Well the PowerPC build went much better than the SPARC64 build. As a result the PowerPC build is having the packages updated and built where as the SPARC64 built hasn’t been touched in a while. Every time I do a new LFS built I learn more and more. I’ve made a small patch for the kernel that adds the Blue Square Linux logo to the boot and I’m working on updating the software too.
I’ll explain the naming scheme a little. Mostly it’s something I make up on the spot but I have two main ones that I’m trying to keep to. The Main finished release is called 2008.03 Nicholas (YYYY.MM Name) and the work in progress is called R805 (’R’ YMM) where Y is Year and M is Month. I do have a name for the next release but I am not telling anyone what it is.
R805 screenshot
I’ve not been able to use my computer for a few weeks but now it’s working and I can continue to work on my OS. As you know 2008.03 is done and my server has been upgraded to run on it, however some of the software has not been upgraded because the RPMS are not finished or because it would mean a lot of reconfiguring to do.
Sparc 64
Something I have noticed from my time on a support channel is that Ubuntu uses Mawk by default instead of Gawk. This is the reason that Glibc kept on failing to compile on my sparc machine because of the ubuntu host. Now this has been fixed I am working my way thought CLFS and have made good progress. The RPM spec files will probably have to be rewritten to support this multilib OS and some sparc specific configurations.
Live CD
I am working on a live CD made from the 2006.03 build so that it is easier to install. Currently it is a lot like Gentoo’s installation where you have to download and unpack a tarball and then create / edit specific files in order to get it to boot.
Now that I am happy with all the spec files used to create the RPMs for my system I am now starting the Sparc64 build again. This time I am using CLFS svn instead of my previous method of slowly replacing the Ubuntu install with my RPMs. This proved to be a disaster due to Ubuntu’s Sparc64 OS lack of 64bit. I ended up with 32bit programs linking to 64bit libraries and killing the system. I hope to have this build finished by the end of the week so I will let you know how it goes.
Well it is 11:30pm on a Saturday and I have just booted into Blue Square Linux 2008.03. There are a few little things left that I’d like to do such as compile the latest kernel but as it stands 2.6.24.1 is still very new (2.6.24.4 being the latest). I’d also like to get some of the files that I’ve made by hand during the build to be integrated into the core-file package and do a little more work on the first shell prompt. Apart from that the whole system is made with the RPM Package Manager from the start making it easier to update, install and keep track of your packages and their files.
For a list of all the RPMs currently installed click here.
The OS is coming along and should be finished pretty soon. It’s based on LFS SVN-20080327 with some customisation such as having ZSH as the default shell and the RPM package manager. The Sparc64 build has been abandoned for now to allow the x86 build to be finished. The spec files used to create the RPMs can be used on any architecture. This means that one all the spec files are made for the x86 build they can be used again for the Sparc64 build, so once the temperately OS is built and in place the computer can be left on running a script to build all the RPMS.
Once all the used packages have been built I will look into a way of creating all the miscellaneous files used in the system. After that I purpose that an installer system would be the next logical step but seeing as how this OS is made for my purposes I might not make one.
After not having any orders for the last 3 months I was thinking about closing the stop, but then an order came in. Several dead DVDs later and a brief lesson in fight and gravity for my printer the order was finally complete and it was posted moments ago. Now I’m closing the shop. I am closing the shop is because OS that this website was originally created for is going well and overall I am making a lose on the DVDs that I sell. Failed DVDs and a temperamental printer combined with low sales mean that it is not really worth it. However I will still sell DVDs if you drop me an email at shop [at] bluesquarelinux.co.uk.
I’m going to notify Debian and the Fedora Project to have my website removed from the vendor lists.
I have been working hard on my systems and now both the x86 and Sparc64 hosts have RPM5 installed and I am working on the spec files. The spec files are used by RPM5 to build the packages and I am still learning about them. Some of the packages have simple spec files that work on both architectures but some (like Glibc) are much more complicated. The spec file uses different commands for the different architectures and created more than one RPM once finished.
However once all the core spec files are made, tested and working for both sparc64 and x86 I can then build the whole system in RPM format. This makes it much easier to upgrade and distribute.
Another thing that I should mention is a change in the version naming. Instead of having Version 0.3 like I was planning I thought that it would be better to have something similar to Gentoo’s version naming. The next version would be called “2008.03″ and come out by the end of the month.
I’ve been working on my RPMs for this OS but today I was told that I have been using a very old version. So I have downloaded the latest version that came with it’s own problems. BSL v0.2 is based on a LFS 6.2 and this is out of date. This means that a lot of the dependences needed to be updated before I could start to build RPM5. After 10 hours of various attempts I finally got it to work on my Sunblade 100 running Ubuntu 7.10.
This brings me nicely onto my Sparc64 build. My Sunblade 100 has a 500Mhz Sun UltraSPARC IIe 64bit processor and with a lack of Sparc based linux OS I’ve decided to make a port of BSL for Sparc. It is possible to develop them at the same time because of the learning I will have to do and the speed of which some of the software compiles at. Hopefully BSL v0.3 will be available for both x86 and Sparc64 with RPM package manager to allow easy installation of software.
I’m working on version 0.3 at the moment at it is going to take a while due to the compiling times and getting the configuration right. The main differences between version 0.2 and version 0.3 the introduction of the RPM package manager and all the software is being made from the latest stable version. I am making this from my 0.2 build where I have the RPM package manager installed. I download the source and build it into an RPM file before installing it onto the system. This is taking a while because I have to make a spec file for the RPM package manager to make the package from and I am new to this.
With a package manager in place it will be much easier to add and remove programs to the system and to upgrade to the latest. The software is made on my desktop which is the fastest machine I have access to and can then be installed on my server and other computers. Before I had to compile it on the slower computers too and this would take much longer.
I’m working on a live CD based on version 0.1 Nicholas. This is more of a test to see what is needed to make a live CD work and what needed to be added to the system. I am using a kernel that has been pre-compiled by someone else and so far I’ve had to add mkisofs to the system in order to create an iso image. Once I know how to make Live CDs easily I will probably make future releases available. Then I’d have to workout an installer.
