Mint Minimal ISO (Yes like Ubuntu)

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SmileY

Mint Minimal ISO (Yes like Ubuntu)

Post by SmileY »

Hi folks, i tried to search about but can't find anything related on forum.

Is possible or someone already have this idea?
To create a minimal iso installation like Ubuntu?
Also what is the benefits for mint?

And if it is possible to make a flavor with only a set of applications line windows in old days (Notepad, calc etc.)
Without some programs like transmission, office etc.

But including all features of desktop: Driver manager, ppas, and other cool things from mint.

Thanks for read.
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Topic automatically closed 6 months after creation. New replies are no longer allowed.
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xenopeek
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Re: Mint Minimal ISO (Yes like Ubuntu)

Post by xenopeek »

You can remove programs you don't need or want, after installing Linux Mint. Linux Mint tries to give users a fully featured operating system with programs installed for most major common tasks. Taking those programs away, certainly if you want to remove LibreOffice, doesn't make much sense and that is why there is no "minimal" ISO.

As for making your own I would wonder what use you'd have for it. Why not install Linux Mint and remove the programs you don't need or want.

And for sanity's sake, would you consider changing your avatar to one less dizzying :|
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Re: Mint Minimal ISO (Yes like Ubuntu)

Post by Pjotr »

xenopeek wrote:And for sanity's sake, would you consider changing your avatar to one less dizzying :|
Adblock Plus can take care of that for you. No annoying moving avatars for me.... :mrgreen:
Kill filter:

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By the way: how about allowing only .png and .jpg as avatar images? Can the forum software be modified for that?
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Re: Mint Minimal ISO (Yes like Ubuntu)

Post by Cosmo. »

SmileY wrote:Is possible or someone already have this idea?
Yes, this is possible. And now the trouble begins. How do you define "minimal"? No text editor, no terminal, no picture viewer, no browser, no calculator, no GUI package management? And so on, and so on. Ask 2 people and you get most likely more than 3 different opinions.
SmileY wrote:And if it is possible to make a flavor with only a set of applications line windows in old days (Notepad, calc etc.)
And now you are at the point. Is calc needed for a minimal installation? Is a graphical text editor needed for a minimal installation? You are back at the question, what is minimal? And how many share just your definition about it?

Of course you can make this flavor, but the time which is needed - every half year, when a new Mint version appears - is the multiple of the needed time for removing, what you do not want. The relation between effort and result is insane.

Example: Following a current poll only a very small minority does use LibreOffice not at all. Preparing such a flavor for them would mean, to do that for every of the existing editions, multiplied with 2, because there are 32 bit and 64 bit architectures. That gives for the one or other edition a user base far below 1 %. But definitely all of of the LO non users also do not use a browser (or other things). So your idea would lead to the result, that we would have at the end several ten of editions, most of them for a few percent or even less than 1 % of users. Each of them would have to get tested and maintained. The effort for the Mint team would be tremendous, the advantage - if at all - would be hard to see. And the team would waste valuable time to work for the really important things.

I don't know, what for you use a computer, the very most users want to work with it and the very most users want to use a graphical program for their tasks.
MintBean

Re: Mint Minimal ISO (Yes like Ubuntu)

Post by MintBean »

You can of course do what you wish. If you mean can the Mint team produce such a distro, not going to happen. Mint is not targeted at being a super lightweight distro.
SmileY

Re: Mint Minimal ISO (Yes like Ubuntu)

Post by SmileY »

Thanks for repply again, i only post as mint minimal to install every package as you want.
For example a more simple system, like ubuntu core or something else.

In windows (I am not saying because of system itself), that comes with a short of apps.
Like:

Do not comes with Photoshop (or gimp)
Office (Or libreoffice)
Transmission (Or other torrent prograsm)
Nero (or xfBurn)

But, you can use as is, if you need later to programs like office, you can install it.
In mint, devs can make things using like a minimal iso, or a mint edition without some programs.

I can remove some pre-installed programs, but if i remember i broke my package system.
I hope users can understand my point.

@MintBean

Mint team needs to make other flavor only to remove a suite of programs? LOL

Ps. Changing avatar :D
Cosmo.
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Re: Mint Minimal ISO (Yes like Ubuntu)

Post by Cosmo. »

SmileY wrote:I hope users can understand my point.
No.
Habitual

Re: Mint Minimal ISO (Yes like Ubuntu)

Post by Habitual »

SmileY wrote:I hope users can understand my point.
Again, It's Linux, It's installed and it's Free. Do what you like.

You don't need permission to make a difference, should it get that far.
You are not the first "modder" to come along and have a wild and grand dream for their version of Mint..

Do it yourself.
Get a kernel,write, code. test, See you in 5 years.

Yes, all things are possible.
http://catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html
http://distrowatch.com/
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Lubun ... malInstall

Get some.
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Re: Mint Minimal ISO (Yes like Ubuntu)

Post by jimallyn »

Most of us consider all the applications that come with Mint to be a feature, not a bug.
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Re: Mint Minimal ISO (Yes like Ubuntu)

Post by austin.texas »

Certainly, there are arguments for the DVD sized live Mint. But, also, there are people living in areas where downloading is difficult and/or expensive. It would, quite likely, serve those people to have a CD sized download. And fewer installed apps means less downloading of updates. So I think a case can be made.
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xenopeek
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Re: Mint Minimal ISO (Yes like Ubuntu)

Post by xenopeek »

You don't need to download upgrades during installation and removing programs would cease downloading of upgrades so that isn't an argument. Update Manager also lets users selectively apply upgrades so they can delay less critical (non-security) upgrades to a more opportune time to conserve bandwidth. As for people with download limits, I would imagine they would purchase a DVD or USB with Linux Mint (and make copies of it as needed for others) instead of downloading it.

