is there a distro that meets these requirements

PeakOutput

so iv been doing some digging around and iv very quickly messed around with mint by booting to the cd but i think if i start using linux it will be in a kind of project sort of way slowly customising it from scratch to meet my every need and only my every need

with that said what i would like is a distro that is easy to install, has all the drivers ill require for my white macbook to get up and running, trackpad, wireless usb ports working etc, has a packet manager(i think its called, for installing applications?) and preferably has the kind of app store thing that ubuntu has with thousands of applications and descriptions of them and stuff at your fingertips

but nothing else

no firefox, no thunderbird no vlc etc, no nice wallpapers already installed, basic icons etc. i want to customise it all myself and only have what i want installed

so is this possible for a linux noob (but not technology illiterate) to do? i would like to use it as a way to learn the command line and just generally lern more about how my computer works

Knasher

Well if you want a distro that you can customize from the ground up I'd recommend Arch Linux. It doesn't even come with a windows manager to start with, you have to choose from several available. Also an excellent wiki and forums.

That being said, I really don't recommend you take this approach if you are new to linux. It will have a very steep learning curve and there is a good chance that you will have given up before too long. A simpler distro, like ubuntu, is a much better place to start. Usually people only move to arch after a few years, but if you are willing it is worth the effort.

Also its called a package manager.

niallb

Split the difference with something like this.
You could install the ubuntu server cd with a minimal install,
or start with the one linked below:

This will give you the advantages of the hardware support of a mature ubuntu kernel
which should suit your mac well. It also gives you a lot of options to set up the desktop
as you decide when you want a desktop. Finally, you'll be compatible with the bulk of
the advice and feedback on ubuntu forums etc.

You've no idea how much better off you'd be starting with a standard install though.
Give yourself a few weeks with a basic install to learn a few ropes, and then nuke
it on 31st December :-) Good time for a fresh barebones install!

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation/MinimalCD

Stuxnet

i give you a day or 2 before you give up !!
http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/

you could have a look at the Sabayon Core cd to start you off !!

but you are better off with an Ubuntu based distro, and customise the ****e out of it !
good luck

Sherifu

PeakOutput wrote: »

so iv been doing some digging around and iv very quickly messed around with mint by booting to the cd but i think if i start using linux it will be in a kind of project sort of way slowly customising it from scratch to meet my every need and only my every need

with that said what i would like is a distro that is easy to install, has all the drivers ill require for my white macbook to get up and running, trackpad, wireless usb ports working etc, has a packet manager(i think its called, for installing applications?) and preferably has the kind of app store thing that ubuntu has with thousands of applications and descriptions of them and stuff at your fingertips

but nothing else

no firefox, no thunderbird no vlc etc, no nice wallpapers already installed, basic icons etc. i want to customise it all myself and only have what i want installed

so is this possible for a linux noob (but not technology illiterate) to do? i would like to use it as a way to learn the command line and just generally lern more about how my computer works

Sounds to me like you want an os like jolicloud.

I think it meets all your requirements but i'm not sure how good the macbook support would be. It's based on Ubuntu so i'm guessing it'd be fine. I've installed it on devices not covered by their compatibility list and it has been fine.

Try it out on a live cd if in doubt or indeed you can try it in your browser if you use chrome browser.

PeakOutput

cheers lads ill have a look threw all those suggestions alright

i am more looking at it from a kind of project / hobby point of view then from a i need to set up an os quickly that usable quickly and its more to learn then to use so ill give it a try

jolicloud just seems to be like chrome os or vice versa am i wrong on that?

loldog

In that case, go with the Ubuntu minimal install CD.

It's a great feeling to start off with the minimum and build up your own desktop how you like it:

http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/minimal

I do this every Ubuntu upgrade, takes me about 2 hours to have it more or less back to normal at this stage.
.

PeakOutput

thanks arch looks like exactly what i want and have been watching some videos on installing it. it seems straightforward enough assuming everything goes right and apparently their wiki has a step by step guide

if that fails which is probably likely ubuntu minimal looks like an easier way to get what i want

but arch looks like id learn more if i puleld it off so ill probably start there after learning a bit on mint or ubuntu

FruitLover

Aim for Gentoo at a certain point.

That'll put hair on your ass...

PeakOutput

FruitLover wrote: »

Aim for Gentoo at a certain point.

That'll put hair on your ass...

sure who knows were ill end up

been researching archer most of the day definitely seems to be what im looking for and they have a specific walkthrough for macbooks so that should helpquite a bit. plan on doing this next week when i finish my exams and hopefully ill stick it out longer then ipwnage reckons, nice little challenge for the christmas break

PeakOutput

loldog wrote: »

In that case, go with the Ubuntu minimal install CD.

