Sorry to be (way) off topic here, but I was wondering if anyone on this list has any experience to share on the subject of minimal linux versions, for something other than routing/firewall purposes?
I'm currently engaged in a project to control an external piece of equipment via the parallel port. For this purpose I'm going to set up an old 486 (or whatever), stripped of everything but: A floppy drive One NIC -at this point I have the external equipment built (basically a stepper motor, and two switches). I have the (electronic) interface to the parport ready. As well as the c-routines to access the stuff. Now, before I press on and start programming, I'd like to get the controlling host set up. And this is where I'd like some input: Most of the minimal Linuces I'm aware of, are of the 'router/firewall' or 'rescue system' variety. So is anyone aware of a version that is already oriented towards the role of 'device-controller'? Alternatively, does someone have any bright ideas, towards adapting something like f.x. Dachstein for my purpose? Traits I'm looking for: - Must fit on a single (possibly superformatted) floppy. - Should provide some sort of shell (until I get around to turning the programs into C or something, everything will be scripts) - (preferrably) some kind of webserver (for the purpose of making certain variables accessible/changeable, from machines on the LAN) "So what's this all about?" you might ask (or not ;)... well: I first had the idea some time ago, but seeing an article in the march issue of Scientific American, describing more or less exactly the same thing, I decided that I should go ahead and build it for myself. The rationale: "Humans (or any other animal, for that matter) have two distinctly different ways of waking up; One - As the sun rises, the increasing light slowly tells the person that day is dawning, and it is now time to get up, and start gathering food. This is the preferred method. Two - Some (usually noisy) external event, (such as the growling of a predator, the rumbling of an earthquake/canons of war, or indeed an alarmclock) tells the person that it is now time to get up and fight for it's life, run, hide or otherwise do *something*, and quick, before it's too late. This is much less desirable." Living as I do, in the city, with a streetlamp positioned right outside the window, makes it necessary for me to blackout my bedroom, in order to get any sleep at all. This is acheived by way of blinds. Unfortunately this means that when my alarm clock goes off (too early btw) in the morning, I'm always awakened in total darkness to something that resembles the second mode, as described above. In the hope of becoming a happier person, I now turn to a technical solution to this situation. In short, what I want is to create a mechanism that will emulate the sunrise, by slowly opening the blind, and thus (hopefully) more gently awake at 'dawn'... Any thoughts/ideas/advice welcome Jon Clausen P.S. To keep the offtopic-ness to a minimum, maybe it would be better if people were to answer by PM, rather than through the list ;) -- .signature ;) _______________________________________________________________ Have big pipes? SourceForge.net is looking for download mirrors. We supply the hardware. You get the recognition. Email Us: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ leaf-user mailing list: [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/leaf-user SR FAQ: http://leaf-project.org/pub/doc/docmanager/docid_1891.html
