[CentOS] Minimal install for CentOS 5?

Florin Andrei florin at andrei.myip.org
Fri Dec 7 19:38:47 UTC 2007


Aaron Seelye wrote:
> 
> I'm new to the linux world (long time FreeBSD user), and I'm wondering 
> if there's an easy way to install CentOS 5 without the GUI and 
> unnecessary services?  I see there's a server cd for CentOS 4, but I 
> didnt see anything like that for CentOS 5.  Am I looking in the wrong 
> places, or is it just necessary to manually select the minimal set of 
> packages?

It depends on your definition of "minimal".

The method I use sometime is:
- boot the install CD or DVD with the "linux text" parameter
- unselect all package groups when you get to that point
- select the "customize package selection" checkbox (or something like 
that, I forgot what it's called exactly)
- in the new, extended package groups list, unselect everything again

The result is a fairly slim machine. Probably not the absolute minimum, 
but then there's no unique definition of "absolute minimum".
You can always add anything you want after that via "yum install 
package_name", so you don't lose anything this way.

BTW, with this method, you only need the first install CD. If it asks 
for another CD, you're doing something wrong.

There might be some services that you may want to turn off, just do a 
"chkconfig --list | grep :on | less" and look through the list - 
anything you don't want, just do a "chkconfig service_name off" in a 
different console.

Fairly easy, fairly newbie-friendly, works OK.

-- 
Florin Andrei

http://florin.myip.org/



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