After having a Beaglebone and Beaglebone Black for over a year mostly trying different kernels in an attempt to find a solution to a problem with random long latencies in the SPIDEV driver that break my real-time servo loop (unsuccessfully, so I’ve moved on to other things), I finally tried the “latest” Angstrom for my Rev. A5A Beaglebone Black. I must say, I’m very impressed with what functionality is fit into the 2GB eMMC image!
That said, space is tight (<500MB free) on the eMMC. I’ve added an SD card for extra storage so I’ve plenty of space for “my stuff” but I’d like to remove some of the default packages I won’t be using to free up some space on the eMMC. For example, gimp froze the system when I accidentally opened it by double clicking a jpg file, and while I love the Gimp, I can’t see the need for it on my BBB. Also I installed Xfce to work around an OpenCV window display issue as shown here http://beagleboneblack-guide.blogspot.com/p/opencv_13.html so Lxde and its apps can go, perhaps along with gdm since lxdm is now installed and running. Actually this Xfce seems to work better than Lxde did, although it seems to have broken the automatic login. Cheese is another I’ve never found useful to have. Also, I doubt I need three web browsers installed.
Obviously opkg remove pkg-name should work, but how do I find out the package names that were in the pre-built image? My other worry would be that stuff I want is combined with stuff I don’t in a single package. My Google-Fu is weak trying to find Angstrom documention about using and administrating the system, although I did find a tantalizing “Angstrom Manual” but its link was dead.
Once I’m “finished” I’d like everything to boot and run from the eMMC without any SD card.
Not sure it is available or not in Angstrom but with Debian you just use "dpkg -l" That a lower case L ( el ). Then I’ll assume you could do opkg remove package_name(s)
I might add, if you’re having difficulties learning, because the lack of Angstrom documentation is hindering you, I might suggest you move to a Debian image. With Debian you can literally google “Debian howto xyz”, and find tons of information. This is why I made teh switch with my own A5A last may or so.
apparently for Angstrom its opkg list-installed refer to this:
http://gumstix.org/add-software-packages.html
Thanks for the info, gives me a place to start. I tried the LinuxCNC/Machine Kit Debian based image (easiest way to get a working Xenomi real-time system to play with), but it was tight on a 4GB SD card and the GUI performance was flat out terrible. I apt-get installed synaptic after I’d ran the script to expand the image to fill my 8GB SD and figured I’d be in great shape, but I couldn’t figure out how to make the menu item for it work. I could run synaptic with /usr/sbin/synaptic but my initial impressions were pretty poor.
I may give the straight Debian image a try eventually, but so far I’m impressed enough with what Angstrom has to offer in a 1.5GB load that I’m willing to put some effort into continuing with it. The Angstrom GUI seems at least as responsive and much more stable than anything I had running on the much more powerful PandaboardES which ended up being my greatest Linux disappointment.
The real strength of Debian/Ubuntu is odds are you’re not the first to encounter the issue and the user forums almost always hold the answers.
If what I’m doing doesn’t seem very coherent, its because I’m trying to move forward with several projects in parallel
Well as with anything, Debian does require some understanding of what you’re doing. For some I suppose it could have a steep learning curve. IMHO, Debian is best run with no X. As such a strong understanding of commands available, and the command line interface is a must.
You can get a Debian install for the BBB in as little as ~64M in size. This is pretty much a bare install so would not do much. However depending on your build strategy, and knowledge of exactly what you need. I’m sure you could build your own image using Xfce, Xenomi, etc in under 1GB size. Possibly far smaller( no hand on here ). Learning how all this works however can be a huge time investment. Perhaps one you’re unwilling, or even unable to accept at this time.