[aklug] Re: More questions about assembling Linux

> 1) Is there a good, tiny drop-in shell that a guy could use instead of
> bash (for a very small Linux system)?

> I guess Bash probably has to be installed anyway, for most applications,
> but I am still curious if there is something more lightweight.

ash comes to mind though I've never used it, a few other 'tiny' distros do.

Also 'busybox'. Also used by a lot of other tiny or embedded systems. The actual
binary is large (upwards of 2M if I remember right), but supposedly that's compensated
by the other binaries that are not required.

And no, bash (or ksh or ...) does not necessarily have to be installed; in fact
theoretically you don't -need- a shell, though practically I can't imagine not putting
at least a minimal one in.

> 2) Is udev a required component, or can you just copy in a set of static
> dev files?

no, udev is not required at all. I don't think udev even hit the mainstream until 5-6
years ago. Static 'files' work just fine in the sense that everything in unix is a
'file' (I used them myself, a looong time ago), but they are actually called 'nodes',
and are made with the 'mknod' command. Be careful to get the node type (block,
character) and permissions correct.

> If static works, are these static files part of a package on
> the Internet somewhere?

I'm sure there is. Check on the gentoo sites as a first suggestion. Or maybe LFS. Or
just copy over a similar /dev tree and trim as desired.

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Received on Thu Sep 16 16:20:04 2010