Andy Sy posted at ph-compsci: > I was creating an abridged version of Slackware 12.2 and had > to go through a lot of packages and this one (libmowgli) piqued > my curiousity.
This abridged version of Slackware 12.2 is stripped of libraries and apps that have nothing to do with server operation (e.g. the exact antithesis of "desktop-oriented" Slackware-derived distros which seems to be all that I can find online nowadays, blech...). Specifically, it is just CD 1 of the CD-based Slackware 12.2 distribution which according to http://slackware.com/getslack/torrents.php is composed of "(A/AP/D/E/L/N, bootable installer, kernels, Slackbook)" I removed the Slackbook and E (since I don't use Emacs) directories, and took out specific packages under A, AP, D, L and N which I was pretty sure would only be of use in a physical machine running desktop-oriented stuff (e.g. X server et al...) All this is for the purposes of coming up with a reduced size ISO for mounting on remote KVM-based VPSes (see below for discussion on this). *UP*loading 700MB is no picnic... I've got it down to 400+MB and I could probably shave 100+mb more but I made a decision to be rather liberal in what packages I retained since I have found out you save more time by not having to download additional packages when you find you need them. If anyone is interested in this project and is willing to provide server space to host the abridged Slack ISO, let me know. GRUB / NON-LILO LOADER FOR SLACKWARE ==================================== One more important task left to do is to rewrite the Slackware setup scripts to get the ISO to install a bootloader besides LILO. The KVM version my VPS provider uses still barfs on LILO, so I find myself having to use GRUB2 (meaning v1.96, wtf is it with the l33tp0s3r version numbering...?!?) A grub-1.96/ tree is present on the ISO which should be copied over to the ramdisk before install Slackware, from where you can run grub-install from afterwardes. Currently, I have to manually invoke grub commands to boot into Slackware because, thanks to the copious, gratuitous grub documentation, I still CANNOT figure out the actual steps to configure it to just do the below automatically: linux /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda1 boot Any brain-dead boot loader that will just load in Linux from /dev/hda1 would actually be infinitely more preferable to this overengineered piece-of-grub I'm currently being forced to deal with. Any suggestions? KVM-BASED VPSES =============== KVM in this case stands for kernel virtual machine. This is not to be confused with KVM (keyboard, video, mouse) which can also apply esp. in a dedicated server hosting context. KVM-based VPSes seem to be much, much niftier than OpenVZ or Xen-based ones because you can stick in pretty much any ISO you want. In theory, the VPS provider doesn't even care if you put in a Windows server ISO! You do get a VNC session to see the install screen, which is actually very cool, if only it weren't so dog slow... You also do not need to learn how to make an OS template, unlike for OpenVZ or Xen (and that's assuming your VPS hoster would actually even let you upload your own). Amazon Elastic Cloud should *REALLY* consider moving to KVM so people can use ISOs instead having to cobble up their own AMI (Amazon Machine Instances) - which I believe are just glorified (and more complex to deal with, I suppose) Xen templates. Being able to use "industry-standard" ISOs are a HUGE plus. But creating your own ISOs via mkisofs can be a TOTAL B*TCH to figure out: mkisofs -o ../slackware.iso -R -J -V "Slk101d1" -max-iso9660-filenames -hide-rr-moved -v -d -N -no-emul-boot -boot-load-size 32 -boot-info-table -sort isolinux/iso.sort -b isolinux/isolinux.bin -c isolinux/isolinux.boot -A "Slackware Install CD" . Apparently the "isolinux/*" paths above MUST NOT be changed because they are relative to the ISO's root and NOT where you're running mkisofs from!!! #...@#%!&*...@%@%.... And... don't forget the . at the end, that's for the command and not the sentence! That's two plus hours of my life I'm not going to get back (figuring it out plus ranting about it ;-) ), thank you very much Linux... hour calculations for grub still not in... ======================== http://www.neotitans.com Web and IT Consulting _________________________________________________ Philippine Linux Users' Group (PLUG) Mailing List http://lists.linux.org.ph/mailman/listinfo/plug Searchable Archives: http://archives.free.net.ph
