Hi,

Is it possible to have a bare bones version of debian available, which has nothing installed, apart from apt-get.

This way we can build the distro how we require it and to our own specifications.

Thanks,

Adam

Hello Adam,

The Debian distro I provide is the smallest I could get installed - it's only about 90Megs used space - and contains pretty much a bare-bones install.

Plus, as you know, anything you don't want you can use "dselect" or "apt-get remove" to get rid of.

Will that work for you?
-Chris

It should be ok, as we can remove all the things we dont need, or want to install our selves.

It is just things like apache and mysql we use custom install settings for, and install some things in other locations than the standard, also things like bind we use for caching only

I think the only thing we install through apt-get is wget and sendmail.

Could you tell me what apps you make available with the standard debain install

Thanks,

Adam

Installing custom application configurations won't be any problem at all.

Here's the list of packages that come with the Debian small install:

ii  adduser        3.47           Add and remove users and groups
ii  apt            0.5.4          Advanced front-end for dpkg
ii  apt-utils      0.5.4          APT utility programs
ii  at             3.1.8-11       Delayed job execution and batch processing
ii  base-config    1.33.18        Debian base configuration package
ii  base-files     3.0.2          Debian base system miscellaneous files
ii  base-passwd    3.4.1          Debian Base System Password/Group Files
ii  bash           2.05a-11       The GNU Bourne Again SHell
ii  bsdmainutils   5.20020211-4.9 More utilities from FreeBSD.
ii  bsdutils       2.11n-4        Basic utilities from 4.4BSD-Lite.
ii  console-common 0.7.14         Basic infrastructure for text console config
ii  console-data   1999.08.29-24  Keymaps, fonts, charset maps, fallback table
ii  console-tools  0.2.3-23.3     Linux console and font utilities.
ii  console-tools- 0.2.3-23.3     Shared libraries for Linux console and font 
ii  cpio           2.4.2-39       GNU cpio -- a program to manage archives of 
ii  cron           3.0pl1-72      management of regular background processing
ii  debconf        1.0.32         Debian configuration management system
ii  debianutils    1.16           Miscellaneous utilities specific to Debian.
ii  dhcp-client    2.0pl5-11      DHCP Client
ii  diff           2.7-29         File comparison utilities
ii  dpkg           1.9.21         Package maintenance system for Debian
ii  e2fsprogs      1.27-2         The EXT2 file system utilities and libraries
ii  ed             0.2-19         The classic unix line editor
ii  exim           3.35-1         An MTA (Mail Transport Agent)
ii  fdutils        5.3-7          Linux floppy utilities
ii  fileutils      4.1-10         GNU file management utilities
ii  findutils      4.1.7-2        utilities for finding files--find, xargs, an
ii  gettext-base   0.10.40-5      GNU Internationalization utilities for the b
ii  grep           2.4.2-3        GNU grep, egrep and fgrep.
ii  groff-base     1.17.2-15.wood GNU troff text-formatting system (base syste
ii  gzip           1.3.2-3woody1  The GNU compression utility.
ii  hostname       2.09           A utility to set/show the host name or domai
ii  ifupdown       0.6.4-4        High level tools to configure network interf
ii  info           4.1-2          Standalone GNU Info documentation browser
ii  ipchains       1.3.10-15      Network firewalling for Linux 2.2.x
ii  iptables       1.2.6a-5       IP packet filter administration tools for 2.
ii  klogd          1.4.1-10       Kernel Logging Daemon
ii  libc6          2.2.5-11.2     GNU C Library: Shared libraries and Timezone
ii  libcap1        1.10-12        support for getting/setting POSIX.1e capabil
ii  libdb2         2.7.7.0-7      The Berkeley database routines (run-time fil
ii  libdb3         3.2.9-16       Berkeley v3 Database Libraries [runtime]
ii  libgdbmg1      1.7.3-27       GNU dbm database routines (runtime version).
ii  libident       0.22-2         simple RFC1413 client library - runtime
ii  libldap2       2.0.23-6       OpenLDAP libraries.
ii  liblockfile1   1.03           NFS-safe locking library, includes dotlockfi
ii  libncurses5    5.2.20020112a- Shared libraries for terminal handling
ii  libnewt0       0.50.17-9.6    Not Erik's Windowing Toolkit - text mode win
ii  libpam-modules 0.72-35        Pluggable Authentication Modules for PAM
ii  libpam-runtime 0.72-35        Runtime support for the PAM library
ii  libpam0g       0.72-35        Pluggable Authentication Modules library
ii  libpcap0       0.6.2-2        System interface for user-level packet captu
ii  libpcre3       3.4-1.1        Philip Hazel's Perl Compatible Regular Expre
ii  libpopt0       1.6.2-7        lib for parsing cmdline parameters