But I think we're drifting from the topic at hand. Unless I'm mistaken OP is asking if it is possible to make a minimal ISO and if so how. Not if Linux Mint will do a minimal ISO, which as everybody I think already understands doesn't align with Linux Mint's ideas (full functioning out of the box) and comes at the cost of cutting one of the current releases (going through development, QA testing, beta testing, and maintenance takes a lot of effort and we will maintain the current workload — not add it it, so if there needs to be a new ISO it means another will be cut).
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Citizen229

Re: Mint Minimal ISO (Yes like Ubuntu)

Post by Citizen229 »

If you want a minimalist edition it will have to be done with your hands, like I did :D

I got 17.3 XFCE fully updated and down to just over 5 gigs. I use XFCE cause its for a net book. And pinguy works good with 17.3 for repackaging into an iso after I gutted and updated. It may work with 18.X but I dont know.

wish i had found this post earlier. I desired what you want, so I just did it. And now with each pack of updates, i just repace into an ISO so I have a gutted iso to install with.
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Re: Mint Minimal ISO (Yes like Ubuntu)

Post by frisket »

Oh good grief. I think some people have been trying to place unnecessary interpretations on the question.

I too want a minimal boot ISO -- in order to get Mint running on an old but otherwise usable PC which cannot boot from USB (although it has USB sockets) and which has a CD and DVD reader but cannot burn.

The whole point of (eg) the Ubuntu mini ISO is precisely ***NOT*** to give you a cut-down distro. It's to let you boot and ***INSTALL*** the OS, to which you can then add all the packages you want. So it isn't a question of whether you want this package or that package: don't complicate an otherwise simple issue. Just get the OS and (eg) MATE installed and running with an editor (Emacs, of course :-) and then let me use apt-get to add stuff.

Ubuntu can do it. But I'd rather have Mint :-)
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Re: Mint Minimal ISO (Yes like Ubuntu)

Post by Moem »

frisket wrote: Sat Mar 17, 2018 10:08 am Oh good grief. I think some people have been trying to place unnecessary interpretations on the question.
Maybe because the OP wasn't explaining their idea very well.
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michael louwe

Re: Mint Minimal ISO (Yes like Ubuntu)

Post by michael louwe »

@ austin.texas, .......
austin.texas wrote: Wed Feb 15, 2017 7:37 pm Certainly, there are arguments for the DVD sized live Mint. But, also, there are people living in areas where downloading is difficult and/or expensive. It would, quite likely, serve those people to have a CD sized download. And fewer installed apps means less downloading of updates. So I think a case can be made.
.
Quite agree, but the Debian/Ubuntu mini.iso is only for tech-geeks. Linux Mint is more geared towards the average users and newbies, similar to Windows.

For eg, it is not easy installing foreign language packs in Ubuntu mini.iso-install or Puppy Linux.
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Re: Mint Minimal ISO (Yes like Ubuntu)

Post by xenopeek »

frisket wrote: Sat Mar 17, 2018 10:08 amI too want a minimal boot ISO -- in order to get Mint running on an old but otherwise usable PC which cannot boot from USB (although it has USB sockets) and which has a CD and DVD reader but cannot burn.
You can use Plop Boot Manager for such situations. It's a small boot manager that you can burn to CD or install to your hard disk and it will allow booting from USB on computers that otherwise don't support that. https://www.plop.at/en/bootmanager/index.html
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mahmutelmas06

Re: Mint Minimal ISO (Yes like Ubuntu)

Post by mahmutelmas06 »

I support the idea of minimal installation option. Cuz i delete many programs after installling Mint which i dont use never also and it take times if i install Mint to many computers.

If you say that what is the definition of "Minimal" than i would like to answer: How about selective install ?
We can select to install what we want or go full installation mode.
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Re: Mint Minimal ISO (Yes like Ubuntu)

Post by Hoser Rob »

SmileY wrote: Tue Feb 14, 2017 9:32 pm ... I hope users can understand my point.
...
I don't think you uinderstand your point, or what a minimum install involves. You certainly don't get notepad or calc.
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Re: Mint Minimal ISO (Yes like Ubuntu)

Post by Petermint »

Ask 2 people and you get most likely more than 3 different opinions
Ask 1 person, me, and I will give you more than 3 opinions, based on my notebook, my workstations, and a Raspberry Pi collection. Oh! Add another variation for when I start editing video more frequently.

I think it would be easier to have something like an old distribution that started with an option list, Web browsing, Web server, audio, video, ... You just tick the boxes and get the minimum install. One of the benefits was not having a 300 MB download of updates the instant you machine is connected to the network.

There are also some software downloads where you tick the selection boxes before the download. You get the minimum download.

Do you want
[ ] Apache
[ ] Cinnamon
[ ] Firefox
[ ] Kernel
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Re: Mint Minimal ISO (Yes like Ubuntu)

Post by MrEen »

Kernel?

Yes, you want a kernel. Linux IS the kernel.
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