4 ms·

Show HN: Monolinux – A tiny embedded Linux distro

69 points by eerimoq 7y ago

xbhdhdhd 7y ago
Cool. ARM?
- mysterydip 7y ago
  I'd love for this to be the case. I have a handful of raspberry pi projects that I just want to boot and run a single executable. I don't need or want the rest of the OS included with the likes of raspbian etc. I'm currently working on a dietpi customization but this would be even better if it worked.
  - yyhhsj0521 7y ago
    Have you tried ArchARM? It's pretty lean and fits into those old 512M SD Cards.
    - randie63 7y ago
      If you have a 512mb SD card, you should probably not use it anymore. Even if you don't need the storage.
      - benibela 7y ago
        I use a 64 mb CF card for photos
    - mysterydip 7y ago
      I haven't heard of that one (I did check out a version of puppy and tiny core). I'll check it out, thanks!
  - i_v 7y ago
    There's also Buildroot which has a bit of a learning curve (it's still easier than Yocto/Angstrom IMO) but is capable of producing highly customized, tiny embedded Linux images. At this time, there are board configs for pretty much every Rasperry Pi variant out there. The functional equivalent of a Debian base install, including kernel, bootloader, and systemd init (approx. 350 MiB) is about 20 MiB (compressed) when built with Buildroot.
  - mkj 7y ago
    Build a static binary (with musl perhaps) and put it in an initramfs at /init. An example https://github.com/mkj/rpi-flipflop/blob/main/Makefile#L9 https://github.com/mkj/rpi-flipflop/blob/main/Makefile#L9
- eerimoq 7y ago
  ARM is the only architecture I've used so far. =)
Gys 7y ago
As it is 'tiny' I think people expect some kind of size indication?
- eerimoq 7y ago
  The size depends on your Linux kernel configuration and user space application. My guess is that most distros will be a 5+ MB.
sys_64738 7y ago
I miss the days of running Linux from a single floppy with a complete development environment.
- IndrekR 7y ago
  When was that? I started using Linux in mid 90's and never recall a useful installation of that size. Single floppy rescue disc distros did not have room for C compiler and standard development libs IIRC.
  - tpoindex 7y ago
    MuLinux could boot a Linux to a prompt, with minimal command line utilities. Extra floppies provided X11, GCC, Tcl, Perl, et. al. MuLinux formatted 3.5" floppies to 1.7mb and replaced many utilities with "rustic" versions written in /bin/sh. Fun stuff! Disclosure: I contributed the Tcl floppy and lpr/lpq/lprm utilities. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MuLinux https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MuLinux
buserror 7y ago
The readme isn't really up to date, but many years ago I started minifs to be the smallest, reproducible linux distro I can get away with. With extra tools like a 'cross linker' that removes /anything/ that isn't used on a filesystem before packing it. It's mostly bash. And a bit of C for tools. Works on ARM, whatever really, as long as there is a kernel and a toolchain. https://github.com/buserror/minifs https://github.com/buserror/minifs
rmdashrfstar 7y ago
What makes this different than Alpine?
- eerimoq 7y ago
  In Monolinux there is a single statically linked user space application (the init-process). Alpine has the traditional approach of many user space applications and shared libraries, if I'm not mistaken.

69 points by eerimoq 7y ago

xbhdhdhd 7y ago

Cool. ARM?

mysterydip 7y ago
I'd love for this to be the case. I have a handful of raspberry pi projects that I just want to boot and run a single executable. I don't need or want the rest of the OS included with the likes of raspbian etc. I'm currently working on a dietpi customization but this would be even better if it worked.
- yyhhsj0521 7y ago
  Have you tried ArchARM? It's pretty lean and fits into those old 512M SD Cards.
  - randie63 7y ago
    If you have a 512mb SD card, you should probably not use it anymore. Even if you don't need the storage.
    - benibela 7y ago
      I use a 64 mb CF card for photos
  - mysterydip 7y ago
    I haven't heard of that one (I did check out a version of puppy and tiny core). I'll check it out, thanks!
- i_v 7y ago
  There's also Buildroot which has a bit of a learning curve (it's still easier than Yocto/Angstrom IMO) but is capable of producing highly customized, tiny embedded Linux images. At this time, there are board configs for pretty much every Rasperry Pi variant out there. The functional equivalent of a Debian base install, including kernel, bootloader, and systemd init (approx. 350 MiB) is about 20 MiB (compressed) when built with Buildroot.
- mkj 7y ago
  Build a static binary (with musl perhaps) and put it in an initramfs at /init. An example https://github.com/mkj/rpi-flipflop/blob/main/Makefile#L9 https://github.com/mkj/rpi-flipflop/blob/main/Makefile#L9
eerimoq 7y ago
ARM is the only architecture I've used so far. =)

Gys 7y ago

As it is 'tiny' I think people expect some kind of size indication?

eerimoq 7y ago
The size depends on your Linux kernel configuration and user space application. My guess is that most distros will be a 5+ MB.

sys_64738 7y ago

I miss the days of running Linux from a single floppy with a complete development environment.

IndrekR 7y ago
When was that? I started using Linux in mid 90's and never recall a useful installation of that size. Single floppy rescue disc distros did not have room for C compiler and standard development libs IIRC.
- tpoindex 7y ago
  MuLinux could boot a Linux to a prompt, with minimal command line utilities. Extra floppies provided X11, GCC, Tcl, Perl, et. al. MuLinux formatted 3.5" floppies to 1.7mb and replaced many utilities with "rustic" versions written in /bin/sh. Fun stuff! Disclosure: I contributed the Tcl floppy and lpr/lpq/lprm utilities. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MuLinux https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MuLinux

buserror 7y ago

The readme isn't really up to date, but many years ago I started minifs to be the smallest, reproducible linux distro I can get away with. With extra tools like a 'cross linker' that removes /anything/ that isn't used on a filesystem before packing it. It's mostly bash. And a bit of C for tools. Works on ARM, whatever really, as long as there is a kernel and a toolchain. https://github.com/buserror/minifs https://github.com/buserror/minifs

rmdashrfstar 7y ago

What makes this different than Alpine?

eerimoq 7y ago
In Monolinux there is a single statically linked user space application (the init-process). Alpine has the traditional approach of many user space applications and shared libraries, if I'm not mistaken.