It's a great feeling to start off with the minimum and build up your own desktop how you like it:

http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/minimal

I do this every Ubuntu upgrade, takes me about 2 hours to have it more or less back to normal at this stage.
.

does ubuntu minimal come with all the drivers and compatibility stuff that regular ubuntu does just minus the programmes?

my mate just agreed to let me mess about with his old laptop which we have been using with our projector in the living room but its is sickeningly slow and virus ridden so would like to stick ubuntu on it with vlc if the vga port will work with relative ease

loldog

PeakOutput wrote: »

does ubuntu minimal come with all the drivers and compatibility stuff that regular ubuntu does just minus the programmes?

Yeah, all the drivers are in the kernel so you should have everything except the manufacturers drivers for wireless and graphics card. Saying that, the linux kernel has got the driver for my wireless already, but this is not the case for all wireless drivers.

So it's just a case of sudo apt-getting the stuff you need...

If you want to learn a bit more, you should go for the Arch way. It's a lot more rewarding.

.

PeakOutput

loldog wrote: »

Yeah, all the drivers are in the kernel so you should have everything except the manufacturers drivers for wireless and graphics card. Saying that, the linux kernel has got the driver for my wireless already, but this is not the case for all wireless drivers.

So it's just a case of sudo apt-getting the stuff you need...

If you want to learn a bit more, you should go for the Arch way. It's a lot more rewarding.

.

ye arch is going on my laptop but my two roommates want me to put linux on their old machines to see if it breathes some life into them so i think ubuntu minimal on one and then the ubuntu netbook addition on the other

loldog

PeakOutput wrote: »

ye arch is going on my laptop but my two roommates want me to put linux on their old machines to see if it breathes some life into them so i think ubuntu minimal on one and then the ubuntu netbook addition on the other

If it's an old machine, Lubuntu might be a better option, it's the Ubuntu core software but it's got a much lighter graphical desktop environment. I have it running on an old Dell D600 and it's deadly. Uses around 80MB of RAM at startup.

http://lubuntu.net/


.

PeakOutput

loldog wrote: »

If it's an old machine, Lubuntu might be a better option, it's the Ubuntu core software but it's got a much lighter graphical desktop environment. I have it running on an old Dell D600 and it's deadly. Uses around 80MB of RAM at startup.

http://lubuntu.net/


.

the laptop is probably around 3 years old and the netbook is only a year old but they are both seriously bloated and running super slow so im guessing its a bloated windows problem

Skrynesaver

I would recommend putting Ubuntu or Mint on the machine you want to work, possibly go with the Ubuntu minimal install and build up from there.

However the Linux From Scratch project is definitely worth doing at some stage perhaps after living with Slackware for a while.

Once you master Slak and LFS you will have an overview of the OS as a whole.

PeakOutput

so today is the day, finally done with exams and projects and as soon as i motivate myself to get out of bed ivthe day to install arch so far the way i see this going is

1. new install of osx (anywhere i read seems to suggest a new install of that first)
2. then ill be following these installation videos
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjTTl_9aUXc
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azySq-uBaB8
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xF60AQu-K4&feature=related
3. as well as these install wikis
   https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Beginners'_Guide
   https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Macbook
4. i havnt decided which desktop enviroment im going to go with, i dont think it will be gnome(not sure why really) but i was looking at kde and think i prefer that but if anyone has any recomendations that would be appreciated
5. anything glaringly obvious that i forgot?

PeakOutput

so i got arch installed and everything working and updating and was able to install some programmes

unfortunately though i wasnt able to get it to install on the partition i wanted it to and the only thing i could figure out was for it to wipe the drive and create its own partitions automatically

i want to install it alongside osx though


if anyone can explain these two parts of the install guide to me that would be appreciated

Installation

Note: This section is only required if you want to have Mac OS X installed along with Arch Linux. If not, follow the steps in the official install guide, then skip to post install.

Boot from the Arch Linux install CD.

Note: Some MacBook users report strange keyboard output such as long delays and character doubling. To fix this problem, boot with following options.

boot: arch noapic irqpoll acpi=force
Log in as root

Run the Arch installer:
/arch/setup

Proceed through the installation as described in the Official Arch Linux Install

Guide except in the following areas:

In the prepare hard drive stage do only the set filesystem mountpoints step, taking care to assign the correct partitions.

Manually configure block devices, filesystems and mountpoints
In this menu all recognized partitions are listed.

On top of these you can create new filesystems. You should be aware of three things:

All of this is just a model, everything will only be set up after you confirm.
Not all blockdevices support all filesystems (Eg you cannot put an LVM volumegroup on something other then a LVM physical volume).

The installer will automatically filter the list of possible filesystems and even select the one automatically for you if there's only one option.

