Re: [gentoo-user] Installing software without an internet connection

[Jorge Peixoto de Morais Neto]

On Wed, Nov 5, 2008 at 4:24 AM, Dirk Uys <dirkcuys@×××××.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Nov 5, 2008 at 5:01 AM, Lorenzu Hewa, Gayan Neomal
> <GayanNeomal.LorenzuHewa@×××××××××××××××××.com> wrote:
>> Hi
>>
>>  I was able to complete the Gentoo installation and boot into my system
>> successfully. I only downloaded the Live CD, But the live CD only contains a
>> limited number of packages and... I do not have an internet connection at
>> home since its very expensive for us.
>>
>>  Is their any possible way that i can get a Software collection downloaded
>> for my Gentoo box . I have a P3 with 256 RAM when xfce is combined with
>> Gnome my PC runs slow. I am not much of a xfce/Gnome /KDE fan but since I
>> have no way of getting packages in to my PC I am facing difficulties.
What do you mean "xfce combined with Gnome" ?
>
> As a side note: for a PC running on low specs I would recommend using
> a window manager like WindowMaker or IceWM. Both of them are very
> lightweight.

Xfce is light enough. I'm using it right now, and I like it very much.
It is very lightweight, occupies negligible RAM, and also occupies
little disk space:

equery size xfce-base/
* size of xfce-base/libxfce4mcs-4.4.2
           Total files : 44
           Total size  : 285.76 KiB
* size of xfce-base/libxfce4util-4.4.2
           Total files : 68
           Total size  : 527.11 KiB
* size of xfce-base/libxfcegui4-4.4.2
           Total files : 114
           Total size  : 1287.49 KiB
* size of xfce-base/thunar-0.9.0-r2
           Total files : 530
           Total size  : 9990.27 KiB
* size of xfce-base/xfce-mcs-manager-4.4.2
           Total files : 199
           Total size  : 601.28 KiB
* size of xfce-base/xfce-mcs-plugins-4.4.2-r1
           Total files : 228
           Total size  : 1494.46 KiB
* size of xfce-base/xfce-utils-4.4.2-r1
           Total files : 87
           Total size  : 483.62 KiB
* size of xfce-base/xfce4-4.4.2
           Total files : 4
           Total size  : 5.57 KiB
* size of xfce-base/xfce4-panel-4.4.2
           Total files : 290
           Total size  : 1638.96 KiB
* size of xfce-base/xfce4-session-4.4.2
           Total files : 259
           Total size  : 2215.87 KiB
* size of xfce-base/xfdesktop-4.4.2-r2
           Total files : 254
           Total size  : 4127.12 KiB
* size of xfce-base/xfwm4-4.4.2
           Total files : 1435
           Total size  : 3048.79 KiB

equery size xfce-extra/
[ Searching for packages matching xfce-extra/... ]
* size of xfce-extra/exo-0.3.4
           Total files : 324
           Total size  : 3297.70 KiB
* size of xfce-extra/xfce4-mixer-4.4.2
           Total files : 188
           Total size  : 624.86 KiB

And look at how little memory it consumes:
$ free -m
                                total       used     free     shared
 buffers     cached
Mem:                       884         78        806          0
  6            43
-/+ buffers/cache:                   28        855
Swap:                      972          0         972

This is from a just-booted system, with a gkrellm open, some daemons,
and an aterm (used to run the command 'free'). So only 28 MB used,
total (including Xfce plus everything else) (although I imagine the is
some kernel memory that does not go in this figure; I'm not an OS
expert). There is no need to go the path of Fluxbox; Xfce delivers all
the speed and featherweight you need, while being very ease to use,
vastly configurable, feature-rich, and good-looking.

-- 
Software is like sex: it is better when it is free - Linus Torvalds