Minimax - Text only minicd

Trained.Monkey · 2006-02-13 20:05:53

I have small livecd based on Arch. Contains some console utils like mc, centericq, bashburn, links... Minimax have very good hardware support thanks to full 2.6.15 kernel and some wifi addons. Very small, only 32 MB

Archers can be interested in included Arch installer. Can be used for ftp install. It have much beter hardware support then original Arch install cd.

More informations and downloads are here: http://www.kotek.net/minimax

tomk · 2006-02-13 23:08:50

You got wi-fi in there - that's excellent!

Looking good in qemu - I'll burn and boot it tomorrow.

Thanks.

phrakture · 2006-02-13 23:59:12

Yeah, it does look really nice. I'll have to check this out.

ozar · 2006-02-14 01:16:10

Welcome to the forums, Trained.Monkey

If you are serious about your project, you might want to consider submitting it to DistroWatch:

http://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=submit

ozar · 2006-02-14 02:29:01

Yeah, this is pretty cool...

Easy to boot and use, and I'm posting from it now. It looks like it would make a really handy emergency boot disk, too. I might try to install Arch with it this coming weekend to see how that goes. Has anyone tried putting this on a small flash drive and booting with it yet?

I'm gonna look around a bit in the interim and see what other goodies there are to play with.

Oh, I was surprised that it didn't have vi(m) included, but I made out just fine with MC. I need to see if I can get the mouse working a bit better too, as it seems slightly sluggish, or I could just stick to the keyboard navigation only.

Thanks for your work on this, Trained.Monkey!

ozar

Trained.Monkey · 2006-02-14 09:08:19

ozar wrote:

Yeah, this is pretty cool...
Easy to boot and use, and I'm posting from it now. It looks like it would make a really handy emergency boot disk, too. I might try to install Arch with it this coming weekend to see how that goes. Has anyone tried putting this on a small flash drive and booting with it yet?
I'm gonna look around a bit in the interim and see what other goodies there are to play with.
Oh, I was surprised that it didn't have vi(m) included, but I made out just fine with MC. I need to see if I can get the mouse working a bit better too, as it seems slightly sluggish, or I could just stick to the keyboard navigation only.
Thanks for your work on this, Trained.Monkey!
ozar

Flash should work fine, I didnt test it yet. Vi is included, vim is too big.

tomk · 2006-02-14 12:16:38

I just burnt and booted minimax - comes up like lightning.

One thing though - with live CDs of any sort, the first thing I want to do is mount my Arch file system, so I tried to do

mkdir /mnt/hda1

but it failed, saying it was a read-only filesystem. Logically, of course, that makes sense, but like I said, it works with other live CDs. How do they do it? And can minimax do the same?

Trained.Monkey · 2006-02-14 13:17:51

tomk wrote:

I just burnt and booted minimax - comes up like lightning.
One thing though - with live CDs of any sort, the first thing I want to do is mount my Arch file system, so I tried to do
mkdir /mnt/hda1
but it failed, saying it was a read-only filesystem. Logically, of course, that makes sense, but like I said, it works with other live CDs. How do they do it? And can minimax do the same?

I have tmpfs mounted in /etc /home /root /var /tmp. I forget for /mnt, in next version it will be fixed.

cmp · 2006-02-14 14:36:31

you may want to look into unionfs and make a union of the root filesystem and a temporaray file system (well I don't know if you may use a subdirectory for a union - but if it works you're whole filesystem would be writeable)

here is an explenation of some magic happening with a livecd using unionfs

Trained.Monkey · 2006-02-14 16:07:12

cmp wrote:

you may want to look into unionfs and make a union of the root filesystem and a temporaray file system (well I don't know if you may use a subdirectory for a union - but if it works you're whole filesystem would be writeable)
here is an explenation of some magic happening with a livecd using unionfs

I know unionfs, but I won't use it, becouse of possible problems. (for example unionfs have problems with 2.6.15 kernels) Tmpfs is part of kernel and much better tested.

Trained.Monkey · 2006-02-14 16:07:31

cmp wrote:

you may want to look into unionfs and make a union of the root filesystem and a temporaray file system (well I don't know if you may use a subdirectory for a union - but if it works you're whole filesystem would be writeable)
here is an explenation of some magic happening with a livecd using unionfs

Mr Green · 2006-02-14 16:27:56

Can you tell me how to open up initrd.gz ?

I would like to see how minimax works ;-)

tomk · 2006-02-14 16:47:59

I've mounted hda1 under /home for the moment, ran my wlan-ng init script from /home/hda1/etc/rc.d, and I'm online with minimax.

