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Phoenixfire159
n00b
Joined: 24 Oct 2004
Posts: 55
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 Posted: Tue Feb 15, 2005 12:31 am Post subject: X installs too much crap |
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I'm getting really sick of X installing lots of crap. I do an:
ebuild xorg-x11-6.8.2.ebuild install
and then look in the temporary image directory that it created, and there is so much stuff in there.
/etc/X11 and /usr/lib/X11 are cluttered like no other. There's like 50 binaries in /usr/bin, and I don't recognize/plan to use half of them. Actually, more than half. The only binaries I think I'm going to use are X, Xorg, startx, and xinit. Is there a clean way to get it to not install all of them?
I don't need xcalc, xclock, and all the printing things it installs (even though I have -xprint in my use flags). I don't want xeyes, xedit, and all of those other X applications. I just want the X server, client, some libraries, and some fonts. And /usr/share/fonts always has so many fonts. Have you look in /usr/share/fonts/misc lately? Holy shit:
ls -l | wc --lines
says:
326
That's a hell of a lot of fonts. And the only fonts that I use are the bitstream ones and Arial (those are the only ones I pick, maybe some app somewhere uses some others). Is there any way to install X cleanly? I don't want to set the minimal flag, and even that doesn't get rid of the xcalc, xedit, etc. I don't really want to delete stuff after the make install, because I'll probably delete something important. I just wish you could set what you want to build more precisely. I mean seriously, who uses xcalc?
And then there are other things. Why does X build its own freetype? I have freetype, but it builds a freetype in /usr/lib/modules/fonts, and it probably puts other freetype stuff elsewhere. And I'm hoping the ebuild lets you specify which drivers you want to install, because my /usr/lib/modules is 30 megs now, and I don't need a cyris (how do you spell it?) driver.
I just wish someone would give X a clean installation system. Anyone have any ebuilds maybe? |
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scocou
Apprentice
Joined: 16 Aug 2002
Posts: 184
Location: Pacific NW, Canada
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| Posted: Tue Feb 15, 2005 1:03 am Post subject: |
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maybe the -minimal USE flag would help out, not sure if it suits you...
| Code: | | USE=minimal /usr/bin/emerge xorg-x11 -vp |
oops! I just read in your lengthy tirade that it didn't suit you... my bad 
Last edited by scocou on Tue Feb 15, 2005 1:24 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Sudrien
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Joined: 01 Oct 2003
Posts: 207
Location: Michigan
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| Posted: Tue Feb 15, 2005 1:04 am Post subject: |
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If you don't want all that stuff on your system, just use rm. Or, even better, rm * in the appropriate directory.
That post is incredibly whiny. In fact, the posts you have made thus far seem to have a whiny sound to them.
Or, if you really don't think you will need all those libraries, you might want to try Xserver. http://freedesktop.org/Software/Xserver. There are ebuilds lurking around for it.
-Sud.
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Phoenixfire159
n00b
Joined: 24 Oct 2004
Posts: 55
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| Posted: Tue Feb 15, 2005 1:33 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | If you don't want all that stuff on your system, just use rm. Or, even better, rm * in the appropriate directory. |
Yeah, but can I remove rstart? Can I remove libXmuu, or libXmu, or libXau, or the rush libraries? How about all the print stuff. What about all of those binaries where I have no clue what they do? Some of those are used by the ebuild to do font stuff, but I'm not sure what it's doing.
What can I delete, and what can't I delete? Mostly, I'd like to clean up my /usr/lib/X11 and /etc/X11, and some of those binaries that I don't need. It also looks like many of the binaries depend on some of the stuff in those directories, and that for instance, if I remove the rstart binary, I can get rid of its configuration files in /etc... |
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Lokheed
Veteran
Joined: 12 Jul 2004
Posts: 1295
Location: /usr/src/linux
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| Posted: Tue Feb 15, 2005 1:52 am Post subject: |
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| Sudrien wrote: | If you don't want all that stuff on your system, just use rm. Or, even better, rm * in the appropriate directory.
That post is incredibly whiny. In fact, the posts you have made thus far seem to have a whiny sound to them.
Or, if you really don't think you will need all those libraries, you might want to try Xserver. http://freedesktop.org/Software/Xserver. There are ebuilds lurking around for it.
-Sud. |
You are a Gentoo user and thats your input? Gentoo is based on control and use flags allow one to install what one needs not what one is forced too. I think these posts bring light to issues like that. I have the GBs but I dont much like installing anything I wont use.
