during installation? I have customized the
installation steps of Slackware. When I did that I absolutely did not want
the installation to become something point-and-click. I want the
installation to become as few questions as possible and all questions
during the first step. After booting from a custom installation CD I get
questions about IP-adress, preferred screen resolution and which users to
present in KDM. Booting the CD and answering those questions takes less
than 2 minutes. After that the CD is ejected and I can continue to the
next machine while installation is done from network. When the
installation is completed the machine reboots into its new installation.

> Taking this chance i want to build a custom linux for my workplace with
> Server and Desktop version.

Having two different versions installed means that you will have two
different versions to maintain. I would advice you to have only one
version which contains everything. Hard disk is cheap, your working time
is expensive. If necessary you can have some carefully selected packages
which will only be installed on some servers. It will be important for you
to be able to easily replicate a server or a workstation without having to
go through a lot of manual steps.

By the way, I also made an even more extreme installation CD once for
setting up a network with a Slackware server and Windows clients. After
boot there is a question if you a server installation or a client
installation. If the answer is client there will be a new question about
the last number in the IP adress. After that/those questions the
installation of Slackware 8 with custom packages or Windows 98 was
started.

The fact that the end user would prefer a GUI OS does not mean that the
installation has to be a GUI one.

regards Henrik
--
The address in the header is only to prevent spam. My real address is:
hc7(at)uthyres.com Examples of addresses which go to spammers:
root@variousus.net root@localhost

the slackware based distro will allow you to do this very simple.
it is desgned for live cd, but will install on hd well too
the packing of the distro is rather simple, can be done under windows
as well.

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_.-In alt.os.linux.slackware, Kanthi Kiran Narisetti wrote the following -._
> I am thinking if any slackware based distribution available with GUI
> installtion.
>
> I am making own distribution for a small SME which is migrating to
> linux desktops and server soon. All the users are new to linux addicted
> to XP

So basically you are going to take the install and make it look
pretty. Here are the problems with this:
1) just because it looks slick doesn't mean it is better than the
rest, the faster the users learn this the easier the transition to
linux will be for them
2) you are going to take a stable installer and introduce the
potential for massive amounts of bugs that can prevent the
installation from actually happening.
3) you are going to take a installer that works on just about any
system because of its lack of a GUI and turn it into one that may not
be able to run on all hardware

Every GUI installer I have used has failed in unfixable ways and I
have had to start all over with the install.

- --
.-')) fauxascii.com ('-. | It's a damn poor mind that
' ..- .:" ) ( ":. -.. ' | can only think of one way to
((,,_;'.;' UIN=66618055 ';. ';_,,)) | spell a word.
((_.YIM=Faux_Pseudo :._)) | - Andrew Jackson
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On 2006-01-06, Kanthi Kiran Narisetti <TechAlerts@gmail.com> wrote:
> I am thinking if any slackware based distribution available with GUI
> installtion.

Why? It is an extra point of failure:

- You have to make sure that you get the video card and monitor
settings right.
- You need a lot more memory than, making it difficult to install
on older machines.
- A lot of flexibility is thrown away.

-- Daniel

On 2006-01-06, Kanthi Kiran Narisetti <TechAlerts@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Even though I prefer Slackware for my purpose, I have to think about
> installer not being GUI.
> I am thinking if any slackware based distribution available with GUI
> installtion.
>
> I am making own distribution for a small SME which is migrating to
> linux desktops and server soon. All the users are new to linux addicted
> to XP

I understand that you want an X-based installer for political or social
reasons (to get your lame XP users to not cringe when they see an
ncurses installer), but I think it's really unwise. It's going to be a
lot of work for very little return. If you don't want them to ever see
the Slackware installer, do the install yourself; with the tagfiles the
install should go very quickly for you (especially after the Nth one).

> Taking this chance i want to build a custom linux for my workplace with
> Server and Desktop version. I am thinking of customising the basic
> theme to reflect the unique name i give to my distribution. Even i need
> to work on KDE start menu to make it feel like XP.

If you're talking about customizing config files (which would be how
you'd make KDE feel like XP, for example), I'd just build a Slackware
package with all of the modified files, and install it last (so that it
definitely overwrites all the affected files). Between that and your
custom tagfiles, you should be able to create a desktop environment
appropriate for your XP lamers, and a server environment appropriate for
you, without having to do too much maintenance.

--keith

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