[coLinux-devel] [ANN] Slackware 9.1.0 image for coLinux (ZipSlack)

[Olivier S. <co...@a-...>]

hi people,


As you can read on Slackware web site, http://www.slackware.org/zipslack/


"ZipSlack is a special edition of Slackware Linux that can be installed onto
any FAT (or FAT32) filesystem with about 100 MB of free space."

(...some umsdos related stuff...)

"This distribution is ideal for people who don't have a lot of hard disk
space, do not have a fast Internet connection to download the entire
distribution, or who want a Linux distribution they can carry around on a
Zip disk."



I created a colinux image similar to the existing Debian, Gentoo and Fedora
images. and it boots without problem, uname -a displays : Linux slackware
2.4.25-co-0.6.0


the compressed image is now about 37 Mo. But I plan to remove some tools and
applications irrelevant to coLinux like audio and cd burning applications,
so this number will drastically decrease.




For the impatients, I must point out that this mini-distribution was
originally targeted as people wanting to try Linux without partitionning and
formatting their hard drive with Windows on it.


so right now, Slackware 9.1.0 including :

*most core Unix utilities (many 'a' packages)
*most necessary network tools to connect to internet (many 'n' packages),
including ssh
*some very small games ('y' bsd-games)
*no "heavy" developpment tools like gcc, perl, python (nothing. gawk and
bash are part of 'a')
*no X Window, no KDE, no Mozilla...


there are the usual tools pkgtool, installpkg, rpm2targz to install any
software you would need, but the installation of software is not as
streamlined as Debian (apt-get) or Gentoo (emerge), so this image would be
most usefull for Slackware diehards.



I still have to iron out a few things, but I plan to make available two or
three images, including a really small one.


if there is some interest I could load one image with developpement tools
necessary to compile most applications, and X Window base applications
(xterm), all straight from Slackware 'd' and 'xap' official packages.




methodology :


I just unzipped zipslack.zip to a FAT32 partition (my D: drive), rebooted
Windows to give coLinux exclusive access to this drive, created a block
device similar to :

<block_device index="3" path="\Device\Harddisk1\Partition1"
enabled="true"></block_device>

and mounted it inside coLinux under umsdos, read only. I then copied all
files to a directory, permissions were saved (the whole point).

I had to edit /etc/fstab, (changing references like /dev/hda0 to /dev/cobd0
...), apply some mknod to "declare" /dev/cobd1 and /dev/cobd2 and that was
all.


I could have used a 'real' Slackware installation CD but I wanted to quicky
create a minimal distribution.



O. Souiry