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Gnubie wrote: |
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| Hello all, |
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| |
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| I'm new to Gentoo and the way I look at it, it's the best distro that |
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| will fit with my plan to make a customize Linux distribution that will |
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| entirely run either on compact flash or USB memory stick. |
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Are you trying to set up an embedded device (like a Soekris-type network |
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device) or just a portable bootable disk? |
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If the latter, I don't really see the point of hardened (you could just |
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go with a read-only media like CD and use the flash card for your home |
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directory). Also, booting from CF is a lot harder than from CD. |
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If the former, this is actually a pretty fun project. You can have a |
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fully working installation with ssh, thttpd (or boa, or maybe even |
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Apache), and ordinary user-space stuff in 60MB or less. Considering the |
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price of CF cards, I'd say that's fine, but if you intend to get a lot |
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smaller, you should check out the busybox software distribution and |
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uClibc (at http://www.busybox.net/ and http://www.uclibc.org/). |
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Bear in mind that these size estimates don't take into account the size |
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of your portage tree. |
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There are a number of generic howtos on embedded linux (that's the term |
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I'd search for) that apply equally well to the Gentoo distribution. If |
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you have specific hardware (especially the popular Soekris), you can |
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often find customized distributions for it. If not, the basic |
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methodology (unless, as I said, using custom software to strip the size |
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even smaller) is to simply install the base system, remove things one by |
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one that you don't need (just remember what they were in case it turns |
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out that you diid need them) and compile a custom kernel. Like I said, |
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this should get your installation easily below the size of a 128MB flash |
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disk. |
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|
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What you may want to do to save space regarding the portage tree and to |
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saave time--if you are compiling on, say, a 100MHz 486 as in the |
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Soekris--is cross-compile software for the embedded system on your |
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desktop. This allows faster compiles, and also allows you to save space, |
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etc. You can even set up a chroot environment or a User Mode Linux |
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installation to simulate the root filesystem of the embedded device, and |
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simply copy over the new image as needed. |
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Final tip: try to make the flash disk as read-only as possible. Flash |
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disks have relatively low tolerance for successive writing; they wear |
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out, supposedly, after a few hundred thousand. |
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Tell us how it goes. Good luck. |
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- -- |
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Dan ("KrispyKringle") |
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Gentoo Linux Security Coordinator |
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-- |
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