Some filesystems will cause new blockdevices to be created. This is the case for dm_crypt and lvm volumes. You will see them appear in the model and you can use them to put another filesystem on top of it.

When asked for (optional) options to mkfs tools, pass arguments which will literally be added when calling mkfs. For example, to disable the journal on ext filesystems:
don't do: ^has_journal
but rather: -O ^has_journal

When filesystems setup is complete, you can select 'Done'. At this point a check will be run which will tell you any critical errors (such as no root filesystem) and/or give you some warnings which you may ignore (like no swap). If anything is found, you can go back to fix these issues, or continue at which point everything will be setup the way you asked.

For example, if you want a setup that uses LVM on top of dm_crypt, you would:
make sure that you have a 2 partitions: a small one for the unencrypted boot (about 100M) and one for the rest of the (encrypted) system. (do this in "Manually partition hard drives")
on your /dev/sdX1, make an ext2 filesystem with mountpoint /boot
on your /dev/sdX2, make a dm_crypt volume, with label sdX2crypt (or whatever you want)

/dev/mapper/sdX2crypt will appear. Put a LVM physical volume on this
/dev/mapper/sdX2crypt+ appears. This is the representation of the physical volume. Put a volumegroup on this, with label cryptpool (or whatever you want)

/dev/mapper/cryptpool appears. On this volumegroup you are able to put multiple logical volumes.

Make 2:
one with size 5G: label this cryptroot
one with size 10G: label this crypthome
2 new volumes appear:
/dev/mapper/cryptpool-cryptroot: on this blockdevice, you can put your root filesystem, with mountpoint /.
/dev/mapper/cryptpool-crypthome is the blockdevice on which you can put the filesystem with mountpoint /home.

If you want swapspace, make a logical volume for swap and put a swap volume on it.

That's it! If you select 'done' it should process the model and create your disk setup the way you specified. The cool part is that you can pick relatively small values for your volumes to start with, and if you need more space later you can grow the logical volume and the filesystem on top of it.

In the install boot loader stage, edit the menu.lst file and add reboot=pci to the end of the kernel lines, for example:
kernel /vmlinuz26 root=/dev/sda5 ro reboot=pci

This will allow your MacBook to reboot correctly from Arch.

Also in the install boot loader stage, install GRUB on whatever partition that /boot is on.

Warning: Do not install GRUB onto /dev/sda !!! Doing so is likely to lead to an unstable post-environment.

In the configure system stage, edit /etc/mkinitcpio.conf and add the usbinput hook to the HOOKS line somewhere after the autodetect hook. This will load the drivers for your keyboard in case you need to use it before Arch boots (e.g. entering a LUKS password or using the troubleshooting shell).

When the install process is complete, reboot your computer.
# reboot

Hold down the eject key as your MacBook starts, this should eject the Arch Linux install disk.

Naikon

PeakOutput wrote: »

so i got arch installed and everything working and updating and was able to install some programmes

unfortunately though i wasnt able to get it to install on the partition i wanted it to and the only thing i could figure out was for it to wipe the drive and create its own partitions automatically

i want to install it alongside osx though


if anyone can explain these two parts of the install guide to me that would be appreciated

Honestly, I may be bias, but I would not use Arch for now if you want to get used to Linux. Ubuntu or Debian might fit the bill, as they are well polished for the most part. Arch will more than likely just give you headaches as the bleeding edge concept is not known for reliability which sucks. Basically, go install Ubuntu and you can learn at your own pace.

Really, it does not matter which Linux distro you use, they are all just collections at the end of the day. By the way, a partitions mountpoint is the point it is "mounted" on the filesystem for access. A mount point is simply a place on the filesystem that is associated with the high level entry point to the hardware device. Kinda like C:\ Z:\ drives ect, except you are not limited in how many drives you can "mount". Technically speaking, the mount point is all the user is normally concerned with, the actual device could be an nfs share, thumbdrive ect. Kinda waffling on here, but you need to read up on the Unix filesystem hier. Will give you a better understanding of concepts like mountpoints.

Oh, and Ubuntu will create a default partition scheme for you to overview/use. You don't have to throw yourself in the deep end just yet. Ubuntu will do everything Arch can do. Good luck.

PeakOutput

Naikon wrote: »

Honestly, I may be bias, but I would not use Arch for now if you want to get used to Linux. Ubuntu or Debian might fit the bill, as they are well polished for the most part. Arch will more than likely just give you headaches as the bleeding edge concept is not known for reliability which sucks. Basically, go install Ubuntu and you can learn at your own pace.

