Why does it need that much hard disk space?

[cwhitley]

C'mon guys!
I'm not here to get or defend my religeon.  I'm here for usefull information
and maybe to help someone else if I can.  So, with that in mind I would like
to suggest the following for loading a RH install (suggestions for other
distro's welcome!).

I feel your best course for cutting the distro down to a reasonable size
would be to do a custom install.  Select such things as networking, any
servers you need (ftp, http, etc), and deselect the "fluff" like gnome and
kde, etc.  It is probably a good idea to include either both software dev
and kernel dev unless you aren't any sort of programmer in which case drop
the software dev.  At the next screen select the "no x-windows" install
(which should drop "x" and all packages which have "x" as a dependancy. 
This should cut it back to a text mode only load significantly cutting the
disk space requirements.  Bill or others, please correct me if the "no x"
option doesn't drop all the x related packages.

Since there is a known issue with the installer in 7.3 you may wish to
consider loading 7.1 or 7.2 for the initial install.  You can then run
up2date for the latest packages in that series or you can get 7.3 and select
upgrade for the install.  

All the above information is provided because that is my knowledge base.  If
you are interested in obtaining and installing some other distribution I am
quite sure that someone on this list whom has worked with it would be more
than glad to provide helpfull suggestions and guidance.


I am not an expert at RedHat or any other flavor of linux.  I am not willing
to go out on a limb and tell you that any particular distro is better than
any other.  I am willing to share with you my personal experience and
knowledge (if I have any) so that some day you can do the same for me or
someone else.  

I'm through preaching now.
Cecil