Phoenixfire159, I am with you in trimming down Xorg. I dont have much of a recomendation on install steps but what you can do is build a binary of your Xorg install and then go rm crazy. If you fubar it, re-install the binary which should take a minute and try again. It will no doubt be a great work of trial and error but you can probably trim down a lot...a poor alternative but an alternative. |
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Phoenixfire159
n00b
Joined: 24 Oct 2004
Posts: 55
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| Posted: Tue Feb 15, 2005 2:08 am Post subject: |
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I'm hearing some stuff about a modular install for Xorg. Does anyone know what's up with that? It sounds like a modular install might help this problem.
| Quote: | | That post is incredibly whiny. In fact, the posts you have made thus far seem to have a whiny sound to them. |
I find it hell scary that you've read all of my posts. I guess this is kind of whiny, but I've been trying to trim down X since I got linux about six months ago.
I don't really have the GB's. I've got (eight?) in total. Then I need to put a music collection, a photo collection, and some other stuff on top of that. And this computer is pretty old too. Filesystems seem to have a problem with bad performance when you load it with too much stuff, so I'm really trying to cut as much as I can out of everything. |
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Sudrien
Apprentice
Joined: 01 Oct 2003
Posts: 207
Location: Michigan
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| Posted: Tue Feb 15, 2005 4:09 am Post subject: |
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| Lokheed wrote: | | You are a Gentoo user and thats your input? |
Sorry, apparently I don't add enough  to posts like this. It was the fact that 159's suggestion of sombady making a new ebuild for somthing a complex as X with only disregarding current USE flags...
Well, a reply in kind. And I wonder why it wasn't caught in the first reply.
(just to be safe)
Actually, the "+minimal" flag might be just what you want, depending on your version and the other flags set. 6.8.2 *does* cut out the extra stuff - and disable the other stuff too, the bitmap and type1 fonts, the font server - it cut doun the size of my quickpkg'd tarball from 58MB to 17MB.
Leaves out the accelerated drivers though - but they can be re-installed form a quickpkg'd tarball.
Have a version of Xfree still installed? Remove that.
---
Wait... why are you looking at the Work Directory? you should be looking at the correct CONTENTS file /var/db/pkg/
And I hear the -Os flag does wonderful things for binary size.
And I'll plug Reiser4 too.
-Sud.
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DarkStorm_Inc
Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 07 Feb 2005
Posts: 105
Location: The Ether
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| Posted: Tue Feb 15, 2005 4:29 am Post subject: |
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yeah, if your worried about fs performance use reiser or maybe xfs (either xfs or jfs also has decent performance). And if your compiling everything from scratch use -Os (as mentioned in the above post) May not be as quick, but be a hell of a lot smaller.
Do some of the window managers like fluxbox use X? |
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blaster999
l33t
Joined: 09 May 2004
Posts: 902
Location: Between keyboard and chair
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| Posted: Tue Feb 15, 2005 11:19 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | Do some of the window managers like fluxbox use X? |
Of course they do - unless there is a text-based window manager . X is a server, and WMs are clients. A graphical app in Linux cannot work w/o connecting to an X server.
_________________
60s: sex, drugs, rock'n'roll
90s: sux, bugs, drag'n'drop
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Some multimedia keys refuse to work? See my mini-howto:
https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?p=1896734#1896734 |
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Phoenixfire159
n00b
Joined: 24 Oct 2004
Posts: 55
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| Posted: Tue Feb 15, 2005 7:36 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | yeah, if your worried about fs performance use reiser or maybe xfs |
I'm on reiser4. Just wondering, does anyone find reiser4 to be slow? Maybe its because reiser4 uses so much more cpu, and my cpu's slow, but it doesn't feel quite as fast as xfs. They're promising lots of features and plugins and stuff, so I figured I'll stay with reiser4 anyways.
And another thing, reiser4 cuts like a whole half gig off of my almost-8 gig partition, so the filesystem's only about 7.5 gigs. Is that normal?
| Quote: | | And if your compiling everything from scratch use -Os |
I did for a while. Did wonders for performance and disk usage and such, but every other app segfaulted, so I stopped. I ebuilds for a couple dozen packages that would just strip -Os out of my cflags.
| Quote: | | Wait... why are you looking at the Work Directory? you should be looking at the correct CONTENTS file /var/db/pkg/ |
I just think its easier to look at the work directory. Is it bad to? |
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Sudrien
Apprentice
Joined: 01 Oct 2003
Posts: 207
Location: Michigan
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| Posted: Tue Feb 15, 2005 8:17 pm Post subject: |
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| Phoenixfire159 wrote: |
| Quote: | | Wait... why are you looking at the Work Directory? you should be looking at the correct CONTENTS file /var/db/pkg/ |
I just think its easier to look at the work directory. Is it bad to? |
The work directory is cleared out after a successful compile - there will be a lot of "junk" there. CONTENTS is the list of what was actually installed on your system.