Really, it does not matter which Linux distro you use, they are all just collections at the end of the day. By the way, a partitions mountpoint is the point it is "mounted" on the filesystem for access. A mount point is simply a place on the filesystem that is associated with the high level entry point to the hardware device. Kinda like C:\ Z:\ drives ect, except you are not limited in how many drives you can "mount". Technically speaking, the mount point is all the user is normally concerned with, the actual device could be an nfs share, thumbdrive ect. Kinda waffling on here, but you need to read up on the Unix filesystem hier. Will give you a better understanding of concepts like mountpoints.

Oh, and Ubuntu will create a default partition scheme for you to overview/use. You don't have to throw yourself in the deep end just yet. Ubuntu will do everything Arch can do. Good luck.

thanks for the response, i am putting ubuntu on other machines but iv decided to try and get this working just for the challenge and reliability isnt that big an issue as its not going to be my main operating system, if i fail i fail but i have until the 4th of january to mess around with it. already learned a good bit just by going through the install motions yesterday.

PeakOutput

well its techinically christmas day but in my head its christmas eve

it took half a bottle of wine 2 guiness and a bulmers but i got installed and dual booting

im sure this is just the start of the problems/challenges but im pretyt happy with my self for being able to figure out

happy christmas

Naikon

PeakOutput wrote: »

well its techinically christmas day but in my head its christmas eve

it took half a bottle of wine 2 guiness and a bulmers but i got installed and dual booting

im sure this is just the start of the problems/challenges but im pretyt happy with my self for being able to figure out

happy christmas

Good to hear. You will soon realise having Windows and Linux coexisting on the same machine is good for your technical skills. People like to think Microsoft and Linux are mutual enemies, but this is not how it works in the real world. I fuken love using Linux, but I recognise the need for Windows. I mean, look at Samba/Wine/Linux ntfs drivers. tl;dr - Learn both os's & happy christmas. Now get some more drink into ya

PeakOutput

well things went drastically wrong after christmas day but some good news as im posting this from chromium running in arch through gnome

it seems that the boot issue sometimes let me boot and sometimes dosnt so it let me in and i went through the isntall guides for xorg and the drivers and gnome and got it all working

memory usage of gnome and chromium is only around 350mb but im still pretty sure im going to try out kde and lxde as gnome just seems to have alot of stuff with it automatically and my whole reasoning behind getting arch in the first place was so that there is only the things i put on the system in the system

top of my priority list now is to get my wireless working iv followed the guides and its not working even though the macbook gude says the atheros wireless card will work out of the box and when i go through the wireless set up guide i get an error when running the commands rmmod and modprobe i get errors but ill post up those details tomorrow

other things on the list once that is sorted is to get the advanced functions of the trackpad working, get the keyboard mapping, get the power management tools working and bluetooth and isight and whatever else is on the post installation of the macbook guide

chromium is a bit wierd in that there is no bar across the top with file edit view bookmarks etc so gotta figure that out

i probably reinstalled it way more then necessary as it was the only thing i could think of doing each time i ran into a problem as i didnt / dont know much about the terminal but now i have a gui i think things will be smoother sailing, im definitely enjoying the challenge right now

evercloserunion

PeakOutput wrote: »

well things went drastically wrong after christmas day but some good news as im posting this from chromium running in arch through gnome

it seems that the boot issue sometimes let me boot and sometimes dosnt so it let me in and i went through the isntall guides for xorg and the drivers and gnome and got it all working

memory usage of gnome and chromium is only around 350mb but im still pretty sure im going to try out kde and lxde as gnome just seems to have alot of stuff with it automatically and my whole reasoning behind getting arch in the first place was so that there is only the things i put on the system in the system

top of my priority list now is to get my wireless working iv followed the guides and its not working even though the macbook gude says the atheros wireless card will work out of the box and when i go through the wireless set up guide i get an error when running the commands rmmod and modprobe i get errors but ill post up those details tomorrow

other things on the list once that is sorted is to get the advanced functions of the trackpad working, get the keyboard mapping, get the power management tools working and bluetooth and isight and whatever else is on the post installation of the macbook guide

chromium is a bit wierd in that there is no bar across the top with file edit view bookmarks etc so gotta figure that out

i probably reinstalled it way more then necessary as it was the only thing i could think of doing each time i ran into a problem as i didnt / dont know much about the terminal but now i have a gui i think things will be smoother sailing, im definitely enjoying the challenge right now

The install is definitely the hardest part, I re-installed Arch on Christmas day and I also ran into a few random inexplicable problems. Now that you have a GUI you should find it a lot easier if you're not comfortable with the terminal. Especially if you use a mainstream DE like Gnome or KDE, as they tend to have the best support.

By the way, if you want a lightweight DE and would like to minimise the amount of things that are installed by default, KDE may not be for you. AFAIK it's even more heavyweight than Gnome and includes more default packages, because they have a fairly large suite of "house brand" KDE apps. But sure give it a try, you might love it.