Idea: "{Gnome,KDE,Xfce,...} Minimal Desktop" groups

[Tomas Radej]

Hi,

On Mon, 29 Apr 2013 15:07:58 +0200
Sandro Mani <manisandro at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> From time to time, when setting up virtual machines for testing, I miss a
> fast way to install the minimal set of packages which allows me to boot
> into the desktop of a desktop environment. Currently, I do a minimal
> install, then install some core component, i.e. gnome-shell, and then hunt
> the logs to find out which other packages are missing.

Tried that a couple of times. Not a fan. Ever since, I rather install
the XFCE spinoff as it has subjectively fewest unnecessary packages and
go on from there.

> So, what about creating groups for the various desktop environments which
> pull in basesystem + xorg + mesa drivers + displaymanager + bare desktop
> shell?

Either that, or I could imagine something like a Minimal-GUI spin. Not
sure if the demand for it would be high enough to be worth the effort,
though.

> 
> Advantages I see are:
> * Users can quickly set up test environments for various desktop
> environments
> * It would make side-by-side installation of desktop environments more
> pleasant
> * It might help considering enabling the yum option
> "clean_requirements_on_remove=1" by default, since even if something goes
> wrong, the user will not end up with a missing desktop next time he or she
> reboots
> * It might help fixing some package dependencies
> 
> Opinions?

Generally +1.

TR

-- 
Tomas Radej <tradej at redhat.com>