dalcde wrote:Nice one! Can you post what precisely you did/installed so some of us can really go out there and make an installable iso?
OK, here's a mini How-To for building a custom Mint base that you can add your own preferred applications to. I won't go into detail about using the mini.iso installer. It's pretty straightforward although it is a text-based installer.
You'll need a
sources.list file and
preferences file from a Mint 13 installation. I saved those from a prior install to another disk for future use
1. Obtain either a mini.iso or Alternate Install CD image from Ubuntu. Either of these will let you install a command line only system. That's a very stripped base, no GUI, no apps, nothing but a good old command line prompt.
- I use the mini.iso since it's only a 27 MB download. Alternate Install is a full 650+ MB image that offers an option to install a command line system. The command line install option is the exact same installer as the mini.iso. Unebootin puts it on a USB stick very nicely. Get the Precise image to build Mint 13.
The installer downloads all the files you need for the installation so you end up with an up-to-date Precise command line installation.
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Insta ... /MinimalCD
2. Reboot your new install and log in as the user you created during the install.
3. Copy the Mint
sources.list and
preferences files to /etc/apt/ on the new install.
4. Do
sudo apt-get update.
- You'll get an error about a missing keyring file. That's for the extra Mint repo that's added to the default Ubuntu repos in the new sources.list file.
5. Do
sudo apt-get install linuxmint-keyring to install the Mint keyring, then
sudo apt-get update again to refresh the package lists without errors.
6. Install your desktop environment of choice. For my Xfce build I did
sudo apt-get install xfce4 xfce4-goodies.
- For a Cinnamon DE do sudo apt-get install cinnamon
For a MATE DE do sudo apt-get install mate-desktop-environment
This gets you a pure desktop with no apps installed. These meta pacakges pull in all required dependencies.
7. Install a login manager so you get a nice GUI login prompt. Do
sudo apt-get install mdm mint-mdm-themes to install MDM like Mint 13 uses. This will also install all the Xorg files you need.
8. You could reboot at this point and be able to log into a bare desktop enviroment, but I like to add Synaptic first to make it easier to install apps and other things. Do
sudo apt-get install synaptic gksu. I can't recall if
gksu is required or not but some DE installs do not pull it in so I add it just to be sure.
9. Now reboot and you should come to the MDM login screen. It won't look like Mint yet, but you can change that later.
10. Convert the system from Ubuntu to Mint. Open Synaptic, change to the
Origin view. Under the maya/main section find and install
ubuntu-system-adjustments. This installs some Mint utilities that change the distro name and other things to make it a Mint system.
- Note here that by default a package called mint-info-xfce is pulled in. That's fine if you're building an Xfce system. If not, find the mint-info-xxxx package that corresponds to your build and mark it for installation, then unmark the mint-info-xfce package.
11. While Synaptic is open install the approriate artwork for your system. This will give you all the backgrounds, Mint themes, icons, etc. Done with Synaptic for now.
12. Find the
Login Window app. It's in the Administration section of whichever DE you installed. That section is called different things in different DEs. Change the MDM theme to the Mint theme.
13. Reboot your system and you'll log into a new bare Mint desktop, ready for you to customize and add the apps of your choice. You can add all or none of the Mint tools, codec package, etc that you desire. Depends entirely on your own preferences.
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This is a quick and dirty How-To to get you a bare Ubuntu-based Mint desktop. You can apply the same idea to LMDE to build a custom setup there. There's a couple more steps you need to build LMDE so don't follow this How-To exactly if you're after an LMDE setup. If anyone is interested I can do a mini How-To for LMDE as well.