Best Linux for a single application & fast boot? (also How-to?)

Question

I'm looking for a way to run Celtx,a screenwriting software on a Linux Distro and nothing else, no bluetooth, internet/WiFi, media, games, nothing, not even a desktop. Just boot up the OS and Bam! Celtx. Also, a fast boot would be great.

P.S. I'd need to automount a NTFS partition.

Any ideas?

Thanks

Answer 1

As mentioned by DaveParillo, any distibution can be stripped down to next to nothing. However, building a system from the ground up is probably preferable in your case. This is what Arch Linux was designed for. If you are comfortable with this idea, continue...

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1. Follow the official or beginner's installation guide to install the base system.
2. To mount your NTFS partition automatically, open up your /etc/fstab and add the following line (/dev/sdb1 being the NTFS partition and /mnt/device being the mount point):

   /dev/sdb1 /mnt/device ntfs defaults 1 0
   

3. If you want to be able to log in automatically you will need to take a few extra steps. First, install mingetty from the Arch User Respository (AUR). Here is a small guide to help you do that if you are unfamiliar with Arch Linux. Next, open up /etc/inittab and change the line that looks like:

   c1:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty -8 38400 tty1 linux
   

   to the following:

   c1:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty --autologin username tty1 linux
   

4. Install X by executing the following commands as root:

   pacman -Syu
   pacman -S libgl xorg xf86-input-evdev mesa vesa
   

   Configure X with:

   Xorg -configure
   cp /root/xorg.conf.new /etc/X11/xorg.conf
   

   If xorg is giving you problems you can refer to the wiki. (If sound is also needed you can follow the steps that are given here)

5. Edit your ~/.bash_profile so that when you log into TTY1 X will start automatically:

   if [[ -z "$DISPLAY" ]] && [[ $(tty) = /dev/tty1 ]]; then
       exec startx
       logout
   fi
   

6. Edit ~/.xinitrc and include the following (replacing celtx with whatever command starts the program you want to run):

   exec celtx
   shutdown -h now
   

   Once you quit celtx Arch Linux will shut down.

You also mentioned that you would like a fast boot time. I'm not sure how this compares to what you are looking for, but on a ~7 year old computer I managed to get mine down to 23 seconds by following this guide.

Answer 2

You can strip any linux distro down to the bare bones - the simplest thing to do is take a distro you already are familiar with and boot into run level 1 - the standard 'single user mode'. You won't have networking or any daemons, but you may have a desktop, depending on what you're using. You could define a custom run level to do whatever. Run level 4 is usually used for this. It's undefined, so you can make it whatever you want.

Alternatively, take a look at the linux distros tuned for smallness

EDIT Linux is not exactly famous for speedy boot times, but the less you run at startup, the faster it will be.