ii  libreadline4   4.2a-5         GNU readline and history libraries, run-time
ii  libsasl7       1.5.27-3       Authentication abstraction library.
ii  libssl0.9.6    0.9.6c-2.woody SSL shared libraries
ii  libstdc++2.10- 2.95.4-11woody The GNU stdc++ library
ii  libwrap0       7.6-9          Wietse Venema's TCP wrappers library
ii  lilo           22.2-3         LInux LOader - The Classic OS loader can loa
ii  login          20000902-12    System login tools
ii  logrotate      3.5.9-8        Log rotation utility
ii  mailx          8.1.2-0.200204 A simple mail user agent.
ii  makedev        2.3.1-58       Creates device files in /dev.
ii  man-db         2.3.20-18      The on-line manual pager
ii  manpages       1.39-1.1       Man pages about using a Linux system.
ii  mawk           1.3.3-8        a pattern scanning and text processing langu
ii  mbr            1.1.5-1        Master Boot Record for IBM-PC compatible com
ii  modconf        0.2.43         Device Driver Configuration
ii  modutils       2.4.15-1       Linux module utilities.
ii  mount          2.11n-4        Tools for mounting and manipulating filesyst
ii  nano           1.0.6-2        free Pico clone with some new features
ii  ncurses-base   5.2.20020112a- Descriptions of common terminal types
ii  ncurses-bin    5.2.20020112a- Terminal-related programs and man pages
ii  net-tools      1.60-4         The NET-3 networking toolkit
ii  netbase        4.07           Basic TCP/IP networking system
ii  netkit-inetd   0.10-9         The Internet Superserver
ii  netkit-ping    0.10-9         The ping utility from netkit
ii  nvi            1.79-20        4.4BSD re-implementation of vi.
ii  passwd         20000902-12    Change and administer password and group dat
ii  pciutils       2.1.9-4        Linux PCI Utilities (for 2.[1234].x kernels)
ii  pcmcia-cs      3.1.33-6       PCMCIA Card Services for Linux.
ii  perl-base      5.6.1-8.2      The Pathologically Eclectic Rubbish Lister.
ii  ppp            2.4.1.uus-4    Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP) daemon.
ii  pppconfig      2.0.14         A text menu based utility for configuring pp
ii  pppoe          3.3-1.1        PPP over Ethernet driver
ii  pppoeconf      0.9.10.6       configures PPPoE/ADSL
ii  procps         2.0.7-8        The /proc file system utilities.
ii  psmisc         20.2-2.1       Utilities that use the proc filesystem
ii  sed            3.02-8         The GNU sed stream editor.
ii  setserial      2.17-24        Controls configuration of serial ports.
ii  shellutils     2.0.11-11      The GNU shell programming utilities.
ii  slang1         1.4.4-7.2      The S-Lang programming library - runtime ver
ii  ssh            3.4p1-1        Secure rlogin/rsh/rcp replacement (OpenSSH)
ii  sysklogd       1.4.1-10       System Logging Daemon
ii  syslinux       1.66-1         Bootloader for Linux/i386 using MS-DOS flopp
ii  sysvinit       2.84-2woody1   System-V like init.
ii  tar            1.13.25-2      GNU tar
ii  tasksel        1.18           Tool for selecting tasks for installation on
ii  tcpd           7.6-9          Wietse Venema's TCP wrapper utilities
ii  telnet         0.17-18        The telnet client.
ii  textutils      2.0-12         The GNU text file processing utilities.
ii  util-linux     2.11n-4        Miscellaneous system utilities.
ii  whiptail       0.50.17-9.6    Displays user-friendly dialog boxes from she
ii  zlib1g         1.1.4-1        compression library - runtime

Thanks,

-Chris

One final question.

After I have finished configuring the linux install, is it possible to backup the configuration, along with all the files, so that if nessecary we could restore back to our inital configuration.

Thanks,

Adam

There is no duplicating a file-system (yet) through our control panel. But, if you have the space you can create an empty virtual disk, and cp -a everything to that device.

If something goes wrong, you can modify your configuration profile to boot off the new disk image.

Thanks,
-Chris

I believe the above packages may be safely removed from the default Debian installation provided by Linode. Most of the above are simply useless on a UML system. Others may be installed as necessary.

Not useless at all. Iptables/chains for firewalling, manpages for reference, ppp for tunnels/vpns, although syslinux, setserial pppoeconf could be removed, but as they only take up very little space I don't think its such a big deal.

...which is why I said "Others may be installed as necessary". It's a default installation. Additionally, it's the smallest available installation and I think it could be smaller. If someone wants to use if for those things you've listed then the packages can be reinstalled, but they can be safely removed from the default, which is what I was getting at. There are probably a few others as well, my initial list was the result of a cursory glance.