Xfce Minimal Installation

This is my experience on installing minimal Xfce dekstop on Debian Lenny. I use netinst CD (~150MB) to build my system from ground up.

1. Download and burn Debian netinst CD

2. Install Debian core system

3. Set APT mirrors

# nano /etc/apt/sources.list

deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ lenny main
deb http://security.debian.org/ lenny/updates main

4. Update and upgrade packages

# apt-get update
# apt-get upgrade

5. Install basic Xfce desktop

# apt-get install --no-install-recommends \
xorg xfce4 slim alsa-base alsa-utils \
hal gamin dbus-x11 sudo xdg-utils

6. Install Xfce additional application

# apt-get install --no-install-recommends \
desktop-base gnome-icon-theme dmz-cursor-theme \
xfce4-terminal xfce4-taskmanager xfce4-screenshooter-plugin \
thunar-archive-plugin thunar-media-tags-plugin

7. Install basic desktop application

# apt-get install --no-install-recommends \
synaptic conky htop squeeze bzip2 zip unzip \
mplayer gimp dia gpicview \
geany chmsee epdfview stardict-gtk galculator \
openoffice.org openoffice.org-gtk \
iceweasel icedove gftp transmission-gtk xchat

The result is amazing. Initial-memory-used is only 40MB. Disk-space-used is around 1.2GB. The look-and-feel is similar to GNOME desktop. I'll stick with Xfce desktop on my old Toshiba Satellite 1800 laptop.

Xfce desktop

15.07.2010. 23:43 EDT

kolchak on 06.08.2010. 20:27 EDT

Very nice! I'm trying to replicate (OK, "copy") this on my Thinkpad X40, though I'll probably use Swiftfox rather than Iceweasel.

I know little about conky; would you care to share your conky config?

Thanks!

Auriza Akbar on 09.08.2010. 05:13 EDT

Thank you. Here's my conky config: [ http://auriza.byethost7.com/etc/.conkyrc ]. I also installed GNU IceCat to get HTML5 capability and Exaile for lightweight audio player. I'll try Swiftfox on my laptop later.

slumbergod on 22.09.2010. 15:22 EDT

Thanks, I followed your instructions and got exactly what you promised! It was really impressive. I am used to Xubuntu but in recent releases it has been so bogged down with junk.

Now I plan to try it on a Maverick Meerkat minimal install. I really wanted to switch to Debian but the ecryptfs home directory encryption just doesn't work for me, despite several attempts in a virtual machine.

Thinkpad760XL on 08.04.2011. 18:16 EDT

http://auriza.byethost7.com/etc/.conkyrc has gone missing?

Auriza Akbar on 11.04.2011. 04:50 EDT

Sorry, the domain has been expired. I'll paste .conkyrc here:

use_xft                 yes
xftfont                 Liberation Mono:size=8
xftalpha                1.0
text_buffer_size        2048
update_interval         4
total_run_times         0
own_window              yes
own_window_transparent  yes
own_window_type         normal
own_window_hints        undecorated,below,sticky,skip_taskbar,skip_pager
double_buffer           yes
minimum_size            200 0
draw_shades             no
draw_outline            no
draw_borders            no
stippled_borders        0
border_margin           4
border_width            1
default_color           004DBC
own_window_colour       004DBC
alignment               top_right
gap_x                   20
gap_y                   40
no_buffers              yes
uppercase               no
cpu_avg_samples         2
net_avg_samples         2
override_utf8_locale    yes
use_spacer              none

TEXT
SYSTEM ${hr 2}

${alignc 22}${font Liberation Mono:size=16}sat1800${font}
${alignc}Debian Lenny

${voffset 8} linux ${alignr}${kernel} 
${voffset 8} cpu ${alignr}$cpu% ${cpubar 8,60} 
${voffset 8} mem ${alignr}$mem ${membar 8,60} 
${voffset 8} swap ${alignr}$swap ${swapbar 8,60} 
${voffset 8} uptime ${alignr}${uptime} 
${voffset 8} temp ${alignr}${acpitemp}'C 
${voffset 8}
STORAGE ${hr 2}
${voffset 8} root
${voffset 2} ${alignr}${fs_used /}/ ${fs_size /} ${fs_bar 8,60 /} 
${voffset 8} home
${voffset 2} ${alignr}${fs_used /home}/${fs_size /home} ${fs_bar 8,60 /home} 
${voffset 8}
${if_up ppp0}DIALUP ${hr 2}
${voffset 8} up ${alignr}${upspeedf ppp0}KiB/s ${upspeedgraph ppp0 8,60} 
${voffset 8} down ${alignr}${downspeedf ppp0}KiB/s ${downspeedgraph ppp0 8,60} 
${voffset 8} upload ${alignr}${totalup ppp0} 
${voffset 8} download ${alignr}${totaldown ppp0} 
${voffset 8} local ip ${alignr}${addr ppp0} 
${voffset 8}${endif}
FORTUNE ${hr 2}
${voffset 4}${font Liberation Mono:size=7}${execi 120 fortune -s | fold -s -w 40}${font}

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