> > NOTE: I'm still very open to suggestions on what to use as the base of
the
> > next generation of LRP like functionality. I'm mainly looking at
starting
> > with an existing distribution because 'out of the box' you get a working
> > cross-compile environment (no more dedicated Debian Slink boxes just to
> > compile an application or two), and much of the software will be
> > pre-packaged.
>
> I suppose it depends on what you want to do. However, this sounds
> like you want to switch distributions entirely; isn't this the same as
> starting from scratch?
I guess in my view of the world, if a general purpose distribution can be
found that is *close* to what we're currently doing with LRP (and various
derrivations), it can be used as a base for new work:
??? distribution (possibly HardHat) is to New LEAF Disto
as
Debian Slink is to LRP
In my mind, this is not really starting from scratch. Starting from scratch
would be gathering the source for absolutely everything and compiling our
own distribution, which I don't think is necessary.
> > While the pre-packaged stuff will likely be in RPM format, it
> > should be possible to easily convert the RPM's to a tar.gz file or
something
> > else shell-scripts can deal with.
>
> Busybox already has support for undoing RPMs (unrpm); use that.
If it can still fit on a floppy, this would be an excellent solution.
Otherwise, there will need to be a fair amount of work to address some of
the packaging limitations of LRP. As previously mentioned, I'd at least
like to see support for pre/post-install/remove scripts.
On the other hand, I'm not sure RPM's will work well in a floppy environment
where we need to backup the packages in order to save changes...this will
take some investigating.
> > A lot of the hard work (that requires
> > maintainence and debugging) goes into making sure the packages all work
well
> > together...we should be able to leverage this work from a mainstream
> > distribution and speed our "time to solution". I really don't want to
try
> > to create or maintain a complete, from the ground up distribution...it
seems
> > like too much duplication of existing work.
>
> This sounds like you are looking to go to "the next step" and leave
> floppy distributions and LRP far behind. There are quite a few
> CDROM-based routers out there. Peanut perhaps...
>
> I'd like to stay with the current base for several reasons:
>
> * Existing package support
> * Knowledge base is built up already; otherwise Charles & Mike S. &
> Mike N. & Jacques & Jeff & Ray & Rick & Ewald & Pi et al ....would
> have to learn a new distro.
> * Floppy-based operations is still important - to me, the floppy
> should still be the base, and in fact should be a drop-in install for
> a bootable CDROM floppy image.
The biggest problem with the current base is the libraries, and (to at least
some extent) 2.4 kernel support. I'm not looking to abandon the floppy
distribution...otherwise there's not really any work to be done, as there
are many micro-distributions of linux setup to run in tens or hundreds of
meg instead of the gigabytes consumed by RedHat and similar disto's.
I guess when I think of the 'perfect' next step, it involves:
Latest libraries, and 2.4 kernel support
Support for several 'standard' firewall scripts (ie shore-wall, rcf, etc.)
Slightly extended package system with support for:
pre/post-install/remove scripts
dependancies
"partial" backups (ie backup only config or user modified data)
Since I don't want to compile all this from scratch (actually, the compiling
I don't mind, it's the maintaining when things change that gets nasty), I'd
like to see a way to convert packages from a mainstream distribution
directly into pakages for <new-thing>. Kind of like if LRP packages were
built as modifications to .debs, so when the new debian package came out,
you could just 'import' or 'update' or whatever, and run the new stuff...
> However, a shift towards RPMs would be nice.
I'll try to look into what is possible using BB's RPM support...perhaps it
will do all I'd like to see...
Charles Steinkuehler
http://lrp.steinkuehler.net
http://c0wz.steinkuehler.net (lrp.c0wz.com mirror)
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