Hello Jeff I've been able to get a standard 5.2 Redhat Linux distribution down to an uncompressed footprint of 4.3 MB. I haven't tried compressing it, but my guess is it will tarball down between 2 and 3 MB. Keep in mind I've done no size optimization other than hacking away binaries and libraries that weren't essential to my application. Also keep in mind the tarballing approach economizes 'eprom' at the expense of RAM for a ramdisk. There are others (e.g. www.linuxrouter.org www.trinux.org) who have gone much further by carefully selecting or even writing binaries that are small and require the minimum number of libraries. These distributions have been crafted to comfortably fit on a floppy. I'm not aware of any projects trying to produce the absolutely smallest Linux possible. I've heard tale of 1MB Linux distributions running in 2MB of RAM, but unfortunately have nothing solid to point to. Theoretically I suppose the minimum would consist of the kernel and the basic gcc runtime library which would easily push 1MB. If I were trying to produce the smallest Linux possible for deeply embedded work, I'd start by stripping down the kernel, compiling only the required drivers into the kernel, and writing the app in assembler and C to run as init. I'm sending this email to the general list with the hope it will draw comment from someone who has built or knows about a microLinux distribution. Also to check if there is any interest in seeing the 4.3MB Redhat distribution posted and beat on. Best of luck, Mark -----Original Message----- From: Wass <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Tuesday, April 27, 1999 8:33 PM Subject: Hello World C program > >HI Mark, > > I'm curious how your Hello World linux smallest-footprint >distro is coming. What I'd like to know is exactly how small the >ROM footprint is, and also what you expect the minimum memory >requirements would be (note - i may need to load the ROM into RAM >for bootup). Okay, let me explain. I'm currently taking a class where >we run through both analog/digital electronics in a single semester. >the second half of digital we build a computer at the chip level. We >are using the 68008 CPU, and 32k RAM right now. However, there is >a final project starting in a few weeks, and I may ambitiously attempt >to get linux running on a similar system. I'd definitely need more >RAM mind you, which is why I'd like to know the size of the OS and >necessary free space. The 68008 can access 1MB of RAM, and I can >scale the RAM as needed. I would also most likely program the OS into >an EPROM, and either load the EPROM into RAM at bootup, or (seems more >difficult now) let ROM and RAM coexist in different memory locations. > If necessary, I may be able to change CPU's to a 68000, which >can access 4MB of memory space, and also has a 16 bit external data >bus (which may make accessing 8-bit wide ram a little more difficult). >I could shell out money to buy larger RAM's and/or ROM's, but I would like >the chip footprint to be able to fit into the standard .1" breadboard >sockets. > How possible do you think such a project would be? My knowledge >of linux's relationship with hardware is minimal at best, and I >imagine I'd be up late working on device drivers to communicate with the >data buses and chinsy hex keypad inputs. But it would teach me alot >about both embedded systems and a very deep understanding of interfacing >w/ linux. > > In the long run, I'd be very interested in helping you develop >this project further, I'd like to see minimal linux distros become >available. Maybe even so scaled down they aren't really linux any >more, but something very similar (and convered by the GPL, of course). >Maybe running on Z80 and other similar low-end processors. > Am I just dreaming here? Please let me know what you think. > > Hope to hear from you, > > - Jeff Wasserman >
