Building a really minimalistic linux distro

[Guest Takmadeus]

well..... I wanna biuld a floppy disk linux distro..... but I don't know how, and the lfs guide is very complicated and time consuming..... i guess that the floppy distro would have to have a kernel, bash and some tools for it to work..... but how do i get to make it load into ramdisk?..... and how do I make it bootable and all..... I ask that because I want to try my skills and learn new stuff....... so, did you get my point?..... how can I get around these issues?

[ac_dispatcher]

Ever think of downloading a Linux Floppy Distro and kinda reverse engineer it? My Router/Firewall is a Coyote Linux Floppy. If I logout I get into a regular bash shell. Try that.

[iphitus]

well..... I wanna biuld a floppy disk linux distro..... but I don't know how, and the lfs guide is very complicated and time consuming..... i guess that the floppy distro would have to have a kernel, bash and some tools for it to work..... but how do i get to make it load into ramdisk?..... and how do I make it bootable and all..... I ask that because I want to try my skills and learn new stuff....... so, did you get my point?..... how can I get around these issues?

 

Try LFS, it's actually not that hard!! It teaches most of the basics you'd need to know to do that.

 

And if you are making one for a particular purpose, have a look around. There are a lot already. There is a decent list of distros at linux.org

 

James

[theYinYeti]

There are tools to help you do that. Look here:

LWN's Linux Distributions List

 

Yves.

[Guest Takmadeus]

>Ever think of downloading a Linux Floppy Distro and kinda reverse engineer it? My Router/Firewall is a Coyote Linux Floppy. If I logout I get into a regular bash shell. Try that.

 

hmmmm could be possible, I'll take that into account, thanks

 

>Try LFS, it's actually not that hard!! It teaches most of the basics you'd need to know to do that.

 

And if you are making one for a particular purpose, have a look around. There are a lot already. There is a decent list of distros at linux.org

 

actually I am doing a LFS system, but I want to turn it into a live CD, and there is no mention on how to make a cd (or flopy disk) bootable; and I want to do the floppy disk version just to get knowledge.... i guess it could include internet conectivity (via modem, which no ram based system suupports) and some web browsing features.....

[iphitus]

>Ever think of downloading a Linux Floppy Distro and kinda reverse engineer it? My Router/Firewall is a Coyote Linux Floppy. If I logout I get into a regular bash shell. Try that.

 

hmmmm could be possible, I'll take that into account, thanks

 

>Try LFS, it's actually not that hard!! It teaches most of the basics you'd need to know to do that. 

 

And if you are making one for a particular purpose, have a look around. There are a lot already. There is a decent list of distros at linux.org 

 

actually I am doing a LFS system, but I want to turn it into a live CD, and there is no mention on how to make a cd (or flopy disk) bootable; and I want to do the floppy disk version just to get knowledge.... i guess it could include internet conectivity (via modem, which no ram based system suupports) and some web browsing features.....

 

Have you looked at beyond lfs? blfs.planetmirror.com

 

First item on the BLFS FAQ.

There are several hints related to boot CD's.

http://www.au.linuxfromscratch.org/hints/d...ownloads/files/

 

There are also ISO images at http://www.stockwith.co.uk/iso/ and http://pogostick.net/~peram/lfs/.

 

And this in the LFS mailing list

http://archives.linuxfromscratch.org/mail-...une/007828.html

 

A piece of advice: Always read the FAQs first, it has helped me many times!

Good luck, let me know how you go

 

James

[Guest Takmadeus]

okay, now here goes the conclusion.....

 

there is no need (yet) to make minimalistaic distributions, I will use the LFS guide to make a complete project, which will be focused on generic hardware support (like HSP56 micromodems); for now I'll make a live cd, for people to try and use, and in the future, if I get enough support, I might ask any of you to help me to code an installation frontend or a graphical install app, as my codig skills are very low....

 

now I am on a pre alpha state, or beter, an announcement, I already got all the packages downloaded and will proceed to follow the guide, adding what I need for now, so don't be surprised if I ask for help in a couple of months.... thanks in advance

[iphitus]

okay, now here goes the conclusion.....

 

there is no need (yet) to make minimalistaic distributions, I will use the LFS guide to make a complete project, which will be focused on generic hardware support (like HSP56 micromodems); for now I'll make a live cd, for people to try and use, and in the future, if I get enough support, I might ask any of you to help me to code an installation frontend or a graphical install app, as my codig skills are very low....

