Baslinux mailing list

[Christian Brandt <brandtc AT psi5.com>]

sindi keesan schrieb:
> I have marked what I understand the following to be used for (Steven 
> please correct me).   I don't know the hardware differences between Mac 
> and x86, but I don't think you need to support such things as parallel or 
> serial ports, and you may not need or want modem or ethernet or PCMCIA.

 Wow, you investe much more effort than I expected. Thanks!

 Some infos about my project: I am using several systems with 
m68k-cpus, none of them is a Mac :-) My workhorse is an 
Amiga3000/030-25/16MB-RAM but there is also an Atari with 030-16/4MB-RAM 
and a SinclairQL-Thor/020-16/4MB-RAM.

 I am doing all this effort as Debian has simply lost those systems as 
possible architectures: The requirements for installation and usage 
right now are already at 32MB RAM and take ages on anything with less 
than a 68040/25Mhz and with the next releases this will become even more 
dramatic, I personally doubt Debian can even be installed on high-end 
m68k-systems in three or four years. I also started a topic on the 
debian-m68-Mailinglists "Re: More RAM - a bad trend for m68k debian" 
which quickly run into 100 replies, making it one of the most active 
topics on debian-m68k ever.

 My aim is to create a very minimalistic system which runs from 10Mhz, 
4MB-RAM and 100MB-HD upwards. It must have a shell, the most basic 
unix-tools and a compiler, everything else is up to the user.

> Are you planning to use X?  It won't work in 4MB, probably will in 12MB 
> but rather slowly

 m68k code has one big advantage: its a bit more compact than i386. So 
4MB on m68k are worth 6MB on i386. But actually I don't plan using X.

> >     114 May  1  2004 ./etc/fstab
> >      27 Apr 11  1998 ./etc/host.conf
> >      85 Oct  8  2000 ./etc/hosts
> >     209 Feb 23  2004 ./etc/inittab
> >    1180 Oct  6  2004 ./etc/issue
> >     691 Feb 18  2004 ./etc/ld.so.cache
> >      17 Feb 10  2004 ./etc/ld.so.conf
> >     191 May  9  2004 ./etc/lilo.conf
> >   21262 Feb 18  2004 ./etc/magic
>
> What does this do?

 about all the /etc/ configs, I have a pretty good idea how to handle 
these. I only like to point out some files which differ from usual 
linux-systems.

>     115 Mar  9  2004 ./etc/passwd

 baslinux doesn't use fancy stuff like shadow passwords. as long as you 
do not have several users on your box everything is fine.

> PCMCIA- Do Macs have PCMCIA slots?
> Will you be using a modem with the computers?

 Whoever needs these has to compile his stuff himself. In other words, 
no I won't need them.

>     396 Apr 26  2004 ./etc/profile
>     385 May  6  2004 ./etc/rc
>     438 May  6  2004 ./etc/rc.hd

 If you ever had a look at the init-system of redhat or debian then the 
pretty short baslinux startup is simply scary. But efficient. Very 
BSDish in the very ancient way. Nonetheless I'll do it a little bit more 
advanced.

> >    3162 Feb 20  2004 ./etc/termcap

the magic and termcap configs I plan stealing from baslinux as most 
alternatives I found have been many times more complex.

> >   22340 Apr  9  1998 ./lib/ld-linux.so.1.9.7
>>    5796 Sep  8  2001 ./lib/libdl.so.1.9.9

 thats the ELF-linker

> >  580816 Apr  9  1998 ./lib/libc.so.5.4.44

 the libc5 which I'll compare with ulibc.

>>   59396 Apr  9  1998 ./lib/libext2fs.so.2.3
>>   11493 Apr 27  2004 ./lib/libtermcap.so.2.0.8
>>    5576 Apr  9  1998 ./lib/libuuid.so.1.1
> >    4236 Apr  9  1998 ./lib/libcom_err.so.2.0

 mostly about ext2-filesystem. not directly necessary but without you 
lose most control.

>>   32168 Apr  9  1998 ./lib/libm.so.5.0.9

 mathlib

> I think these are essential

 I am not too sure about them.

> Do you have CD-ROM drive, ethernet card or chip?  I have not seen a Mac 
> with serial or parallel ports - what do they use instead?  A friend's 
> older Mac used SCSI, so you would need a SCSI-capable kernel, which I 
> don't think the main BL kernel is (it won't boot to a SCSI drive).
> Maybe you should start with a working Mac linux and pare it down?

