Minimal install of Ubuntu

Question

I'm fairly new to linux but I want to install it on my chromebook with crouton. Is there a way to install something like lubuntu or xubuntu without any of the software normally bundled? For example, I don't need a music manager, libre office, an internet browser (I will install chrome). I would rather just choose these kinds of programs myself and install what I need rather than have them included. Is this possible?

Answer 1

I remember doing something in line with what you're asking... after a few different iterations, what solved my particular problem least painfully was just taking the main/full installation, then looking at the size of various packages... and removing the stuff that actually took up a fair bit of space and I knew (or at least thought) I wasn't going to use.

My particular need was to try and slim down the install a little bit in terms of disk size. There are clearly other things you could do like removing unused or unnecessary kernel modules, but without knowing exactly what parts of the system you're trying to "slim down" it's tough to help more.

I used this little one-liner to identify what was installed and then sorted it by size, so I could know what things made sense to target:

dpkg-query -W --showformat='${Installed-Size;10}\t${Package}\n' | sort -n

To similarly identify larger kernel modules, you can use this one:

lsmod | awk '{print $2, "\t", $1}' | sort -n

Answer 2

You can install ubuntu minimal https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation/MinimalCD and then manually install packages for xfce: sudo apt-get install xfwm4 xfce4-panel xfce4-settings xfce4-session xfce4-terminal xfdesktop4 xfce4-taskmanager. And for lubuntu you can just install an openbox wm and lxpanel: sudo apt-get install openbox lxpanel Some other desktop environments have minimal meta-packages, like kde-plasma-desktop but they have minimal set of applications, like browser, so it may be not your option.