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On Fri, Mar 06, 2015 at 02:03:48AM +0000, James wrote: |
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> > For the distribution, I'd recommend Alpine: |
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> > http://www.alpinelinux.org/about |
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> |
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> Why would that be better than putting lilblue (gentoo) on |
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> the board. Maybe somebody who has success with booting off |
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> of usb (and that definitely is not me) could test lilblue |
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> on an alix2d3 board? |
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I don't know much Lilblue but it looks like a somewhat recent project. |
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Alpine started back in 2005. It's based on portage to build the |
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distribution but uses the apk-tools that fit better for embedded |
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systems, IMHO. |
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Also, Alpine comes with a very lightweight minimal installation, |
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reliable toolchain to build the distribution and uses openrc. The well |
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known debian-like configuration files allow new maintainers to quickly |
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be comfortable with the device. |
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The recent move to musl over uClibc is a good thing too, FMPOV. |
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I expect Alpine to have a wider community than Lilblue. |
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> How did you have your make.conf files (or similar under Alpine) set up? |
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You don't have make.conf on the target. Embedded devices are bad at |
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compiling. With Alpine, you cross-compile the target from your |
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desktop/server/VM. |
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> If I go this route, I'd really rather run gentoo or something |
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> quite similar, rather than a distro I not familiar with. |
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On the target device, apk-tools are very easy to use and requires MUCH |
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less time/ressources than emerge. |
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Quiet frankly, Alpine doesn't require specific skills. I've started with |
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the binary provided by the maintainers and never had to compile any |
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package myself. |
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> > That's the combo I used in a recent past and it worked quiet fine |
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> > (802.1q VLAN, traffic shaping with tc, advanced firewall with scripted |
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> > iptables rules, ethernet cards controlled with ethtool (I could fix |
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> > speed/duplex for incompatible network hardware), ssh, etc). |
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> |
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> I'm not familiar with Alpine linux. How many of your scripts would be |
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> useful on gentoo? If what you did is sensitive, just drop to me privately..... |
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Sorry, I can't. I don't have them anymore while I'm sure they are still |
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used in production. |
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It's something easy to do, though. The scripts themselves are |
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distribution agnostic. E.g. my ipfilter service only used $IPTABLES. The |
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only thing to update are the service files for openrc, systemd, upstart, |
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whatever. |
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-- |
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Nicolas Sebrecht |
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