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A Small GNU/Linux System - Revisited
Topic: GIAGD   Posted:2005-01-25
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We have a number of utility computers running that are based on uClibc. Every time we rebuild the devices, we have to basically create a new distribution. It appears that the Debian packages are no longer being maintained. That is OK, though, because we have figured out most of the tricks to getting this to work in our GIAGD articles. This article is the current status of getting a system running. Note that this procedure is much the same for pretty much any GNU/Linux system. You pretty much just need a filesystem with standard libraries and utilities, a kernel, and a boot loader. We have repeated techniques like this in many different articles. One thing, though, about uClibc is that it is very minimal. The entire system with GCC, networking, standard utilities, and ssh is only 94 megs with the current uClibc filesystem. We got the system running this time using a VMWare workstation. Mostly, this procedure differs in that most everything is included and works besides the boot loader. We will move it to our devices and add stuff like video later. First, we mount the new uClibc filesystem and create a tarball to extract to the new GIAGD filesystem:

$ mount                    
.
.
.
/root_fs_i386.ext2 on /mnt/giagd type ext2 (rw,loop=/dev/loop0)
usr-1@wks-1 newgiagd $ cd /mnt
usr-1@wks-1 mnt $ ls
camera  cdrom  floppy  giagd  usbcard  zip
usr-1@wks-1 mnt $ su
Password: 
root@wks-1 mnt # tar -cjpf /devsys.tar.bz2 .
root@wks-1 mnt # pwd
/mnt
root@wks-1 mnt # cd giagd
root@wks-1 giagd # ls
bin  etc   lib      lost+found  opt   root  tmp  var
dev  home  linuxrc  mnt         proc  sbin  usr
root@wks-1 giagd # tar -cjpf /devsys.tar.bz2 .
root@wks-1 giagd # tar -tjvf /devsys.tar.bz2 | more
tar: Record size = 8 blocks
drwxr-xr-x root/root         0 1969-12-31 16:00:00 ./
drwx------ root/root         0 2005-01-11 16:12:18 ./lost+found/
drwx------ root/root         0 2005-01-11 16:12:18 ./bin/
lrwxrwxrwx root/root         0 2005-01-11 04:15:10 ./bin/cc -> /usr/bin/ccache
lrwxrwxrwx root/root         0 2005-01-11 04:15:10 ./bin/gcc -> /usr/bin/ccache
lrwxrwxrwx root/root         0 2005-01-11 04:15:10 ./bin/c++ -> /usr/bin/ccache
lrwxrwxrwx root/root         0 2005-01-11 04:15:10 ./bin/g++ -> /usr/bin/ccache
-rws------ root/root    361092 2004-10-08 19:49:18 ./bin/busybox
lrwxrwxrwx root/root         0 2005-01-11 04:30:20 ./bin/addgroup -> busybox
lrwxrwxrwx root/root         0 2005-01-11 04:30:20 ./bin/adduser -> busybox
lrwxrwxrwx root/root         0 2005-01-11 04:30:20 ./bin/ash -> busybox
-rwx------ root/root     13828 2005-01-11 16:12:18 ./bin/cat
-rwx------ root/root     25156 2005-01-11 16:12:18 ./bin/chgrp
-rwx------ root/root     24804 2005-01-11 16:12:18 ./bin/chmod
-rwx------ root/root     27236 2005-01-11 16:12:18 ./bin/chown
-rwx------ root/root     38724 2005-01-11 16:12:18 ./bin/cp
-rwx------ root/root     35588 2005-01-11 16:12:18 ./bin/date
-rwx------ root/root     22532 2005-01-11 16:12:18 ./bin/dd
lrwxrwxrwx root/root         0 2005-01-11 04:30:20 ./bin/delgroup -> busybox
lrwxrwxrwx root/root         0 2005-01-11 04:30:20 ./bin/deluser -> busybox
lrwxrwxrwx root/root         0 2005-01-11 04:30:20 ./bin/df -> busybox
-rwx------ root/root      3776 2005-01-11 16:12:18 ./bin/dmesg
root@wks-1 giagd # 

We need a kernel:

usr-1@wks-1 linux-2.4.29 $ make oldconfig
rm -f include/asm
( cd include ; ln -sf asm-i386 asm)
/bin/sh scripts/Configure -d arch/i386/config.in
#
# Using defaults found in .config
.
.
.
make dep clean bzImage
.
.
.

We need to boot using our superrescue CD, and then transfer the filesystem over to the new system:





All that remains it go get lilo installed. We were able to use the latest lilo available here. To compile this, we needed the bin86 utilities from here. Bin86 needed a symbolic link from gcc to cc. The system is live!



There are more details on these steps here.




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