Re: The Kernel

[Paul Anderson <paul@geeky1.ebtech.net>]

On Thu, 22 Jan 1998, William T Wilson wrote:

> 
> We need to specify, then where the core ends and distribution liberties
> begin.  
>
What does it take to boot Linux with only 2Megs of diskspace?  There you
have your core.  The ABSOLUTE MINIMUM essentials.  vmlinuz, LILO,
/sbin/init, just the basics.  Then we package them as a dist devel kit,
including utils for making install disks, a library with some functions
for installers, etc.  I beleiv core version numbers should be in the form
of dates, like core-012198.  Say you have core-012198, which(say) has
2.0.29 kernel, libc6, init version xx.  Now, say sometime down the road
libc7 comes out, and ld.so is updated, etc.  Then kernel 2.4 would need
these updated versions as well, and you'd get the whole thing in a core
upgrade package.  You have two things: The Distribution Devel Kit(perhaps
with a special utility for handling ONLY core upgrades), and core itself.
You could put the latest core in your current dir(core-041298.gz, say),
you'd then run:
core --upgrade
Reboot, and you'd be laughing.  For the internal core versions(and the
version of core itself) you'd do:
core --version
etc.
IMHO, that's the way we should implement core.  TTYL!


                            ---
                        Paul Anderson
		   paul @ geeky1.ebtech.net
    Author of Star Spek(a tongue in cheek pun on Star trek)
e-mail: starspek-request@lowdown.com with subscribe as the subject
I hear it's hilarious.               Maintainer of the Tips-HOWTO.
          http://www.netcom.com/~tonyh3/speck.html
I write all my critical routines in assembler, and my comedy routines in FORTRAN.