sous-marin

sinking the big boats one installation at a time

sous-marin for Slackware 13.37: (11sep11)
sm: 41-70 pkgs - min 191Mb footprint
smx: 88-116 pkgs - min 270Mb footprint

sous-marin for Slackware 13.1: (11sep11) [frozen]
original sous-marin - console only

sous-marin tools (11sep11)

NOTE: I am no longer using Slackware. If someone would like to update this project to Slackware current, I would be pleased to work with them. If all goes well, I would be willing to transfer ownership of the project.

Contact info is here

pure slackware - not a dist

Sous-marin is a small, pure, individualized Slackware installation system using only scripts and a minimum of resources. Sous-marin's tools allow you to create an installer CD and tagfiles, choose the minimum of pure Slackware packages you need, FTP/HTTP install the system over the Net, and analyze the result as you add apps and their dependencies.

This system gives you an installation that is small and compact. Sous-marin combines the standard Slackware installer with minimalized console or X package lists. You install one of these basic lists and then add the other things you need and their dependencies.

If you use KDE or Gnome, it would be silly to use sous-marin. For those who wish to streamline these larger installs, determining what is missing or unnecessary, there are sous-marin tools for reduction and analysis.

sous-marin installation

IMPORTANT: If your computer is less than a Pentium-Pro, you must change hugesmp.s in sous-marin to huge.s and remove the "-smp" from all kernel packages.

sous-marin packages include:

  • the sous-marin script to create an installer CD image
  • sm-[ver].gust for console and smx-[ver].gust for X11
  • build_gust.awk to create a GUST list from /var/log/packages

You will need to download GUST, the tagfile builder, from its own site. GUST can be pointed at any version of Slackware. This means, for example, that sous-marin can be used to install slackware-current on new boxes or slackware-7.1 on old x386 laptops.

The short version: point sous-marin at a slack depository and create the iso image; burn it to CD (or not); edit the sm or smx GUST list to taste; run GUST on it; boot the CD (or boot the ISO image without a CD-drive - see below); choose FTP/HTTP install; choose tagpath for tags and point it at the GUST-created files; kick back and relax.

With sous-marin-x, before running `xinit` to bring up the xserver, do the following:

  • cp /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc.twm ~/.xinitrc
  • ln -s ~/.xinitrc ~/.xsession
  • cp /etc/X11/xorg.conf-vesa /etc/X11/xorg.conf

The sous-marin-x list is only for a single user bringing up an xserver. Run-level four requires a session manager like xdm. Also, the vesa driver is a least-common-denominator and may not be sufficient. You can derive a list of minimal x/ pkgs by running diff on the current sm and smx lists.

no cd-drive?

What if you want to install with sous-marin but you don't have a CD drive? As root, mount the sous-marin iso like this:

mount -o loop sous-marin.iso /some-dir
Then copy the kernel, huge-smp.s and the initrd.gz from the iso to /boot You'll need a lilo entry: kernel and initrd you know and root will be /dev/ram0. If you get anything wrong, lilo will probably tell you when you run it. You may need to put "large-memory" up near the top of lilo.conf. Keep in mind you don't need the rest of what is on the iso. You just need to boot the initrd from the installer and you'll get the Slackware setup. You will also need to have your tagfiles where the installer can get to them.

Projects derived from sous-marin