 

now I am on a pre alpha state, or beter, an announcement, I already got all the packages downloaded and will proceed to follow the guide, adding what I need for now, so don't be surprised if I ask for help in a couple of months.... thanks in advance

 

Give us a yell if you need help. I'm on school holidays for the next two weeks so if you need any help with coding, i'll gladly help.

 

James

[Guest Takmadeus]

Okay..... here goes a small report....

 

I just downloaded all the packages needed last night and today began with the development, the fact is that i am almost done with the preliminay (static linked) system, everything is good, but I got some trouble compiling GCC 3.3.1 (some access problems to already compiled binaries like as and ld) but I am downloading 3.2.2 given the case that it is a gcc bug, so I guess in 2 weeks I'll get the alpha ready, and in about a month I'll be releasing betas for everyone to test and feedback.....

 

PS: thanks rcxau, I'll take your help in account ;)

[Guest Takmadeus]

oops..... got a slight problem when compiling gcc core on the preliminary lfs system.... it goes as follows

 

mkdir ../gcc-build

cd ../gcc-build

 

so i build it outside the source directory (as usual)

 

../gcc-3.2.1/configure --prefix=/static 

  --disable-nls --disable-shared 

  --with-as=$LFS/static/bin/as 

  --with-ld=$LFS/static/bin/ld

 

so i build it static linked, and with my precompiled binutils stuff

 

make BOOT_LDFLAGS="-static" bootstrap

 

so it compiles statically linked and recompiles itself 2 or 3 times to assure a proper build, and then.....

 

SHLIB_EXT='.so' 

SHLIB_MULTILIB='' 

SHLIB_MKMAP='../../gcc-3.2.2/gcc/mkmap-symver.awk' 

SHLIB_MKMAP_OPTS='' 

SHLIB_MAPFILES='../../gcc-3.2.2/gcc/libgcc-std.ver ../../gcc-3.2.2/gcc/config/libgcc-glibc.ver' 

SHLIB_NM_FLAGS='-pg' 

MULTILIB_OSDIRNAMES='' 

mkinstalldirs='/bin/sh ../../gcc-3.2.2/gcc/mkinstalldirs' 

 /bin/sh mklibgcc > tmp-libgcc.mk

mv tmp-libgcc.mk libgcc.mk

HEADERS="ansidecl.h  i386/i386.h i386/att.h dbxelf.h elfos.h svr4.h linux.h i386/linux.h defaults.h" DEFINES="POSIX" 

TARGET_CPU_DEFAULT="" 

/bin/sh ../../gcc-3.2.2/gcc/mkconfig.sh tconfig.h

./xgcc -B./ -B/static/i686-pc-linux-gnu/bin/ -isystem /static/i686-pc-linux-gnu/include -isystem /static/i686-pc-linux-gnu/sys-include -O2 -DIN_GCC    -W -Wall -Wwrite-strings -Wstrict-prototypes -Wmissing-prototypes -isystem ./include  -I. -I. -I../../gcc-3.2.2/gcc -I../../gcc-3.2.2/gcc/. -I../../gcc-3.2.2/gcc/config -I../../gcc-3.2.2/gcc/../include  -g0 -finhibit-size-directive -fno-inline-functions -fno-exceptions -fno-omit-frame-pointer 

  -c ../../gcc-3.2.2/gcc/crtstuff.c -DCRT_BEGIN 

 -o crtbegin.o

xgcc: installation problem, cannot exec `/mnt/lfs/static/bin/as': Permission denied

make[2]: *** [crtbegin.o] Error 1

make[2]: Leaving directory `/home/juan/Downloads/LFS/gcc-build/gcc'

make[1]: *** [stage1_build] Error 2

make[1]: Leaving directory `/home/juan/Downloads/LFS/gcc-build/gcc'

make: *** [bootstrap] Error 2

[root@localhost gcc-build]#

 

that's about all the errors that appear.... any soultion or idea about this?

[iphitus]

xgcc: installation problem, cannot exec `/mnt/lfs/static/bin/as': Permission denied

 

THat's the line.

 

Is /mnt/lfs/static/bin/as executable?

Is it there?

Has it got correct priveliges?

 

Maybe you missed a 'make install' somewhere, i know i did!! I had to recompile 3 packages because of it.

 

If none of the above works, join the LFS mailing list and post there.

 

James

[Guest Takmadeus]

Just did that, and foud out that it was due to the user option on fstab...... In could finally compile it ;) thanks