Few setup questions

[murali]

Hi,

I had SL6 installed, however i wanted lightweight WM's and login manager. So i installed XFCE from the repo and likewise managed to get slim installed as well. However without much thought or investigation i removed gdm hoping it will default to slim. Unfortunately that didn't happen and was forced to install another distro in the interim.

Just hoping if someone can help/advise in the following areas -

1. How can i use slim without needing to use gdm

2. Is there any easy way to remove whole gnome and its dependencies if i choose to go with XFCE or Openbox or any other lightweight DM. I know in cases like window decoration and any apps that need gtk support gnome libraries will be pulled in so can't really have a gnome-free desktop.

3. Are there any latest kernels available in any repo or should i build it myself from source.

Thanks in advance.

murali.

[AndrewSerk]

Hi murali and welcome to Scientific Linux Forum,

The best way I know of to build a "lightweight" OS from SL is to install using the minimal option. You would then have a install that boots to runlevel 3 without a Xserver or DM. You can then add what packages you want/need. This takes more time and knowledge but is often worth the effort. If you want a list of your gnome/gtk/gdm installed dependencies you can get a list by running the following command.

CODE

rpm -qa | sort | egrep -i \(gnome\|gtk\|gdk\)|nl

and remove add packages as you see fit.

I haven't tried slim so am of no help there.

The normal SL kernel is regularly patched and works great for most users. That being said I have read that Alan Bartlett of ELRepo is releasing some newer kernels with the name of kernel-ml* over at the elrepo.repo. If you want to build the kernel yourself I have a post that may be of some help in the matter: http://scientificlinuxforum.org/index.php?showtopic=1316 but if you have the hardware support that you need with the stock SL kernel I wouldn't bother with a rebuild.

Hope this helps,

[murali]

Hi Andrew,

I'll use the command that you gave for finding gtk dependencies and remove unwanted ones. It's quite helpful.

I was able to install slim but couldnt activate it or to put it right, I didn't investigate or RTFM to find about it. I somehow thought removing gdm would invoke slim by default, which was a bad move on my part.

Yes, without any doubt, the stock SL kernel works great, no issues, but am always curious to try out new stuffs including kernel esp 3.x, just to extract little bit more performance out of the old system . Will try epel link that you gave and try the kernel when it becomes available or compile one myself.

Thanks for your reply, appreciate it.