Re: [leaf-devel] 2.6.x kernel support?

[Natanael C. <ml...@ta...>]

I CC this to gentoo-embedded since it is related to both.


Mike Noyes wrote:

>On Mon, 2005-08-22 at 10:25, Homer Parker wrote:
>  
>
>>The Gentoo Network APpliance (GNAP) is an embedded distro using 2.6 and
>>initramfs.
>>    
>>
>
>Homer,
>It looks like Bering uClibc for kernel 2.6. The only bad thing I see is
>GNAPs 16MB footprint. This is probably caused by the kernel and lack of
>busybox in GNAP.
>  
>

FYI.

I have been working on a proof-of-concept distro lately that I would
like to describe as something in between GNAP and Bering uClibc. The
codename is Alpine.

It is similar to leaf-bering in the way that it runs from RAM, it
unpacks packages, runtime modules, at boottime into RAM, just like
bering. The package format is apk, a homebrewn package format very
similar lrp. The biggest differences are that it compresses the metadata
files (/var/lib/apkdb/*.list etc), that it can pull packages from http
and that it has simple dependency handling (apk_add -r tcpdump
will also install libpcap). I think I have mentioned apk-tools here
before. Since then, I have registered apk-tools as a sourceforge
project: http://sourceforge.net/projects/apk-tools/

It is similar to bering because its uses uclibc/busybox

It is similar to GNAP in the way that it is based on gentoo ebuilds and
that it uses 2.6 kernel, otherwise it is more like leaf.

It uses inird and not initramfs (I havent really seen the point in
initramfs yet)

The purpose is a Bearing uClibc like distro that is scaleable, that can
update packages without rebooting (you would need to reboot GNAP if a
flaw is found in a package) and tha should be able to run from disk if
needed. It uses awfully much RAM if you compare to Bearing uClibc, but
on the other hand, it should support more hardware out of the box.

Other things that can be said about Alpine: it uses udev and hotplug for
autodetection of hardware.
It uses many gentoo init scripts nativly by using a port of
runscript/runscript.sh that works with busybox (actually it uses dash
because busybox ash is awfully slow for scripts)

It is built on gentoo hardened,  so  everything is build with SSP, PIC
etc. and kernel uses grsec patches. I have also a non-hardened branch
but main focus is on hardened.

There are over 250 packages compiled. (including mdadm, lvm2, squid,
samba, gdb, strace etc...)

There is virutally no documentation.

The cd is still alpha but current version can (currently) be downloaded
from http://jv.lmdata.net/alpine/testing/isoimages/

oh... there is also some livecd's for compiling uclibc/hardened stuff
with distcc that I have been using for this.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/distcc-livecd


This is a temprary site until I have found a proper bandwith sponsor.

--
Natanael Copa