lesslinux.org Development Blog

About one and a half years ago I started implementing suport for the possibility to persistently add binary applications to LessLinux. This enables adding closed source binary only software without polluting the open source build tree. BLOB support was used in a commercial derivative to include TeamViewer. Now it is also possible to add Google Chrome – quite some users requested this feature since Chrome has very good multimedia support and implements a remote desktop solution.

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I just finished initial tests on a fresh development build for LessLinux Search and Rescue. Kernel is 3.15.9 and more than 100 packages have been updated. This thing feels quite stable, but there are reasons not to mark it stable yet:

• Booting via HTTP or FTP will fail with this image since the tmpfs where the ISO is stored is too small. This will soon be fixed in upcoming images by providing an appropriate cheat code.

• The BusyBox 1.21.1 built against uClibc has been replaced by BusyBox 1.22.1 linked against musl-libc – this should allow some cleanups in all init scripts as well as removing the statically linked modprobe binary in the initramfs.

• There are a few statically linked (against glibc) binaries in the initramfs currently that either will be moved to musl or entirely removed. The new update procedure might allow the removal of xdelta3 from the initramfs for example.

• Of course kernel 3.16 has to be added and tested. Expect this to happen with 3.16.1

But for most usage scenarios this unstable build will perform better and more stable than recent stable versions. Escpecially when booted from DVD or USB. Now, go, grab it here:

lesslinux-search-and-rescue-uluru-20140811-134719.iso