 Well, I expect only hardcore-users to put their fingers at my system. 
Whoever isn't able to create device-nodes with mknod isn't my "customer" 
in the first place.

> >    9120 Mar  5  2004 ./lib/modules/2.2.16/misc/8390.o

 And as I also expect the user to recompile the kernel by need I didn't 
dive too deep into this too. Yep, I am evil :-)

> >     146 Mar 19  2004 ./root/.Xdefaults
> >      67 Jan  8  2000 ./root/.less
> >     172 Jan  8  2000 ./root/.lesskey
> >       0 Apr 11 02:13 ./root/.links/bookmarks
> >     129 Feb 23  2004 ./root/.links/html.cfg
> >     843 Mar 13  2004 ./root/.links/links.cfg
> >       0 Apr 11 02:13 ./root/.links/links.his
> >     358 Mar  8  2004 ./root/.pmailrc
> >      92 Oct  6  2004 ./root/.xinitrc
> >     744 Apr 30  2003 ./root/hotlist.html
> >       0 Mar  8  2004 ./root/mail/inbox
> >       0 Mar 13  2004 ./root/mail/outbox
> >       0 Mar  8  2004 ./root/mail/sent
> >    1627 Mar  5  2004 ./root/netsetup
> >    7856 Jun 24  1997 ./sbin/badblocks
> >   59772 Jun 24  1997 ./sbin/e2fsck
> >   12000 Apr 30  2004 ./sbin/ldconfig
> >   66428 May  6  2004 ./sbin/lilo

 Mostly local config. Up to the user.

> Is there a way to boot from a Mac with loadlin?

 we m68k-users actually always use something like amiload or 
macloadlin. They are available but quite a bit different from i386.

> I have not used these.  Is setserial relevant to a Mac?

 It is not even relevant on i386 today. In ancient times it was 
necessary to "bind" a higher serial rate to a fake rate, in other words, 
unix officially topped out at 38400bps and to use 115200bps you needed 
to bind 115200 whenever someone called for 38400bps. only needed if you 
use some pretty ancient software.

> >   12803 Feb 24  2004 ./usr/bin/e3pi
> >   12803 Feb 24  2004 ./usr/bin/e3vi
>
> Tiny wordprocessor.
>
>
> >   27376 Feb 27  2004 ./usr/bin/eznet
>
> Dialing program for modem
>
>
> >   25356 Jan  9  2000 ./usr/bin/file
> >    5924 Apr 30  2004 ./usr/bin/ldd
> >   56544 Dec  1  2002 ./usr/bin/less
>
>
> >    2293 Jul 21  2000 ./usr/bin/lesspipe.sh
>
> What does this do?
>
>
> >  428632 Oct  7  2000 ./usr/bin/links-0.90
>
> browser
>
>
> >     962 Mar 13  2004 ./usr/bin/mail
> >     738 Mar 13  2004 ./usr/bin/mailto
>
> little mail program/script
>
>
> >      32 Feb 25  2004 ./usr/bin/man
>
>
> >   14024 Mar  5  2004 ./usr/bin/microcom
>
> Terminal program used to dial a bbs (but I can't get mine to be functional 
> afterwards) or for nullmodem connection between computers.
>
>
> >     819 Oct  6  2004 ./usr/bin/pkg
> >   29556 Mar  4  2004 ./usr/bin/readmail
> >     174 Mar  5  2004 ./usr/bin/send2mbox
> >    9044 Jan  7  2000 ./usr/bin/setleds
> >     812 Mar  7  2004 ./usr/bin/wp
> >      49 May 19  1994 ./usr/bin/zless
>
>
> >    6299 Oct  6  2004 ./usr/games/bombem.gz
> >    6785 Feb 29  2004 ./usr/games/castlemaze.gz

 Manpages, more X and modem-software: ignored.

> >    1256 Jan  9  2000 ./usr/share/terminfo/x/xterm
> >    1260 Jan  9  2000 ./usr/share/terminfo/x/xterm-nic
>
> For X?

 Terminfo is a translation library and nearly always necessary.

> Wow!  This can't be the 4MB model

 No, thats the i386 system which I used to analyse baslinux :-)

> People keep giving us Macs, most recently a 100MHz desktop with 3GB HD, 
> and a 1997 laptop which I read works with linux will be returning soon. 
> Please report back on your progress.

 Right now I have set up a cross-compiler-environment so I can compile 
m68k-binaries on my 2Ghz i386 system. The kernel already compiles but 
crashes while initialising. I'll look for fresher patches at debians 
m68k-kernels.

 Christian Brandt