The easiest way to build 'Minimal Linux Live' is to run the following script:
sh build_minimal_linux_live.sh
Note that the build process requires proper toolchain already installed and
configured. Check the project website for more information:
http://minimal.idzona.com
For Ubuntu and other Debian based operating systems you can use the following
command in order to resolve the required build dependencies:
sudo apt install wget make gawk gcc bc xorriso
Once you have your ISO image up and running perhaps you'd like to examine the
configuration file '.config' and see what options you have there. For example,
you can change the property 'OVERLAY_BUNDLES' and build your own flavor of MLL.
Currently available overlay bundles:
GLIBC - Set of all core GNU C libraries packaged together. Requires ~3MB
additional space. This overlay bundle is not host specific and
can always be built. The libraries are useful if you plan to use
more software after boot.
This overlay bundle depends on the GLIBC build process.
bosh_cli - BOSH command line tool. It can be used as landscape manager for
virtual network and server infrastructures in cloud environment,
e.g. AWS, Google Cloud, etc. The most common use case for this
tool is to create and manage Cloud Foundry infrastructures.
cf_cli - Cloud Foundry command line tool. It can be used to manage all
aspects of already existing Cloud Foundry installation, including
the full software development lifecycle in cloud environment.
cf_tools - This is metapackage which installs all BOSH and Cloud Foundry
tools. Note that in MLL context these tools are mostly useful
as remote managers for already existing BOSH and Cloud Foundry
cloud infrastructures.
coreutils - Set of commonly used GNU executable utilities.
dhcp - DHCP and DNS functionality to connect to the Internet.
dialog - Shell scripting library for ncurses
This overlay bundle requires ncurses
Dropbear - SSH server/client. Requires ~1MB additional space. The build
process creates user 'root' with password 'toor'. These are
sample commands which demonstrate how to use Dropbear:
SSH server (Alt + F1): dropbear -E -F
SSH client (Alt + F2): dbclient 10.0.2.15 -l root
This overlay bundle requires GLIBC.
Felix OSGi - Apache Felix OSGi framework. Requires ~2MB additional space. Use
the "felix-start" command to run the Apache Felix OSGi framework.
This overlay bundle requires JRE or JDK.
fio - I/O load generator that can simulate a wide variety of workloads
on RAM or disks. fio is essential for troubleshooting data
bottlenecks.
JRE / JDK - Oracle's JRE or JDK. Requires ~366MB additional space for JDK.
This overlay bundle requires some manual preparation steps. Refer
to the "JAVA_ARCHIVE" property in the ".config" file for more
detailed information.
This overlay bundle requires GLIBC. JDK 9 requires ZLIB.
kbd - Keyboard utilities and keymaps. For example, you can load
German keyboard layout like this:
loadkeys de
libevent - event notification library API provides a mechanism to execute a
callback function when a specific event occurs on a file
descriptor or after a timeout has been reached.
kexec_tools - Kexec tools, can be used to boot another kernel from userspace
Links - Text based browser. Requires ~1MB additional space. Use the
"links" command to activate the browser.
Open JDK - The open source JDK. No need for manual steps.
This overlay bundle requires GLIBC and ZLIB.
Lua - The Lua Scripting Language 5.3. Requires ~ 800kb additional
space. Use the "lua" command to run an interactive lua
interpreter.
make - GNU make utility
MLL Utils - Set of experimental shell scripts (mll-*.sh) which provide
additional functionality, e.g. installer and useful tools.
This overlay bundle is currently experimental and its build
process depends on the host machine.
MLL Source - This overlay bundle provides all MLL source code in the
directory 'usr/src'.
nano - Simple command-line text editor with on-screen shortcuts.
This overlay bundle requires ncurses.
ncurses - "GUI-like" API that runs within a terminal emulator.
nweb - nweb is a very small and easy to use webserver, it is run
automatically on port 80. To portforward port 80 from the
guest (minimal) to port 8080 on the host add
'-net nic,model=e1000 -net user,hostfwd=tcp::8080-:80' to
'cmd' in the qemu.sh file.
stress - Simple workload generator. Imposes a configurable amount of CPU,
memory, I/O, and disk stress on the system. stress is useful for
troubleshooting CPU and RAM.
util_linux - Set of executable utilities distributed by the Linux Kernel
similar to busybox or GNU Core Utils.
Some packages in this overlay bundle require ncurses.
vim - An advanced text editor that seeks to provide the power of
the de-facto Unix editor 'Vi', with a more complete feature
set.
This package will create symlinks on top of vi.
ZLIB - Software library used for data compression.
The overlay bundles can be found in this directory:
minimal_overlay/bundles
Each overlay bundle can have its own '.config' file. All properties in this
configuration file will override the same properties in the main 'config'
file. Also, each overlay bundle can declare list of bundle dependencies in
the file 'bundle_deps'. The bundles in this file are built before the main
bundle.
The overlay build system is independent from the main build system. However,
some bundles depend on build artifacts from the main build process, so it is
highly recommended to build MLL before you use the overlay build system.
You can build all bundles declared in the main '.config' file like this:
cd minimal_overlay
./overlay_build
You can build individual overlay bundle like this:
cd minimal_overlay
./overlay_build bundle_name
You can build more two or more bundles if you separate them with comma:
cd minimal_overlay
./overlay_build bundle_name_a,bundle_name_b,bundle_name_c
The simplest way to add something to MLL is to put whatever you want in
the following folder:
minimal_overlay/rootfs
The content of this folder becomes visible at runtime. You can add your
own software or configurations. The content in this folder takes higher
priority which means that you can override everything which is provided
by Minimal Linux Live.
As already mentioned, the main configuration file is '.config'. It is
extensively documented and you can refer to it for detailed information
regarding all configuration properties.
### ### ###
I only provide the build scripts. It's entirely up to you to configure and
prepare your build environment. I use Linux Mint and Ubuntu, both 32 and 64 bit
editions. Your distribution might have different build dependencies but most of
the time there is a single meta-package which installs most of the stuff that
you need.
The build proces is slow, so be prepared to wait. In the end you should have
the ISO image file 'minimal_linux_live.iso' in the same folder where you
started the build process. You can burn the ISO image on CD/DVD or (better) run
it with PC emulator like QEMU or VirtualBox.