And, I've just thought of something. I've tried graphical links on this laptop before, and I could never get the mouse to work. I thought it was down to it being a touchpad, but it's working here, so that can't be it. Must have a closer look at what minimax is doing....

Trained.Monkey · 2006-02-14 17:32:43

Initrd is an uncompressed squashfs system. So you must have squashfs compiled in your kernel. It's not part of Arch kernel. First mount iso in loopback device. Then mount initrd:

mount -o loop initrd.gz /mnt/1

Content of /etc /var /tmp .. is in /usr/share/minimax from here it's copyed to tmpfs.

If you dont have squash fs in your system:
1) boot minimax
2) mount /root : mount /dev/ram0 /mnt/1
3) copy files somewhere you want.

I will publish complete scripts soon.

Trained.Monkey · 2006-02-14 17:34:09

tomk wrote:

And, I've just thought of something. I've tried graphical links on this laptop before, and I could never get the mouse to work. I thought it was down to it being a touchpad, but it's working here, so that can't be it. Must have a closer look at what minimax is doing....

gpm magic :-)

Trained.Monkey · 2006-02-14 17:36:57

Trained.Monkey wrote:

Initrd is an compressed squashfs system. So you must have squashfs compiled in your kernel. It's not part of Arch kernel. First mount iso in loopback device. Then mount initrd:
mount -o loop initrd.gz /mnt/1
Content of /etc /var /tmp .. is in /usr/share/minimax from here it's copyed to tmpfs.
If you dont have squash fs in your system:
1) boot minimax
2) mount / : mount /dev/ram0 /mnt/1
3) copy files somewhere you want.
I will publish complete scripts soon.

Sorry for mistakes, here is correct version

Mr Green · 2006-02-14 18:30:18

no I do not have squahfs in Arch so I could use Archie to mount it , will take a look soon

thanks

Trained.Monkey · 2006-02-15 23:33:43

New version is out, some bugs fixed. Partimage, dd_rescue, dd_rhelp, parted added.

ozar · 2006-02-15 23:41:14

MiniMax download link doesn't work for me... all I get is "ERROR - requested document not found".

Trained.Monkey · 2006-02-15 23:53:22

fixed

ozar · 2006-02-15 23:58:24

Got it, thanks... version 20060213 worked quite well but I'm going to try the updated version now.

ozar · 2006-02-16 00:20:22

Oh yeah, this is better... I'm posting from it now.

It boots in about 24 seconds which is good for a live-cd. Anyway, I was running across some minor bugs that I've not noticed in this version. The mouse seems a bit more responsive too, but I'm thinking maybe that's just my imagination.

Anyway, good work on this, Trained.Monkey. I'm looking forward to seeing it grow.

ozar

Arch Linux

#1 2006-02-13 20:05:53

Minimax - Text only minicd

#2 2006-02-13 23:08:50

Re: Minimax - Text only minicd

#3 2006-02-13 23:59:12

Re: Minimax - Text only minicd

#4 2006-02-14 01:16:10

Re: Minimax - Text only minicd

#5 2006-02-14 02:29:01

Re: Minimax - Text only minicd

#6 2006-02-14 09:08:19

Re: Minimax - Text only minicd

#7 2006-02-14 12:16:38

Re: Minimax - Text only minicd

#8 2006-02-14 13:17:51

Re: Minimax - Text only minicd

#9 2006-02-14 14:36:31

Re: Minimax - Text only minicd

#10 2006-02-14 16:07:12

Re: Minimax - Text only minicd

#11 2006-02-14 16:07:31

Re: Minimax - Text only minicd

#12 2006-02-14 16:27:56

Re: Minimax - Text only minicd

#13 2006-02-14 16:47:59

Re: Minimax - Text only minicd

#14 2006-02-14 17:32:43

Re: Minimax - Text only minicd

#15 2006-02-14 17:34:09

Re: Minimax - Text only minicd

#16 2006-02-14 17:36:57

Re: Minimax - Text only minicd

#17 2006-02-14 18:30:18

Re: Minimax - Text only minicd

#18 2006-02-15 23:33:43

Re: Minimax - Text only minicd

#19 2006-02-15 23:41:14

Re: Minimax - Text only minicd

#20 2006-02-15 23:53:22

Re: Minimax - Text only minicd

#21 2006-02-15 23:58:24

Re: Minimax - Text only minicd

#22 2006-02-16 00:20:22

Re: Minimax - Text only minicd

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