[mkroot] To the people who keeping pinging me off list...

Tue Mar 13 10:04:14 PDT 2018

On Wed, 14 Mar 2018 03:28:18 +1100 Philip Rhoades <phil at pricom.com.au>
wrote:

> David,
> 
> 
> On 2018-03-13 06:43, David Seikel wrote:
> > On Mon, 12 Mar 2018 13:11:52 -0500 Rob Landley <rob at landley.net>
> > wrote:
> > 
> >> FYI, I disabled all the subscriptions to the old aboriginal linux
> >> mailing list when I moved 'em over (and made new subscriptions
> >> require approval), so if you send a message there it goes into
> >> moderation.
> > 
> > My current "mkroot" email folder is still called "FWL".  I've been
> > around here for a while.  lol
> > 
> >> > Subject: Re: [mkroot] To the people who keeping pinging me off
> >> > list... From: David Seikel <onefang at gmail.com>
> >> > Date: 03/08/2018 02:16 PM
> >> > To: aboriginal at lists.landley.net
> >> >
> >> > On Thu, 08 Mar 2018 15:03:18 -0500 Alain Toussaint
> >> > <alain at vocatus.pub> wrote:
> >> >
> >> >>
> >> >>> getting the "and now we build linux from scratch and beyond
> >> >>> linux from scratch natively under the result" infrastructure
> >> >>> back in place
> >> >>
> >> >> I'd be the one in favor of that. I have been accepted as editor
> >> >> of BLFS and even though I'm knee deep into build replicability
> >> >> territory (build LFS --> boot LFS --> build second LFS under
> >> >> first LFS --> see if it barf) so that I haven't been able to
> >> >> contribute to the 8.2 release, we do have request for 686 build
> >> >> and I do know that mkroot even support 486 and build a kernel
> >> >> for it (I myself would be curious to find a 486 able to boot
> >> >> LFS 8,2).
> >> >
> >> > I might be able to help with that.  If I recall correctly, I was
> >> > responsible for adding the original Aboriginal Linux support,
> >> > and I still have the 486 device I needed that for.  Building LFS
> >> > and BLFS is on my TODO, and is near the top of that TODO.
> >> 
> >> I'm pretty sure 486 support works properly in mkroot? But you're
> >> right, I do not have actual 486 hardware to test it on, just
> >> qemu...
> > 
> > I started building LFS 8.1 on Sunday, and later today (Tuesday my
> > time) I'll continue.  I'm starting with the "build it manually
> > yourself" method suggested in the automated LFS page, and scripting
> > it myself as I go along.  I'm up to the beginning of chapter 6,
> > I'll likely start on bits of BLFS after finishing that.  Chapter 6
> > should go quickly, half of it is building the stuff already built
> > with some minor variations.
> > 
> > Today I downloaded the 8.2 stuff, I'll switch over to that next, I
> > was trying 8.1 first coz I had downloaded it's source some time ago.
> > Bandwidth in Australia is expensive, I have to carefully ration out
> > things like downloading 7 GB of LFS + BLFS source code, and 8.2 was
> > only recently released.
> > 
> > Then I'll move to using Aboriginal Linux for the job, which I have
> > experience with, or skip straight to mkroot which I haven't tried
> > yet.
> > 
> > Currently building it on my x86_64 test box natively, I will at some
> > point tell it to build for 486.  Then I can test things on my real
> > 486 hardware, which my old Aboriginal Linux build still works fine
> > on. Earlier this year the 486 device was being audited by the
> > government test labs, as it's the sort of device that requires that
> > sort of thing.
> > 
> > I did have the idea while working on this, that the various test
> > suites that LFS builds for all the software that toybox replaces,
> > might be a good idea to see if we can get them to test toybox.
> > Dunno if you have tried that yet.
> 
> Where are you in Australia?

I'm in Brisbane, so not nearby to Cowra.

> If you were nearby I could probably help with downloading

The 13th is my ISP roll over date for the month, and I had been good
over the last month not using much bandwidth, so I had enough to
download the 8.2 versions of LFS and BLFS books and source code, plus a
few other big but unrelated things.  I have now done so.

> I also have a working 486 (JPG attached) for which
> I want to make an image of its old SCSI drive to see if I can
> virtualise it.  If it were possible, this is also the machine I would
> like to make some mkroot boot / root floppies for - although that
> seems too hard . .

I pointed out the ICOP people before, http://www.icop.com.tw/ that make
the 486 board I use for some embedded work.  (Note that I said https://
last time, then found out they don't respond so well to https, though
that might be some oddness in my proxy, I didn't investigate further.)
It's a tiny board (fits in the palm of your hand) that is almost a
complete PC, including lots of GPIO pins for embedded work, VGA / LCD
video out, USB 2, serial ports, PS2, audio, 256 MB RAM, and we add on a
512 MB flash disk.  For many years we have been using Aboriginal Linux +
control images (Robs pre cursor to mkroot) to build an embedded device
that is subject to lengthy government regulations.  This is where
Aboriginals 486 support came from in the first place, we needed it, I
wrote it, and sent it to Rob who included it.

So I'm well versed in getting Aboriginal Linux and the rest of the OS
needed to support the device running on it.  All heavily scripted, I
start the complete build on my workstation, come back in an hour and
dd the completed disk image onto a USB stick that I then boot the 486
with for testing.  Getting the basic Aboriginal Linux up and running on
it is no longer hard now that it has 486 support.

I've only glanced at mkroot, and it seems to be similar to parts of
Aboriginal Linux, so I expect I'll be able to use it easily.

I don't think I even have any floppy disk or SCSI equipment anymore, so
you are on your own with that.  My career is long enough that I have
used such extensively far too many decades ago.

> I have been trying to find the time for ages to do the LFS thing on
> my newer / faster workstations.

So have I, that time for me started last Sunday.  If nothing else
swallows my spare time like it did yesterday, I'll likely have a mkroot
based LFS running on my 486 board at the end of next weekend.

> I was in Sydney (still go back there occasionally) but now I am in a 
> little country town (see below).

Sydney is a one hour flight from Brisbane, and you would know how long
it takes you to get to Sydney from Cowra.  Likely still too far just to
drop off a USB stick, which I no longer need now anyway.  Thanks for the
offer though.

-- 
A big old stinking pile of genius that no one wants
coz there are too many silver coated monkeys in the world.
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