Re: [coLinux-devel] Announce coLinux Tools version 0.19

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I have released version 0.19 of the coLinux Tools.  Major improvements:
    1. busybox is used to give a full command line environment.
    2. Static networking parameters may be specified as bootparams.
    3. DHCP is supported as well.
    4. mkreiserfs is faster and fully supports use of sparse files.
    5. The 'bc' command is no longer required to calculate block counts.

With all of these new features, you will be surprised to learn the download
size is slightly smaller than 0.15.

This release required coLinux 0.60 and a cygwin base install.

                  Bill

- - - - - - -

coLinux - Tools!

This package contains tools that can be used to setup and manage your
coLinux distributions.  This release is still considered alpha.  However,
there are enough features available to bootstrap a full Linux distribution
like GenToo.

Installation:
 Extract this package to any directory you wish.  Your coLinux
 installation will be found by checking the registry setting:
  \HKCU\Software\coLinux\
 If this registry setting is not set, you will need to set the
 COLINUX environmental variable.

 As an example I would install coLinux install these tools with the
 following command:
  cp colinux-tools.exe /usr/local
  cd /usr/local
  unzip colinux-tools.exe
 The tools would then be available in the directory:
  /cygdrive/e/usr/local/colinux-tools

 Note1: You may execute colinux-tools.exe instead of using unzip.

 Note2: Only one version of the cygwin.dll may be running on your
 system at a time.  Consequently, if you plan on using Cygwin, you
 should remove the cygwin.dll included with the coLinux distribution.

Contents of this package:
 - README.txt
 You are reading it now.

 - automount
 A tool to mark a filesystem for mounting when loading from the
 bootdisk. Calls the Linux mount command.

 Example:
  ./mkfs -t ext2 rootfs.ext2 1576M
  ./automount rootfs.ext2 /mnt/rootfs
  ./mkconfig bootdisk.iso rootfs.ext2 > example.colinux.xml
  ./colinux example

 - colinux
 A script to invoke a Linux distribution under coLinux.

 - gpl.txt
 The GPL license.  If you do not accept the terms of this license you
 must contact Foxtrot Technologies Inc. and obtain a different
 license and remove this software from your system until you obtain
 a license that you accept.

 - getScript
        A program to extract the script appended to the end of an image
 file with the ./putScript program.  If the image file does not have
 a script no output is printed.

 Example:
  ./mkswap smallswap.swap 16M
  ./getScript smallswap > smallswap.sh
  vi smallswap.sh
  ./putScript smallswap.swap < smallswap.sh

 - install-gentoo
 An example script I used to install-gentoo.   Once running it you
 can start "gentoo" with the command "colinux gentoo".  You will
 then need to follow the "gentoo" installation guide to setup
 networking and such.  Start off at chapter 6, and skip chapter nine.
 If you have coLinux setup to work with dhcpcd, networking will be
 enabled for you.  To use this script you will need both a stage3
 tarball and a portage tarball.  I found stage1 does not contain the
 necessary programs for configuring the network.  I have not tried
 stage2.  Here are the steps I used to install gentoo:

   1. Downloaded stage3 and portage tarballs.
   2. Setup bridging between the network devices under Windows XP.
   3. Run ./install-gentoo
   4. Use nano to edit the /etc/fstab and comment out BOOT.
   5. Verified networking with a ping command.  If /sbin/dhcpcd had
      not worked I would have needed to skip ahead in the
      instructions to learn how to configure static networking.
   6. Proceed with the instructions in the gentoo manual starting
      with chapter six.
   7. Ignore chapter nine.
   8. After completing the steps, type "exit".
   9. Boot gentoo for the first time with the command
      "./colinux gentoo".

 - mkconfig
 A script for creating a coLinux configuration file listing the
 desired images.  Currently, output is to standard out and only
 image files are supported.  If you need custom network settings
 or such, edit the script before running it.

