lesslinux.org Development Blog

In the third stage the final ISO image is assembled. To assemble the ISO you need an overlay with some fixes and the bootloader configuration. Eventually the bootloader configuration can be automatically generated – but not for now. Since assembling stage03 is basically calculating dependencies, copying files from the chroot environment, compressing the squashfs containers and finalizing the ISO image, this stage is usually done in 20 to 40 minutes. Mehr »

I recently assembled the build script to compile a completely free and open version of the Rescue System that started life as “Computerbild Notfall-CD 2.0″. The free version is dubbed “LessLinux Search and Rescue” and can be easily modified to build your own derivates. In the next three days I will guide you through the whole build process (kind of real time).

Currently the only supported build environment is VMware, this means you must have either VMware Workstation, VMware Player (Win, Linux) or VMware Fusion (Mac OS X) installed. Player is sufficient, since the build environments are considered as some kind of “disposable environment”. Note that the VMware image expands to up to 80GB, to prevent fragmentation and reach best performance you might want to put it on a separate partition. Mehr »

I apologize for not writing in the last few months. A lot of things happened since:

• Computer Bild Russia had the LessLinux based Sicher Surfen as Cover Disc in January
• Computer Hoi did same same
• Komputer Swiat Poland will follow in the next days
• Computer Bild Germany had a “Banking CD” with a very strict SMACK ruleset in January
• Data Becker uses a LessLinux based burning tool on the cover CDs of Linux Intern

In the meanwhile I am busy upgrading, including new software and opening the development. If you want to help, please grab one of the test builds from download.lesslinux.org/testing/, run it and tell me, what attracts you and what doesn’t fit your needs.

If the testbuild should not start in you language, press “Tab” in the boot menu and change lang=de to lang=en (or ru, pl or es — other languages are just partially supported.

Despite the lack of posts in this blog the work on LessLinux not just continues, but LessLinux even had it’s first big appearance: Computer Bild 19/2009 had a cover mounted CD that was based on LessLinux and co-developed together with the BSI and the TUV Rheinland. The goal was to make a live CD that is easy to use for first time Linux users but also more secure than the general purpose live disk.

Features include:

• Usage of SMACK to allow internet access for certain programs only
• Kernel hardened with PaX to limit the risk of buffer overflows
• Password protection for the access to disks and USB sticks
• Installable on USB thumb drives with encrypted container for the home file system
• Easily updatebale when installed on a thumb drive
• More secure firefox defaults

You might download a developer snapshot from here. Please note: The developer snapshot might contain laxer privileges on some security settings and it is not in the update stream. Default language of the CD is German, you might change it to English by pressing Tab in the boot menu and appending lang=de.

Build lesslinux-20090626-1010.iso lesslinux-20090626-1435.iso fixes firmware loading issues with lots of WLAN cards and adds some new applications (Evince Document Viewer, Gnumeric Spreadsheet, AbiWord, File-Roller):

The current development builds of LessLinux use a simple mechanism to create hardware protocols. Just plug in a FAT formatted USB stick (it should be partioned, superfloppy might work but will not be supported forever) that contains an folder hwinfo in the root directory of the stick. You might also specify the boot variable hwid=… to a unique identifier (like the PC brand and model).

I would be very happy if you sent me as many hardware protocols as possible. Please note: hardware protocols might contain data that allows to uniquely identify a single machine. In environments where this is a problem you might open the archive in hwinfo and just send me the files you wish.

To edit the boot line, just press Tab: Mehr »

Here we go again. I just included the base ALSA files, some kernel modules and device nodes to make sure sound is working.

Currently sound is muted after boot, so you have to run alsamixer and use the key M to unmute front and PCM (OO is unmuted). Use the arrow keys to change the volume. It should look like in the screenshot.

You can grab screenshots now by pressing Shift+F12. Screenshots are saved as PNG files in /tmp/screenshot_YYYYMMDD-hhmmss.png.

I included some more firmware for Zydas and Ralink cards, please test if your WLAN interface is detected correctly and can be used with WICD.

Some words according fast boots: You can skip copying to RAM by pressing the TAB key in the boot menu and setting the variable toram=700000 to an insanely high value toram=9999999999. You might also want to skip the hardware protocol (which consumes lots of time) by adding hwproto|hwinfo| to the variable skipservices.

Download build lesslinux-20090625-1240.iso!

Next step: I included the wireless tools, wpa_supplicant and WICD as a graphical frontend. All PCI and USB cards supported by the Vanilla kernel 2.6.29.5 should now be automatically loaded. I re-built the kernel with support for some staging drivers. Firmware for WLAN cards is included for Ralink cards, other firmwares and an update to 2.6.30 should follow in the next days.

Since I do not have included a screenshot application yet, a blurry shot made with my digicam:

Other changes:

• Firefox updated to 3.0.11
• Thunderbird 2.0.0.21 included

Another build, another new tool: mmmm is a simple yet efficient mount manager that clearly shows to which physical drive a volume belongs:

mmmm is built around the XML output of lshw and uses just Ruby and Ruby/Gtk. No DBUS, HAL or Policy Kit required which makes it attractive for builds that try to be as light as possible.

The interface of mmmm is clearly inspired by GtkMount of the Pmagic live distribution, but using the XML output of lshw is a bit more precise than just parsing “fdisk -l”.

TODO: mmmm is very usable right now, but for the future a button to reread devices would be nice.

Please test: Please test the latest build (lesslinux-20090604-1326) and tell me if mmmm correctly finds all your volumes. You might also send me your hardware information, so I can debug possible problems more easily.

Update: A small bug in mmmm prevents extended partitions from being correctly detected. A fixed build lesslinux-20090608-1708 is available.

Another major step is done: An easy to use graphical frontend is added to adjust some final settings before starting into the desktop. The functions currently implemented are:

1. Start of the X-Server to automatically detect the graphics card:

   

2. Install LessLinux to an USB stick:

   

3. Use or create encrypted containers:

   

4. Set the user password:

   

5. Adjust monitor driver and resolution:

   

Currently installation to USB stick and creation of encrypted containers does not do a check of free space. So you have to take care yourself. Besides that those functions work very well.

If you want to help, plese download the latest development build and run it.

Other improvements:

• Many updates of individual packages
• Xvesa not the only Xserver anymore, Xorg with drivers or Ati, Nvidia, Intel and Openchrome added
• Mousewheel now works in Xvesa
• XFCE updated to 4.6.1

Please provide feedback: I would be thankful if you provided me with some feedback regarding graphics and resolution on your hardware. If something does not work perfectly, please describe the problem and send me you hardware information so I can work on a solution. You might prepare an USB stick with an empty folder “hwinfo”. LessLinux writes an archive with lots of hardware information to this folder. Send me the content along with a description of your problem and I will try to solve it.

What’s next: I am now working on separating message strings from the tools to prepare some internationalization. WLAN support also has a high priority and the mount tool should follow soon.

Where to get it: Please download Lesslinux build 20090528-0856 from download.lesslinux.org/testing/