detaolb / News: Recent posts

DetaolB is a small size x86/uclibc distro, aimed mostly for emulators/virtualizers.

With this iso's size around 40Mb, you've a small yet functional desktop distro which can help developping C software or compiling the linux kernel. It can then self emulate with included qemu-0.9.0 ;-)

DetaolB v0.6 has been released 26,August 2007 on sf.net
=> http://detaolb.sf.net

Changelog:
- re-shuffled the barebone system
- this is a multi-user iso now with 2 logins: root and neo
- updated git and vim
- added some asm tools and binary editor
- vesafb-tng is still in use (uvesafb is having problems on real hardware
- added liveusb switch to kernel parameters
- added qemu-0.9.0 with kqemu (all you need to do: insmod `find /lib -name *.ko` )... read more

DetaolB aimed to be a "much-less-than-a-floppy" x86 linux live distro. Now, it's evolving more into "a-la-slax" type of distro.

In less than 40Mb, you've a small functional desktop distro which can help developping software or compile the linux kernel.

DetaolB v0.5 has been released 17th,August 2007 on sf.net
=> http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=140321&package_id=155481&release_id=528334... read more

DetaolB aimed to be a "much-less-than-a-floppy" x86 linux live distro. Now, it's evolving more into "a-la-slax" type of distro.

DetaolB v0.4 has been released 29th,June 2007 on sf.net
=> http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=140321&package_id=155481&release_id=519786

Mailing list: detaolb-devel@lists.sourceforge.net

Changelog:

- updated aufs and squashfs
- increased the list of modules
- vesafb-tng included (default boot is 800x600x24bpp)
- included some X11 functionality: log in as root, then "xinit"
- included ext2fs utilities: you can now work in qemu/vmplayer
- self sufficient to compile itself and linux-2.6.21
- killing features: git, vim... read more

DetaolB v0.3 is being released 14th,June 2007 on sf.net
=> http://detaolb.sf.net

- this is mostly a release with tons of added features
- this is mostly a proof of concept
- this is not a bugfix release
- your feedback will shape it into v1.0 someday, so please post
at the DetaolB mailing list: detaolb-devel@lists.sourceforge.net

Changelog:

- it's bigger now: ~17Mb, but it's still smaller than slax-frodo :)
- you can still log using root with no password (this will change)
- kernel 2.6.21 with following patches...
* acpi, ide/atapi drivers added
* /proc/miniconfig.gz: main ideas from Rob Landley, need documentation
* aufs: another unionfs
* squashfs
* lzma vmlinux: a great thanks to Ming Ching Tiew!
* complete git patches released on sf.net
- still based on initramfs early userspace, now using switch_root
* 1st phase is using a minimal static bbox
* 2nd phase is mounting cdrom and 5 squashfs modules in aufs new root.
This is a common scheme inspired by slax, yet simplified for speed.
* 3rd phase is root switching and over to standard init phase
* main drawback: changes to the rootfs are lost if you reboot. I've
not figured out a smart way using initramfs+aufs+squashfs and
access rootfs changes from RAM...
* but it's still blazing fast even in qemu!
- 5 default squashfs modules are present and enabled
* "barebone" is busybox-1.6.0 with rootfs config files + mksquashfs
* "uclibc" is uClibc-0.9.29 + zlib
* "ncurses" is ncurses-5.2, needed for uclibc/bbox/kernel compilation
* "toolchain" is needed for C compilation
+ gcc-3.4.6
+ binutils-2.16.1
+ bash-3.2
+ bison-2.1
+ flex-2.5.33
+ make-3.81
+ misc. coreutils mandatory for uclibc/bbox/kernel compilation
* "vim" is a full vim-7.1 installation
* these modules were compiled using DetaolB v0.3, and config files
for uclibc and busybox are inside /root
* "git" is compiled but not included yet
- a 2.6.17 version of DetaolB v0.3 exist for colinux! it'll be
available on demand, or will be released anyway at version 1.0... read more