Checking Out Ubuntu 18.04's Minimal Desktop Install Option

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Checking Out Ubuntu 18.04's Minimal Desktop Install Option

Besides the Ubuntu 18.04 minimal spin that is around to 30MB compressed, the Ubuntu 18.04 "Bionic Beaver" installer recently added an option for a "minimal installation" from the desktop Live DVD/USB environment. Here's a look at what that means for desktop users...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Ubuntu-18.04-Minimal-Desktop

[schmidtbag]

Their definition of minimal includes things like Thunderbird, some games, and Libreoffice? I can't imagine what other unnecessary things this comes with (remember, for a minimal install).

[nomadewolf]

Their definition of minimal includes things like Thunderbird, some games, and Libreoffice? I can't imagine what other unnecessary things this comes with (remember, for a minimal install).

Gotta set your priorities straight!...

[woprandi]

Amazon still present !

[Brisse]

Tried this out in a virtual machine a few days ago. I kind of like it, but I also agree with the critical comments above. They probably can't get rid of the Amazon icon easily due to some legal agreement, but games, Thunderbird and LibreOffice should not be included. Every time I install a distro I do a ton of 'apt purge' to remove bloat and replace things with the stuff I prefer, and this option makes the process a bit more convenient. Decided to switch my desktop from Ubuntu 17.10 to Debian Sid though, so it looks like I won't be using this, but Debian could need a similar option as it downloads a ton of unnecessary stuff during installation.

Edit: Thunderbird and LibreOffice are actually excluded though, aren't they? Someone was probably looking at the wrong screenshot

[dungeon]

Decided to switch my desktop from Ubuntu 17.10 to Debian Sid though, so it looks like I won't be using this, but Debian could need a similar option as it downloads a ton of unnecessary stuff during installation.

Well with big images it wouldn't download anything anyway, otherwise just use this 40 MB mini.iso - select expert and do whatever you want

http://ftp.debian.org/debian/dists/s...mages/netboot/

I always use mini.iso, for Sid or Stable installations... and put --no-install-recommends to apt after tiny base system install, that would be also more lightweight if you want, od course then install additional recommends manually if you really misses something, etc...

[Brisse]

Well with big images it wouldn't download anything anyway, otherwise just use this 40 MB mini.iso - select expert and do whatever you want

http://ftp.debian.org/debian/dists/s...mages/netboot/

Thanks for the tip. Wish I knew about that earlier

[dungeon]

Well both Ubuntu and Debian have thes mini.isos, but of course that is considered as expert installation - for someone who really know what he wants.

But basics there is the same, just install base only and everything else is your option

And you know what, you don't need to use additional packages at all even when it is really nice to have these a lot - you can relay just on base and let say compile everything else the way you want - but that is even more for experts

Or just base and then use snaps or whatever idea else like recompiling base with march/mtune native and then use maybe also apt-build, change also dpkg-buildflags locally because that apt-build does not always works, etc... Whatever, you know your thing on that point already - it mostly depends on how you wanna use it

Of course, default as always on general purpose binary OSes will always be more and more "good" considered bloat

[kpedersen]

The desktop may look empty and minimal but when as Gnome (either 1, 2 or 3) ever been "minimal"? haha

[dungeon]

They mean "minimal Desktop" there or it looks like more like "Desktop, with no additional apps" option, blah, blah... one is full, another is no-apps adds