Install Scripts Released

When I orginally created Blue Square Linux I created some installation scripts to make it easier for users to install from the livecd. When I did this I did not allow modification to the scripts and I did not provide a way to get the scripts (other than to boot the livecd).

I’ve decided to release the installation scripts into the while where others can put them to use on their own home made installations. I hope that these scripts will be beneficial to those who download them.

The bootscripts can be downloaded from here.
They are released under BSD License.

Regards, Jonathan

Lack of development

As you have probably noticed, there has been no development on BSL 2009.X. There has been one or two programs made for 2008.08 that can be found on the download site. The has been no development because I have been busy with other things. In the summer I will have free time and hope to have at least started someone by then. The next version of BSL will be based on CLFS 2.0. See Cross-lfs.org for more information.

2009.x Development soon

It’s been 4 months since the last release of Blue Square Linux (BSL for short) but I have been working on a livecd for Cross Linux From Scratch (CLFS) in between then. I’ve also been adding software packages here and there to the server as and when I need them.

A bit of information about BSL 2008.08; It’s based on a hybrid build of CLFS and LFS, this works but it does seem to have problems with the ncurses library since these books handle that differently. I uses the RPM pacakage manager but does not have an update tool such as yum, You instead have to manage the packages yourself.

2008.08 took a while because for each package I had to make an RPM and also I lost motivation midway, The SPEC files used to create the RPM binary packages can be reused for the 2009.x release saving time and hassle. I have also been learning how to create an initramfs which should allow BSL to work on a much larger range of hardware. At the moment the kernel will probably need to be recompiled to work on your your machine. I have access to a x86_64 machine but I do not have root access, this means that I can not create 64bit RPM packages but I should be able to create a 64bit kernel and initramfs.

I have about a month left of the inter-semester break so I hope to start a new build for BSL. The release will be based on Cross Linux From Scratch with customisation.

Goals for 2009.x

  • Wider hardware support
  • 64bit kernel option
  • Range of server packages include web
  • Unicode Support

RPMS

Last night I uploaded all the RPMS for Felix. These are the RPMS that are included on the LiveCD but they are also the RPMS that have been made since the LiveCD and have previously not been available for download. The latest of these RPMS where made this week and I will continue to upload the RPMS as they are made and tested.

You can find them in Felix/RPMS on the mirrors.

Deletion

Today when it was trying to backup my desktop and I made a mistake. I ended up wipping out four of my five virtual hard drives. The 5th was badly damaged but I was able to save a snapshot. It has been reverted to a snapshot of the 13th July so it is badly out of date. It is only a modifed version of 2008.03 Nicholas part of X11 installed.

However I have released the LiveCD with improvements and all of the development of the RPMs, scripts etc are stored on the server they are safe. This means that I have been able to reinstall 2008.08 Felix from the livecd.

Not Long Now

Over the past week I have been working very hard on the OS and I believe that is it close to being ready to release. There are only a few things left to do that they are all related to the LiveDVD or the install scripts. It is only a matter of time now….

Sponsors

I’ve had the Sponsor section on my links for a while but I have only added images this week. Now they stand out much more from the other links. They are on my website as a thank you.

Arathard
He has given me space on his web server to host any large files that I wish to share as my internet is not up to the job. Once Felix is done the livecd will be put up here.

Steam Creative
He has given me three PowerMac computers over the past year because they are surplus to his requirements but they make great build boxes for me. It is much easier for me to spend a small amount fixing these computers than it would for me to have to buy them from an unknown dealer on the internet.

Felix

I have been working on and off on the next release of my OS. I have also been doing some testing for CLFS for PowerPC and I will be doing SPARC64 throughout the week. I had hoped to get most of the packages done by the end of this month and able to release the OS at least for x86. I’m currently stuck on Linux-PAM which is pretty important to the system.

Felix is probably end up being released in August but on the plus side there should be live CDs / DVDs and support for x86, PowerPC and SPARC64. I also plan to install trac and implement virtualisation software of some kind.

2008.07 Development

As it is the last day in June it seems very unlikely that I will be able to finish a fully working OS by the end of the day. Thus a sneaky rename is in order. The current software list for Felix-Dev can be found here and is being updated as each bit of software gets compiled and installed. Unlike my previous attempt where I was basically upgrading all of the software for the current running OS I have gone back to the LFS way. This is a completely fresh build made on a blank hard drive partition to avoid any contamination from the host.

Using the latest software does bring some problems but thankfully the only two I have ran into so far have been fixed. Thanks to “ChrisS67” from Linux From Scratch, GNU C Library 2.8 is now compiled and at this moment is running through it’s test suite.