Thank you for the replies received. They made clear that I
had not adequately separated background information,
physical constraints, preferences, and ideas on what
solution should look like [for want of better term - the
aesthetics of the solution].
I will take my cue from Brian's reply which began "I'll
respond to what is in the subject line."
The strongest physically imposed constraint - no networking
capability for target machine. This has three
sub-categories. Some machines have no networking hardware
installed. In other cases no network infrastructure exists.
Connectivity on my home machines is via a 56k modem.
The next next issue is CPU and memory. My home machines are
GHz dual core with GBytes of ram etc. However there are
donated machines at church that I wish to migrate from OSes
as old as Win95. I know I'll have to deal with 486 machines.
There may be some 386 machines (dealing with those on a case
by case basis would be feasible).
How to define "minimal install"? ;/
There's a motivational component. My first exposure to Linux
was thru Ubuntu and Debian Live CD's. Using them or
installing from them provided a cluttered system with lots
of programs which I would never use and CRITICAL software
not available [neither could connect to internet via dial-up
so relevant software being in repository was irrelevant]. I
investigated several Live CD's promoted as being small and
friendly. They were that and demonstrated that what I wanted
was feasible but they lacked support and applications I
wanted. But they got me asking some of the right questions.
There is the philosophical component. Smaller tends to be
better. Don't install what will not be used. At one point it
was suggested that I just remove undesired applications. I
noticed that "removing" did not reproduce "never installed".
Seems a guarantee of getting bit later.
Some the replies have prompted me to reinvestigate starting
from the netinst. It may be much more feasible than I though
when it was first suggested months ago. I've since done
15-20 installs on my "for experimentation only" machine. I
purposely do some things "the hard way" as my intention is
to learn the guts of Linux.
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