Something I've been working on: A from-scratch Linux "Distro"

Since University finished for the semester a couple of weeks ago, Ive been working on a Linux based root filesystem build system based on Linux from Scratch: https://github.com/stenstorp/osbuild

I’m just calling it “OSBuild” for now; version 0.0a codename “It’s Something!”.
Currently it can cross compile a Linux system for x86_64 and i686. It should be able cross compile for ARM/aarch64 and PowerPC(64), but it uses qemu so it’s really slow to compile and will probably need a few fixes to get it to work properly.

As you can see, it also has a very simple X environment (only twm).

I’m not planning on doing a package manager, probably just using a pre-existing package/ports system (NIX,GUIX or pkgsrc). If you can get this working, you probably know how to compile stuff :slight_smile:

It’s just a bit of fun at the moment, not planning to take on Debian or Arch or something (…Yet).

Download this pre-compiled x86_64 rootfs if you want from:
https://mega.nz/file/y8gXBJTY#B0fCxOPH_ApOmr36WjBKZVR0zruHsyyRKGOXzJhrO-M
(standard warnings about running random software you found on the internet apply)

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Nice!

I’m actually in the business of building (small, embedded and tailor made) Linux distros myself - except we base all our work off the Yocto project.

It’s fun because all of a sudden you learn to appreciate things like systemd more. Still not sure that it’s a top notch technology, and I still think it sacrifices stability and reliability for convenience, but it sure is convenient… :slight_smile:

Oh where did I hear that one before… Oh, that’s right! :grin:

Hello everybody out there using minix -

I’m doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won’t be big and
professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones.

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Looks like it works on PowerPC too!

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I wonder how much lower I can go with this? Seems to run great on a Pentium III


Just updated all the packages to the latest versions available. This this is running Linux kernel 5.4.70, gcc 10.2.0, python 3.9, llvm 10.0.1; all on a Pentium III with an NVIDIA Riva TNT 2. Even compiled a lynx and xedit on it!

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For a package manager you could try gentoo’s one, I think its fairly portable but i haven’t really looked into it.