Quotei spent about a decade with windoze, never touching the sides, never realising the importance of the freedom i didnt have, because the box seemed big enough.   and when i hit the edge, i realised what a waste of my time it had been,

extremely well said, apt, philosophical and picturesque.  I wish I could have conceptualized the point as well as you have said it.  Trade Mandrake/Ubuntu for Suse and could tell the same story.  I don't think this is tilting at windmills though and I don't think I push myself nearly hard enough in this direction. Just some quick thoughts.  Nice convo here.

I'll start with one I use a great deal.  It is part of a more complex script that I will post later that does a routine of things but one of the great things about these is you can really cut and paste them back and forth the codlets once you have a few are easy to build off (actually yad more so) but that is again another subject.

So this little guy sits in my sbin and is a menu choice and has a key combo as well and when I want to (for example) start deleting half my root drive.  I just pop this open, back the bad boy up and then play havoc to my hearts content.

#!/bin/bash
#/==========================================================================
# TITLE: Backup
# AUTHOR:Statmonkey
#
# USAGE: Rsync and directory anywhere or the media directories
# DESCRIPTION: Graphical backup script using zenity
# 
# ARCHIVE DATA USING Rsync and Zenity
# Allows you to select your source and destination
# Allows you to select your exclude filelist from a preset set of lists (this is in full script)
# Uses logger to log to syslog and logs everything in detail to a sourcelog which is rotated every run (full script)
# Allows auto setting rsync options, deletes files not on source and asks for deletion confirmation (full script)
# Presents use with a summary of a dry run (dry run does not include excludes)   
#
# Requires: exclude file in source, zenity, rsync
#
#         
# DATE: LAST UPDATED 9/25/2013 THIS IS ABBREV. FOR QUICK BACKUP USAGE
#==========================================================================
#
#
# SOURCE and DEST variables are defined thru GUI
###############################################
# Define Log Variables:
###############################################
# write to syslog the overall log that records what? FIXME
SYSLOG="/var/log/syslog"
echo $SYSLOG

###############################################
# Define DATE
###############################################

TODAY=`date +%m_%d_%y`

# Refer to closing lines of script for output
echo "The script Backup is starting"

#####################################
# Allow for a simple rsync
#####################################
zenity --question --title="Simple Backup" --text="Did You want a simple backup? Else, Quit!" --ok-label="Yes"
if [[ $? == 0 ]] ; then
SOURCE=`zenity --file-selection --directory --title "Select directory for source"`
echo $SOURCE
DEST=`zenity --file-selection --directory --title "Select directory for destination"`
echo $DEST
rsync -av "$SOURCE" "$DEST"
logger "Backed up $SOURCE $DEST"
echo "did backup $SOURCE $DEST $TODAY" >> $SYSLOG
exit 4
fi
# This ends the simple sync section. 
exit 4
##########

There are a few inefficiencies here and imperfections there but it meets my needs and the fun is it does what I want and I did it.  That is as much a part of the experience for me as anything else.  If anyone has a script they love, I would love to see it.  Even if not perfect the journey is the goal in this case.

Not sure if there will be any interest in this but I have over time collected or put together quite a few zenity (and yad for that matter) scripts.  I thought that we might start something on the order of the bash aliases and collect a few of these that would help people have an idea of how to use them, or inspire some new creation, etc.  If their is interest I will post some of my yad scripts but I think zenity is probably more in regular use and after all there is very little top level difference between the two.

Post any scripts you like, loathe, etc. here.  I would love to see your work and good and bad I think it is how I learn best.

Another great ectropy post thank you.  FWIW I have gone down a similar path and come to a different (I think sometimes e' loses me) path.  Basically that is writing my own.  My instance is of course not to make a distro but to be able to run something on one box, reduce or eliminate the garbage on that box in a go and then back it up to a thumb or pendrive as installable on a different box while still having the flexibility of not caring for the most part if that box is a RasPi/Laptop or my test box which is an old Modem that I turned into a headless server.  Considering my goal, I think it becomes clearer why I am so excited about what VastOne has done here, it adds a sizable weapon to my arsenal and gets me much closer to my goal as far as an end result.

Remastersys I gave up on early but refracta has given me a good base to build on and I used some parts of BBit as a model but didn't like the inflexibility.  I can get pretty close of course just rsyncing a tailored backup and installing an iso but that is not ideal.  From a kiss standpoint I really hadn't thought of nor have I considered what you can do with the skel dirs.  Good thought.  This will keep me in contemplation for a few hours, nice post.

Good stuff ectropy thank you.  I am pretty unfamiliar with synaptic so it is all new to me again.  I think it was my old 'buntu days which would have last been pre-edgy I think.  I am a little synaptic resistant due to my years of running aptosid. Those original devs were bitterly opposed to synaptic and even adding apps in an X environ and I got brainwashed. Anything that helps me understand more is welcome and this does.  I was using rdepends and its a good tool to have around.

Appreciate a good flame war and was really just commenting on the remastersys soap opera as whole and not the philosophical reasons behind it.  Having been victimized by users attempting to take my code and change as little as the name of who developed it and sell something I was giving away I can relate.  I think there seems a little more to this one as I understand including the original dev deciding he wanted to take back what he had given freely and not wanting to contribute anymore.  That of course being completely off topic and based on a very cursory reading of the conversations back and forth.  Anyway thanks for the instructions here and the stuff you posted about .gvfs (I really hate that crap).

Addendum - Thanks to the fine info from ectropy above and using the dreaded synaptic I fixed the niggling little error I was getting by reinstalling live-tools and then removing them correctly.  So the end result is I took the live stuff off my system with no negative effects.  Thank you all.