 Example:
  ./mkconfig bootdisk.iso > bookdisk.colinux.xml
  ./colinux bootdisk

        Optionally bootparams can also be listed, such as networking
        configuration:
  ./mkconfig bootdisk.iso IPADDRESS=135.162.253.103 \
   GATEWAY=135.162.253.254 DNS=24.226.10.93 \
   > bootdisk.colinux.xml
  ./colinux bootdisk

Tip: You can set environmental variables such as kernel boot parameters.

 - mkfs
 Creates a linux file system.  Calls the Linux mkfs command.

 Example:
  ./mkfs -t ext2 smallfs.ext2 16M
  ./mkconfig bootdisk.iso smallfs.ext2 > example.colinux.xml
  ./colinux example

 - mkreiserfs
 Creates a Linux ReiserFS file system.  Calls the Linux mkreiserfs
 command.

 Example:
  ./mkswap swap 100M
  (./getScript swap;echo 'swapon "$1"')|./putScript swap
  ./mkreiserfs my.reiserfs 4G
  ./mkconfig bootdisk.iso swap my.reiserfs > example.colinux.xml
  ./colinux example

        Note: Due to limitations in the mkreiserfs, the filesystem will
 first be created in RAM as a sparse file and then copied to the
 filesystem. You will either mount a swap partition as in the example
 above, or increase the amount of physical ram available to coLinux.

 - putScript
 Remove any existing script from the image file.  Then if standard
 input begins with the characters #!/ put standard input as the
 new image file script.

 Example:
  ./mkfs -t ext3 medium.ext3 512M
  ./getScript medium.ext3 > medium.sh
  vi medium.sh
  ./putScript medium.ext3 < medium.sh

 Note: Script sizes are limited to 65530 bytes.
 Note: "$1" will be the device the script was extracted from.

 - bootdisk.iso
 This is a read-only filesystem used for running interactive commands
 and processing image files.
  ./mkconfig bootdisk.iso > bootdisk.colinux.xml
  ./colinux bootdisk

 Note1: "bootdisk.iso" is built using the source in src/linux and
 programs from GenToo Linux.

 Note3: An ISO filesystem is used to avoid the danger of accidentally
 modifying or corrupting your copy of bootdisk.iso.  Use CDR tools to
 create new bootdisk.iso files.

 - untar
 This is a script for extracting a tar file under the ramdisk.
 An example would be:
  ./mkfs -t ext2 -o vmlinux-modules.ext2 32M
  ./automount vmlinux-modules.ext2 /mnt/modules
  ./untar  -o vmlinux-modules.tarball -C /mnt/modules \
   ../vmlinux-modules.tar.gz
  ./mkconfig bootdisk.iso vmlinux-modules.ext2 \
   vmlinux-modules.tarball shell > example.colinux.xml
  ./colinux example
 - src
 The source directory for the bootdisk /sbin/init program and the
 Cygwin getScript.exe and putScript.exe programs.

