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Topic: Side Project, A custom DSL install

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kirch

Group: Members
Posts: 3
Joined: Feb. 2004

Posted: Feb. 24 2004,13:53

Hi all. I am really impressed with how tiny and featureful DSL is. I have a project right now that requires a minimal linux install, but so far, nothing does what I need.

I am making a digital picture frame out of an old Thinkpad X20 laptop. Physically, I am almost there, but software wise I am being held up by a gigantic 400MB Redhat "minimal" install. I need this to fit on a 128MB compact flash card.

The redhat install does everything I want but I cant copy it over to the CF card because its too damn big. All I want is a tiny linux OS that will boot up, activate my WiFi card (ancient Prism based WPC11), grab a DHCP IP, mount an NFS share, and then use "fbi" or some other framebuffer picture viewer to constantly cycle through pictures in a directory on the NFS share. Oh and I want SSH access to the box.

Like I said, I got it all to work under RH, but it's a monster. I know I dont need half the crap on there, but if I delete the wrong thing then I have to start all over. I still wouldnt feel good about it, either, until I deleted all the non-essential crap.

DSL seems like a better starting point. It's already damn small, and it was made for a read-only system.

Anyone want to help me out? I plan on making the project details available after I complete it (including the custom DSL image). I will gladly share the credit.

Some one please save me from a Redhat nightmare!

realmy

Group: Members
Posts: 11
Joined: Feb. 2004

Posted: Feb. 24 2004,22:22

Hey, I would liek to see a photo of what your doing.

Sounds somewhat, umm... cool, fun and silly at the same time

heheh GREAT!

I know a CF card would be much cooler, but laptop HDD are so damn small, why not use one?

Rapidweather Offline

Group: Members
Posts: 375
Joined: Jan. 2004

Posted: Feb. 24 2004,23:40

Since the size of the flash device seems to be holding you up on putting your working Redhat setup on one, perhaps you could look at a 512 MB device, and see how much they want for one of those. You can get your setup going like you want. I think that DSL might be too much of a hassle to do what you have gotten Redhat to do, since this is a live cd setup, and can be modified, however, but problems do arise with a small distro like this.
The main thing is that you do have Redhat going like you want, which is excellent, really.
---

--------------
Rapidweather Remaster of DSL:
http://www.angelfire.com/ms/telegram/getting_started.html
Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux:
http://www.geocities.com/rapidweather/getting_started.html
Screenshots:
http://www.rapidweather.com/linuxcdsales.html

kirch

Group: Members
Posts: 3
Joined: Feb. 2004

Posted: Feb. 25 2004,21:38

realmy: I'll see what I can do about some pics. I do have a 5GB laptop drive that I am currently using. The main reasons I dont like it are 1) it's too loud (most laptop drives seem loud to me) and 2) It's not solid state so it will wear out over time (picture frame will be on 24/7). Laptops arent made to be 24/7 machines, much less the harddrives in them. A CF would be quiet and much more durable I think.

Rapidweather: I am trying to keep cost down, so while I could get a 512MB CF card, it would only add on to the total price. There's no real good reason why I shouldnt be able to fit a linux kernel and a few utils into 64MB much less 128MB. It should be a lot easier than it is.

Del

Group: Members
Posts: 109
Joined: Dec. 2003

Posted: Feb. 26 2004,05:48

Kirch,
What exactly do you need/want assistance with? I'll help as I can, though that won't be much (time, my own projects, etc...)

Ya, DSL should work pretty well. Boot it up with the CD and see what you get. If 0.6.1 doesn't work, try 0.6.0. Keep on working backwards until you find one that runs the way you want it to from the CD. Then install it to a hard drive (a real HD, not the CF thing yet). Once it's on the HD, tweak it and make it work exactly the way you want. (quick note: make sure you're doing this on the hardware you will be using!) Okay, once it works just perfectly, then hook up the CF as /dev/hdb (or hdc, whatever) and run cfdisk to create a 32Mb swap partition, and a 96Mb ext2 partition. Make the ext2 part bootable, then copy all your hda over to hdb. Finally, 'chdir /mnt/hdb1' (or whatever is appropriate) and run lilo as needed to install the mbr on the CF. Shut down, move CF to /dev/hda, remove the HD, and reboot. Things should work.

No promises though. I'm not an expert, though I play one on TV.

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Del
--da da da--

12 replies since Feb. 24 2004,13:53

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