Great to hear plait will be included!  As I mentioned in the plait thread I use scripts for the most part.  I have significantly reworked my original simple script and am refining it.  I'll post it in the plait script for any who are interested.  I do have some more aliases that are app specific which I will throw out like:
# This assumes you have defined a printer as LPDEST!!!!
alias print='/usr/bin/lp -o nobanner -d $LPDEST'
# Assumes LPDEST is defined (default printer)
alias qpr='enscript -h -G -fCourier9 -d $LPDEST'
# Pretty-print using enscript
which allows me to make scripts that print the results out to my printer for debugging and various other niceties.

FYI
alias did='sudo ls -l /dev/disk/by-id/*'
alias tr='sudo find / -type d -name *Trash*' # find all your trash files
alias rb='exec bash'      # restart bash environment
alias hb='history|more'            # get a listing of your bash history
alias path='echo -e ${PATH//:/\\n}' #lists out your path var
alias atoz="mkdir {A..Z}" #create a to z folders
alias uuid='ls -al /dev/disk/by-uuid/*' # List drives by uuid
alias netmap='nmap 192.168.0-1.0-255 -sP' # get a complete netmap requires nmap

gd you guys. Every time I take a break and look in here there is something great.  3rd thing down on my personal list
"add aliases for things like gpg etc."

VastOne strikes again.  So I guess I will add these until Digit will makes me start over again

2 great suggestions PackRat that I will embark on immediately.  Just read in the other thread VO's progress on the newest and greatest so it would seem that even if I cause my system to barf I won't be adrift.  I never have used or considered synaptic for several years now so I would have never thought of that.

Just backed up and rebooted.  In Synaptic there are no broken packages.  It does show 
live-boot
live-boot-doc
live-boot-initramfs-tools
live-build
live-config
live-config-doc

So, I know get the takemytoysandgohome joke.  Ha! After reading the remastersys site and of course enjoying some of the fine gossip related to it.  I decided to take the plunge and remove this stuff along with memtest86+ which I don't believe I need on my box.  All went well ..... except the following:
On trying to remove "live-tools" the system just says no or more accurately
Removing live-tools ...
dpkg-divert: error: rename involves overwriting `/usr/bin/uptime' with
  different file `/usr/bin/uptime.orig.procps', not allowed
dpkg: error processing live-tools (--remove):
subprocess installed post-removal script returned error exit status 2
Errors were encountered while processing:
live-tools
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)


I have read a couple of walk-throughs on how to fix this but the end result so far has been nada.  If anyone has any ideas let me know.  The good news is I think all this live stuff can be taken out. FWIW

I think I can survive a few days but thanks for the concern.  I haven't killed a system in a while so I am overdue though.  This is really exciting stuff.  I have really enjoyed lurking in this thread by the way, even if it has at times been taxing to my little brain.  As always VastOne, thank you for your efforts for all of us.

Absolutely but as with everything else my knowledge is a mile wide and an inch deep.  Would be happy to help anyway that I can.  Yad is great but not so intuitive sometimes.

You are probably still safe on the golf course, finish your round in peace.  If I do "bork" my system I can just re-install the latest and greatest and start over.  As stated in the "ideas" thread that is the beauty of Vsido.  Honestly thinking about doing a re-install anyway, will wait and see what happens with the lxpanel v tint2 issue. 

Good info packrat and here is what I found. 
If I fire up rcconf and tick off the items that are related to live I get the following:
update-rc.d: warning: start runlevel arguments (none) do not match live Default-Start values (S)
update-rc.d: warning: stop runlevel arguments (0 1 2 3 4 5 6) do not match live Default-Stop values (0 6)

If I open up sysv-rc-conf and look for live items the live entries are all empty

I thought the message might be a hint so I opened up the /etc/live and live-installer folders and there seems to be some leftover configuration files in there. Specifically install.conf and config.con.  I am assuming that these are getting called incorrectly or should not be present.  Anyone know if these can be removed? Or if there might be something else I am missing.  Getting the feeling that I am pulling a thread that might unravel the sweater.

VastOne I will catch you on the back nine.

Very interesting ectropy.  Not sure I follow all of it but starting to see why I am not getting many auto adds to my menu.  I guess that would be none.  I assume that when the /usr/share/applications/*.desktop file has a Categories line that you don't have setup it is not going to create it, so there fore it is not going to show.  Is that right?  I am going to research this, I really have never paid much attention to desktop entries before so a whole 'nother rabbit hole to jump down.  Thanks ... I think 

Thanks.  I use zenity and yad (http://code.google.com/p/yad/) quite a bit, for example my backup scripts and most of my routine stuff I have "yadded" up. It's fun and I find it diverting to throw something together as an alternate to staring at the box when I am flummoxed on something else.  Zenity really has gotten so much better than when it first came out and the support out there from other dweebs who have gone there first makes it easy to find some example of about anything you would want to do.  Enjoy!

There is a call to the live boot source that results in warnings from initramfs that it is not able to access the liveboot
unfortunately I can't find it in my log at the moment.  There does seem to be some impact not sure how critical.  Of more concern is this from the /var/log/live/boot.log
modprobe: module swap not found in modules.dep
modprobe: module swap not found in modules.dep
umount: can't umount /live/overlay: Device or resource busy


I can't find anything in the dmesg, boot, error or any other log that shows a problem and I am not seeing any issues.  The only things I have seen once the folders were removed are the above the message that came in my last upgrade about "initramfs not being able to include the "live boot". Sadly I assumed that would be somewhere in my logs and I could grab the message later to research.  I can't find the exact message and would like to research this.  Any ideas where to look?  Any thoughts on how big an issue I have created (if any)?

Just kidding. I removed it and it seems to have had no effect, but after I removed it I have seen lots of unusual things.  I watched a David Lynch movie.