ChangeLog: Version 0.18 to 0.19
        - Added networking support.  The variables IPADDRESS, NETMASK,
          GATEWAY, and DNS can be specified for static routing as
bootparams.
          If IPADDRESS is not supplied, DHCP will be used instead.
 - Added support for the bootparam HALT=true.  This causes halt
   to be called from /etc/init.d/rcS.
        - Changed the filesystem used for install-gentoo to reiserfs.  This
          is slower, but safer since many colinux distributions do not run
          fsck each boot.
ChangeLog: Version 0.17 to 0.18
        - We've come full circle.  init.c now replaces /bin/sh again.
          It turns out that busybox has a problem running scripts,
          so /initrd/bin/init is used as a wrapper to correct the problem.
        - Rewrote the mkreiserfs so copying is done exclusively with
          sparse files.
ChangeLog: Version 0.16 to 0.17
        - Revised the init.c program to create a symbolic link to busybox
          for /sbin/init on the new file system.
        - Added configurations files for additional busybox utilities.
 - Removed the ability of init to emulate chroot, pivot_root, ...
 - Added a wrapper program for mkreiserfs as part of init to create
          reiserfs with /sbin/mkreiserfs on /dev/cobd?
ChangeLog: Version 0.15 to 0.16
 - Switched to BusyBox utilities.  This saves space and allows more
   commands, including those needed to configure a network connection
   from the bootdisk.
 - Added an option to putScript to create a sparse file of the a
   specified size.
 - Added a -1 option to putScript to allow one block to be reserved.
 - Created a blockCount program to return the size of a file in blocks.
 - Revised the scripts not to use 'bc', 'dd', or any other none standard
   cygwin utilities.
ChangeLog: Version 0.14 to 0.15
 - Rewrote the colinux script to read registry settings to determine
   where coLinux was installed.
 - Wrote a mkreiserfs script.  mkreiserfs does not work on coLinux
   block devices, so a temporary file is used.
ChangeLog: Version 0.13 to 0.14
 - Rewrote the cygwin shell scripts to create sparse files.
 - Modified the script options to be closer to the Linux counterparts.
    For example, mkfs now accepts all Linux mkfs options.
 - Added support for additional file systems to the bootdisk.iso file.
 - Wrote a mkswap script since the mkfs script does not support swap.
ChangeLog: Version 0.12 to 0.13
 - Wrote getScript and putScript programs for cygwin, to replace the
   scripts.  The plan is to eventually replace all the scripts to
   allow the option of compiling the programs without Cygwin.
 - Modified init.c to use the same code to processes scripts under
   Linux.  There is nolonger a default /etc/initrc script.
 - Renamed ramdisk.iso to bootdisk.iso since ramdisks are not used.
ChangeLog: Version 0.11 to 0.12
 - Repackaged bootdisk using my genToo installation.
 - Rebuilt genToo binaries using -Os -m586 options.
 - Modified init.c to replace chroot, pivot_root, rmdir, true, and false
ChangeLog: Version 0.10 to 0.11
 - Switched from using a ramdisk to using the tmpfs.
 - Add a pivot_root call so the contents of the ISO file may still be
   accessable from the tmpfs.
 - Renamed the special sh.c to init.c and moved to /sbin/init.
 - Moved the ramdisk.tar files onto the ISO disk, so there is no need
   to allocate additional memory to copy the files to.

ChangeLog: Version 0.10
 - Initial public release

ToDo: (Not neccissarily in order.)
 1. Rebuild the coLinux kernel to support the dependancies required
    for cloop.o.
  - Once cloop.o is supported, add a Knoppix boot script.
 2. Change the filesystem script size to be dynamic instead of fixed.
 3. Suppress the trailing garbage errors when using untar on a bzip2
    tarball.
 4. Add an option to the putScript program to create a sparse file, so
    cp and dd will nolonger be required.
 5. Once the core scripts have proven themselves reliable, recode as
    C programs.
 6. Write scripts for bootstrapping other Linux distributions.

Known Bugs:
 1. Some commands such as mkfs will automatically overwrite any
    putScript scripts.  Other commands such as automount won't.
 2. mkreiserfs will fail if only 32MB of memory is available.
 3. The syntax for mkconfig is ackward.
 4. There is no way to specify an alternate path for the configuration
    file when running the colinux script.

  This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
  modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License
  as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2
  of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

  This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
  but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
  MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
  GNU General Public License for more details.

  You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
  along with this program;  if not, write to the Free Software
  Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.

  Contact Foxtrot Technologies Inc. if you desire a different license
  for this software.  http://www.foxtrottechnologies.com

  AUTHOR: Bill C. Riemers

Re: [coLinux-devel] Announce coLinux Tools version 0.19

Run Linux on Windows or other OSes, natively.

Re: [coLinux-devel] Announce coLinux Tools version 0.19