[mkroot] aboriginal / mkroot as a basis for a container?

[Philip Rhoades]

Rob,

I never got around to thanking you for the detailed response below - so 
thanks!

Recently I had cause to want a docker alternative and I found this:

   https://coreos.com/rkt

   https://github.com/rkt/rkt/releases/tag/v1.28.0

- I'm not sure if it is useful for you or not.

P.


On 2017-05-21 05:36, Rob Landley wrote:
> On 05/19/2017 10:41 PM, scsijon wrote:
>> If you want to play with containers, (he may hate me for this) but
> 
> At LCA I attended a tutorial on how container technology is implemented
> under the covers, the git repo of which is:
> 
>   https://github.com/fewbytes/rubber-docker
> 
> I have a todo item to build better container technology into toybox
> based on that, but Android already has minijail...
> 
>> BarryK has been playing with that and called his build Easy Linux,
>> http://barryk.org/easy/how-easy-works.htm may be of assistance and it
>> can be downloaded from
>> http://distro.ibiblio.org/quirky/quirky6/amd64/releases/easy-0.2/. 
>> It's
>> a couple of build types back though, he's gone on to other ideas 
>> since.
> 
> I'm not annoyed, just amused. :)
> 
> Everybody who works through Linux From Scratch creates a build script 
> to
> automate it, then turns it into a distro briefly, then loses interest
> unless they can figure out something more to do with it.
> 
> I have literally seen over a _hundred_ of these since I first did it
> myself in 2001, and my direction that kept me going through multiple
> reboots (http://landley.net/aboriginal/history.html) was replacing all
> the gnu packages with busybox (starting about 13 years ago):
> 
>   http://lists.busybox.net/pipermail/busybox/2004-May/045630.html
> 
> My goal was to see how _simple_ I could get the result (and disentangle
> the FSF's inappropriate claims from Linux). And then after that worked
> (whenever aboriginal linux's 1.0 release was, 2013-ish I think) the
> toybox/android stuff started to build on top of that work.
> 
> Others had their own angles, from http://www.staticramlinux.com/ to
> https://github.com/sabotage-linux/sabotage which still weren't enough 
> to
> sustain them.
> 
> The point of mkroot is that by adding musl-cross-make as a dependency I
> figured out how to jettison 80% of the complexity of Aboriginal Linux
> while still accomplishing that project's goals (from
> https://landley.net/aboriginal/about.html), and this forms a _much_
> better basis for both a toybox test environment (you need an emulator
> with a known canned system to properly test ifconfig, ps, insmod...) 
> and
> to eventually take apart the Android Open Source Project and rebuild it
> as a series of orthogonal layers. Layer 0 would be the Android NDK,
> layer 1 would be mkroot (once busybox is cleaned out and it's pure
> toybox), then build Android's init in that. I.E. I have goals I'm
> working towards.
> 
> I also plan it to exemplify https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sk9TatW9ino
> when I'm done. (I'm aware that's maybe 1/3 of the proper tutorial on
> that topic; I need to make it a podcast series or something).
> 
> My 2008 presentation had a warning about accidentally creating your own
> distribution, starting at slide 78:
> 
> https://speakerdeck.com/landley/developing-for-non-x86-targets-using-qemu?slide=78
> 
> If you're _going_ to create a distro, you need to understand the scope
> of the resulting responsibilities (package management is a red queen's
> race that _will_ eat multiple developers' full time just to stay in
> place), and have a purpose your distro serves which isn't already 
> better
> fulfilled by existing distros. Otherwise it'll be abandoned after a 
> year
> or two and join the pile.
> 
> Rob
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-- 
Philip Rhoades

PO Box 896
Cowra  NSW  2794
Australia
E-mail:  phil at pricom.com.au