In several of the guides on HughesJR.com, the first couple steps were how to do a minimal install of an Enterprise Linux distro.  We were repeating it enough that I decided to do the minimal install as a seperate guide.  It will be linked from many of our other guides.

This guide will address how to get the minimum install completed and yum configured for CentOS, Scientific Linux, or White Box Enterprise Linux (WBEL).  From that point on, the rest of the install should be the same in all three Linux versions.

Note:  Tao Linux has retired and become part of CentOS.

All Distros

1.  Boot from CD-1 of the CentOS, WBEL, or Scientific Linux distro discs and at the prompt, type Linux text.

2.  Complete the install in accordance with the information available on the given distro's site, with this exception.  When picking the type of install (server, workstation, etc.) pick custom.

3.  When presented with the selection list for program categories, unselect all the categories.  There should be nothing selected, and the size of the install should be about 540mb-800mb.  When you are finished, you should have a self booting, network enabled, minimal enterprise linux install.

4.  I use this minimal install as a basis for most of the other guides on this site.  Now we need to setup the Distro specific part of the minimal install, so that you can perform updates and download other items.  To do this, we MAY need install the version of yum that comes with each distro. (Currently, all distro's have yum installed, except WBEL original).

If you need to install yum, you also will need to install libxml2-python and libxml2. Here is how to do that with each distro (all commands are to be completed in a terminal window as the root user):

CentOS 3.1

1.  In the case of CentOS 3.1, the base install is 570mb and yum is already included, so no extra steps are required to install it.

2.  It might be a good idea to add a couple more mirrors to the /etc/yum.conf file, in  case the main mirror is down.  You can get a list of mirrors from the Centos site.  Here is the /etc/yum.conf file I use with a couple extra sites listed:

http://www.hughesjr.com/centos/yum.conf.txt

3.  CentOS has now done major upgrades to their mirror system, so adjustments (like those in step 2) are probably no longer necessary. 

4.  Next we need to get the system updated.  Run the command:

yum upgrade

and you have what I refer to as a Minimal installation in the other guides to use CentOS 3.1.

5.  Note:  This also works for CentOS-4. 

TaoLinux

1.  In the case of TaoLinux, the base install is 566mb and yum is already included in the install as well.  On the version I downloaded, it included all the current TaoLinux mirrors in the /etc/yum.conf file.  Here a copy of the /etc/yum.conf file I used to get the minimal install:

http://www.hughesjr.com/tao/yum.conf.txt

2.  Next we need to get the system updated.  First you must import the key used to sign the TaoLinux packages with the command:

rpm --import /usr/share/doc/tao-release-*/RPM-GPG-KEY-tao

3. Run the command:

yum upgrade

and you have what I refer to as a Minimal installation in the other guides to use TaoLinux.

White Box Enterprise Linux (WBEL)

Note: WBEL respin1 does install yum as part on the minimal install, so if you installed WBEL from a respin1 ISO, skip to step 5.

1.  The original WBEL minimal install does not include yum, and it must be installed by hand. You can install this directly from the CD-1 you used for install(skip to step 3), or you can download the 3 files from a mirror (continue with step 2).  I'll cover both ways.

2. Download ... you will skip to step 4 after downloading the files. 

(all the wget commands are 1 single line, in case they wrap):

wget http://www.geekstyle.net/white_box/3.0/en/os/i386/RedHat/RPMS/yum-2.0.4-2.WB1.noarch.rpm

wget  http://www.geekstyle.net/white_box/3.0/en/os/i386/RedHat/RPMS/libxml2-python-2.5.10-5.i386.rpm

wget  http://www.geekstyle.net/white_box/3.0/en/os/i386/RedHat/RPMS/libxml2-2.5.10-5.i386.rpm

3.  If you choose to install off the cd, mount the CD-1 (usually via the command mount /dev/cdrom) and change directories to the location that has the packages we want to install:

cd /mnt/cdrom/RedHat/RPMS

4.  You should now be in the directory that contains the packages yum, libxml2, and libxml2-python (wether you downloaded them or are installing off the CD-1).  Install the three packages with this command (this is on one line if it wraps):

rpm -Uvh yum-2.0.4-2.WB1.noarch.rpm libxml2-python-2.5.10-5.i386.rpm libxml2-2.5.10-5.i386.rpm

5.  Once yum is installed, you may need to edit the /etc/yum.conf file to include some of the mirrors.  Here is my /etc/yum.conf file:

http://www.hughesjr.com/wbel/yum.conf.txt

6. Next we need to get the system updated.  Run the command:

yum upgrade

and you have what I refer to as a Minimal installation in the other guides to use WBEL.

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After completing one of the above installs, you have a minimal install and should be able to continue any of my guides that say they are based on a minimal install of Enterprise Linux.

 If you are looking for a smaller, more lean install of CentOS, you can try this site:

Building a tiny CentOS installation