@mrmasterkeyboard And so far @landley has done a great job because I could release the first bootable image within hours just by glancing at his documentation and @w84death 's #Floppinux manual...
@mrmasterkeyboard think of @OS1337 this way: I saw that @w84death build #Floppinux and I asked myself: "can this be redone, but with like beyond just having a console blink?" and it didn't took me long to get a booting image going.
That being said @w84death 's #Floppinux v0.2.1 just booted through fine, so yeah, perfectly feasible as "low end testbed" unless I get like a #VIA #C3 / #C5 / #C7 or one of those expensive #Vortex86-made #486SX clones that @rasteri used for the #WeeCee, tho I'm shure noone would go below a #RaspberryPi #Pi0 / #Pi0W v1.3 or the original #PiModelB v1.2 in terms of #FrugalComputing.
@lestrrat which is kinda sad...
Because things don't habe to have daily updates!
Personally, my current pet project - @OS1337 - is inspired by @landley 's #mkroot and @w84death 's #Floppinux in that I want to not just make a simple #Linux distro 'from scratch' as a personal "#demoscene-esque" challenge but to answer the question:
"What is the amallest possible yet still useable Distro I can build with which I (as Linux-#Sysadmin] can still #work?"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYfpptgb6W8
OFC that idea grew on me as I wanted to make something that is actually useable with just an 80x25 MDA or serial console...
It's still very rough around the edges, but you can just run it from a 1440kB 3,5" FDD on an i486SX and up with at least 16MB of RAM...
https://github.com/OS-1337/OS1337
You can download a test build from here...
@JustineSmithies Yeah, heard of #ChimeraLinux for being a #BSD/#Linux distro way over a year ago.
It, alongside #Floppinux, inspired me to make OS/1337, a #minimalist & #CLI/#TUI-focussed #toybox+#musl/Linux distro...
And being able to list all the dependencies for OS/1337 is not just interesting but also vital to making things reproducible and auditable to the point that people don't have to trust me or @SweetAIBelle or anyones' scripts but could essentially do it step-by-step manually (potentially on an aorgapled system) as @w84death showcased with #Floppinux...
Tangents aside, people are free to create forks and even branches that include #SystemD or use #BusyBox:
That is the #Freedom of #FLOSS and in fact for anything outside the 1440kB target we'd accept #SystemD since it works and solves a lot of issues...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_AIw9bGogo
Granted OS/1337 isn't a #demo first but rather tries to take the concept of #tomsrtbt and @w84death 's #Floppinux and tries to make it something that is useable and can be extended to arbitrary complexity if one desires to...
It's about making a tiny #Linux distro that is #reproduceable and #auditable...
It won't replace @ubuntu or any other big distro, likely it won't even replace #mkroot from #toybox but it should be a clean and level foundation for small #IoT and #EmbeddedSystems projects and products...
Something that is easy to build and customize and port to other platforms...
And we're open for contributions:
https://github.com/OS-1337/OS1337/blob/main/docu/ideas/architectures.tsv
@DavittoKun @landley One of many goals...
The core goal is to build a clean slate of a minimalist Linux that can then be used as basis for a lot of projects.
Because whilst things could be done with a @Raspberry_Pi & #RaspberryPiOS, having to ship over a quarter gigabyte of a minimalist Debian feels excessive.
Also it's about having some good replacement for #tmsrtbt that isn't just a #TechDemo like #Floppinux, which @w84death did and evidenced that it's perfectly possible to do so...
@rory Well, for #OS1337 I took inspiration from @w84death 's #Floppinux and took his #documentation and went full "chimp banging rocks together" on it, but swapping #BusyBox for @landley 's #toybox since I prefer #bash over #ash and wanted something really basic that would do more than cat text files but provide i.e. a portable #SSH #client on a FDD.
Something that could serve as a foundation or rather plain "slate for my other projects in lieu of a THICC distro that is not practically auditable
@SweetAIBelle But then again I do want to develop @OS1337 into a solution that sits right in between @landley 's #mkroot and @yoctoproject 's #Yocto #Linux whilst being able to fit arbitrary restrictions like competing with @w84death 's #Floppinux in size and #tomsrtbt in terms of functionality and versatility.