The question posed is null and void if you aren't looking at what is actually installed on the system. If you can't find files by doing a "grep -R filename *" in the pkg/ directory, then it is your crud, not gentoo's. 
-Sud.
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Phoenixfire159
n00b
Joined: 24 Oct 2004
Posts: 55
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| Posted: Tue Feb 15, 2005 8:31 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | The work directory is cleared out after a successful compile - there will be a lot of "junk" there. CONTENTS is the list of what was actually installed on your system. |
My bad. I have a pretty custom system, so I always do an "ebuild ... install" on an ebuild before I really emerge it. I'm referring to the image directory, not the work directory. |
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blaster999
l33t
Joined: 09 May 2004
Posts: 902
Location: Between keyboard and chair
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| Posted: Wed Feb 16, 2005 5:01 am Post subject: |
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Gentelmen, let's stay on topic
Honestly, I agree with Phoenixfire159 that XOrg installs too much cruft. I mean, Xeyes was meant to be a demonstraton of some X programming techniques, not an app for daily use. Some other apps (xclock, xedit) are more useful, but I do not use them, as there are more advanced and pretty-looking programs with the same functions. I do not have a free space problem - I recently bought a 200 gig SATA hdd, but I still do not want all these unneeded files laying around. It would be good if xorg-x11 ebuild had some more USE flags like "apps", so with USE=-apps xeyes, xclock and so on would not be installed.
BTW, my notebook has 10 Gb HDD, so making X smaller would make difference there. I used DO_NOT_COMPILE there to put KDE on a diet.
_________________
60s: sex, drugs, rock'n'roll
90s: sux, bugs, drag'n'drop
---
Some multimedia keys refuse to work? See my mini-howto:
https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?p=1896734#1896734 |
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Phoenixfire159
n00b
Joined: 24 Oct 2004
Posts: 55
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| Posted: Wed Feb 16, 2005 7:41 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | It would be good if xorg-x11 ebuild had some more USE flags like "apps", so with USE=-apps xeyes, xclock and so on would not be installed. |
Yeah, that's basically what I was referring to. Not only do these apps install themselves, but they install app-defaults and their other configuration in /etc/X11/(very confusing directories). I was hoping that in the X configuration file in xc/config/cf/host.def, there would be something like a:
#define BuildAdditionalApps NO
option. It doesn't look like there is. The closest thing is a BuildServersOnly option (or something, can't remember the exact name). But that makes X not build opengl, fonts, etc., and that's not good.
Are there any X guru's out there who know how to get X to not install stuff that people don't want? |
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thebigslide
l33t
Joined: 23 Dec 2004
Posts: 792
Location: under a car or on top of a keyboard
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| Posted: Wed Feb 16, 2005 9:03 pm Post subject: |
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I am going to do this for you. Here's how you do it. (let $package = xorg)
1. make a chroot of a stage3 tarball and install all dependencies of $package
2. cp -a chroot chrootbasic
3. emerge $package in chroot
4. cp the files needed for $package one by one from chroot into chrootbasic, copy libraries determined with ldd
5. make sure [package] works in chrootbasic
6. diff chroot and chrootbasic and use the difference as a mask for removing files from all future installs of chroot.
7. for i in `cat chroots.diff | grep '\+'`; do rm cut 2- $i; done
What apps do you want? xterm, the server itself, a couple of basic fonts? I use xcalc all the time so it's getting included, too. 
I have to do this for a livecd anyways, so I'm glad to help.
I wouldn't mind developing a library of these masks for future use. What other packages are people finding bloated. I can probably make a script to automate this. |
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Phoenixfire159
n00b
Joined: 24 Oct 2004
Posts: 55
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| Posted: Wed Feb 16, 2005 9:07 pm Post subject: |
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| Yep, damn, looks like I've got to do some work... |
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thebigslide
l33t
Joined: 23 Dec 2004
Posts: 792
Location: under a car or on top of a keyboard
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| Posted: Wed Feb 16, 2005 11:00 pm Post subject: |
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| dood, just let me know what parts of x you want and I'll send you the .diff file. |
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