LXDE installation - first successful run!

I have succesfully installed LXDE - Linux X11 Desktop Environment. I have updated the packages in the repo’s from source, and are looking at a 45.62 MB ram usage upon startup!

Update: Ram usage after firing up: 39.98 MB ram usage!

From Ubuntu to Debian

My main goal was to use the Ubuntu minimal install as a base/core for the install, but after several attempts and hiccup due to a somewhat unreliable Hardy Heron, I went for Debian Lenny. Ubuntu is based upon Debian, so I don’t think I will loose anything significant.

I started with Debian Etch rc3 network installation cd. This allowed me to only install the base of Debian. I did this by booting with expertgui to get full control. This allows me to choose between su and sudo - the latter being preferred.

Debian Lenny

I then update my /etc/apt/sources.list and changed Etch to Lenny (stable to testing), and then:

$ sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

You may also upgrade to Sid (unstable) if you like. Now I added the debian repo from lxde.sf.net and installed lxde. Gdm is now added as default - fair enough, though I may change this to Slim. Xarchiver, GPicView and Leafpad are also added.

The Basics

I installed Conky, and compiled updates from latest source (using auto-apt and checkinstall where feasible + dependencies: gtk+2 dev, gettext gnu, pkg-config) ; lxappearance, lxtask. LXtask is based on Xfce4-taskmanager. It is lightweight and gives you some information regarding the running tasks.

I then installed Iceweasel (Firefox), Abiword, Gnumeric, Xchat which caused a long list of added dependencies and installation candidates. It was quite late when I did this yesterday, so I accepted without much thought. I may have to recheck if all of them are necessary.

The result

I now run Debian Lenny with LXDE at a staggering 39.98 MB ram usage upon startup! This is very satisfying! The boot-time is also very fast, despite of GDM as a Login manager. Maybe it’s faster than I initially thought.

However, I believe I have a lot of installed packages I really don’t need. Disk usage is as high as 1.59 GiB. Not a big problem though.

I will have to change my myUbuntu page and iBuntu page to something more fitting - maybe LEX!