But speaking of OS/1337, i really need to get crackin' on those open issues and start using the reworked scripts of yours so my old mess can get yeeted sooner than later...
I know.
It's the part where I derivated from the #Floppinux manual which went with #gzip instead of #xz, likely because that was customary for quite some time and even used by most #busybox - based distros otherwise.
After all, rarely do #embeddedLinux systems need to conserve storage that aggressively like with #OS1337...
Granted, the minimalist version will be minimal for obvious reasons: Neither of us can defy gravity...
@whitekiba Die "CORE" oder auch #Floppy-Version von OS/1337 wird natürlich nicht an #Knoppix herankommen...
Es sollte ne bessere und vorallem nützlichere Alternative zu #Floppinux von @w84death sein.
Es ist auch ne Überlegung zu Minimalismus.
@landley The reason I literally choose the latest released #Linux #Kernel is because this means I'll also be able to profit from latest features or at least fixes done to it.
Some old #longterm kernels don't even support #xz compression...
In terms of drivers beyond #floppinux I only want basics like #TCP / #IPv4, support for some old #3Com, #AMD, #Intel and #VIA NICs as well as /dev/ devices so I can use #cfdisk or at least #dd to shove something on a disk.
I guess I've to start @ allnoconfig.
@landley yeah...
To my own admission I just followed along the #floppinux manual and only derivated where necessary and useful.
https://archive.org/details/floppinux-manual
I'm convinced that it's possible to get a #i486-SX #linux with #toybox and #dropbear into 1440kB since someone managed that with way less optimization and with ample wiggle room [272kB] using Linux 5.13.0-rc2 and #BusyBox 1.33.1 manual and not even halfassing optimization at all.
So yeah I've to look deeper into it and see what I'm missing.
@lupo the problem is that i already compress the hell out of stuff:
I literally chose #xz over #gzip and #lzma for both #kernel ans #initramdisk to get both as small as possible...
OFC I'll gladly accept any help in that way...
https://github.com/OS-1337/OS1337
And yes, the similarity to #tomsrtbt and #Floppinux is not an accident but desired:
https://github.com/OS-1337/OS1337/blob/main/docu/acknowledgements.md#notable-mentions
Also from my observation I can confirm @landley 's observations that #Copyleft doesn't help #Linux to the point that one can get archaic and long-outdated #Sourcecode like " #Viprinux " that is basically useless and is even older than #Floppinux.
https://www.viprinet.com/en/support/downloads
Also if #Viprinet still uses 2015-dated code then that's rather scary than anything to me as a #sysadmin.
@landley @SweetAIBelle tbh, #tmsrtbt is one of the inspirations for OS/1337 - alongside #Floppinux...
Granted, #Dropbear and (tiny-) #curl / #wget are more versatile applications for me than #vi cuz a bootable #Floppy from which I could download everything that can't fit on it is an acceptable compromise as I can't defy gravity or rather the "sonic wall" that is the 1.440kB a 3,5" FDD have.
Ideally I'd even be able to fit on a 1.200kB 5,25" but not necessarily.
@landley
I just think that #Floppinux is a good idea but #BusyBox is meh and #toybox is a better alternative to it.
https://hackaday.com/2020/07/08/the-latest-linux-on-a-floppy-in-a-486/
https://archive.org/details/floppinux-manual/
https://archive.org/details/floppinux_0.1.0
Also thanks to @SweetAIBelle and some digging I may be on track to get OS/1337 to boot...
https://github.com/w84death/floppinux/issues/2#issuecomment-850016706
@gorplop right now I'm still working on getting like a 1440kB 3,5" FDD relese (version 0.1) for #i486-SX done but in theory everything should just cross-compile to #SuperH 4 / #SH4...
I just wanted to make something more practical to use than #Floppinux whilst also making something a bit more versatile than #mkroot.
@landley I just went the "lazy route" of following the #Floppinux manual ( https://github.com/OS-1337/OS1337/blob/main/docu/floppinux/floppinux-manual.pdf )and only derivate using xz instead of gzip (making shure to configure the kernel appropriately and the syslinux.cfg to reflect that and shoving a very shaken-down toybox ( https://github.com/OS-1337/OS1337/blob/main/build/0.CORE/build/toybox/toybox-0.8.10-i486-minimal.config ) in instead of BusyBox.
