DSL Ideas and Suggestions :: new distro based on DSL

One primary difference between Damn Small and Luit Linux
is the window manager. Damn Small uses fluxbox, which is easily
restarted by the built-in menu, in 0.6.1. This is an important function,
as once you have restored backup.tar.gz into the DSL filesystem with
filetool.sh restore, then you have to restart and have DSL re-read the
.xinitrc file. Once that is done, your restoration is complete, and
ready to go. X has restarted.
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Now, in Luit Linux, a remaster of Damn Small, with the xfce4 window
manager, there is a problem restarting X. First of all, there is no
menu item for that in Luit Linux 0.2. I have found that one has to
do two things to work around this.
l. Add these lines to your filetool.sh
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gzip -dc $BACKUP_DEVICE/backup.tar.gz | sudo tar -xvf - -C /
 sudo umount $BACKUP_DEVICE
 echo "This is the Foxfire Luit Linux Restoration on /dev/hdb1."
 echo "I have restored your files. Now, X has to be restarted."
 echo -n "Press the ENTER key to finish the restoration process." ; read ans
startx  
 exit 0
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Lines 3-6 are to be added, I have included 1, 2 and 7 as a reference.
You may customize the text to suit your installation, of course. The important
thing to remember is that filetool.sh restores, and needs a minute or more to
finish doing that. So I have you press the ENTER key to allow the script to
proceed on to "startx" which will actually restart X, and re-read ~/.xinitrc
so you get your restoration completed. It's a two step process.
Here is my copy of filetool.sh that I am using:
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http://www.angelfire.com/ms/telegram/xfce4_filetool_sh
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There you can see where the additional lines are being placed. In Scite, they are
at lines 107-110. There are plenty of comment lines, that make for interesting
reading.
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2. copy /home/damnsmall/.xfce4/xinitrc to /home/damnsmall/.xinitrc
If you don't do this, the system will try and load fluxbox instead of xfce4, and
although this is ok on Damn Small, Luit Linux does not have all it needs installed to
run fluxbox. After all, if you take away xfce4 and Gimp, Luit Linux becomes DSL 0.5.3.1.,
more or less. That's why a Damn Small tarball from 0.6.1, or 0.5.3.1 will work
in Luit Linux with very little modification to filetool.lst, other than to add this line:
/home/damnsmall/.xfce4
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Why would all this be important to Damn Small Linux?
If another window manager is
selected, then some way to restart X might be necessary, if it cannot be easily done
via the menu, as it is now, with fluxbox. I have used FVWM in various forms and it
always had a way to restart itself, as most of these window managers do.
xfce4, however, is made up of several components, and a restart was not provided in
the remaster Luit Linux 0.2.
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Why would Damn Small want another window manager?
Perhaps to appear more like Windows XP.
xfce4, with the Panel, as I have configured it, has all the quick-launch buttons any
XP user would need to feel at home with it.
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Screenshot: http://www.angelfire.com/ms/telegram/luitlinux2.png
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It can be done, but I do not know if xfce4
will fit, Luit Linux 0.2 wound up at 65 MB, which is over the 50 MB DSL limit.
No web browser, other than Dillo is included, either. Your own tarball, with
(in my case) Foxfire and Opera 6.12, is the only way to go. Those are not going
to fit in a remaster that is anywhere near 65 MB or for that matter, 50 MB.
Those who can remaster might want to try to get xfce4 in there, and make
recommendations to this thread based on their findings.
I have seen some posts where folks have tried other window managers,
and attempt to include them in their backup.tar.gz. I tried one, asclassic downloaded with
synaptic. Not as good as fluxbox.
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This post is available at
http://www.angelfire.com/ms/telegram/general_howto
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If anyone has a remaster that is available for download, let us know here, so we can give
it a try.
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