On 10 August 2016 at 08:47, Eli Cohen <echoline_AT_gmail.com> wrote:
> What's the plan for stali? I was under the impression it would be a
> "suckless distro" with dwm, surf, st... will X11 stuff be in a
> different repository?
The stali plan has changed for me a bit during the last year. A couple
of months ago I tried to get stali self-bootstrappable based on just
src/. I have now given up on this idea for various reasons:
- I don't think it is really the point of stali to become a general
purpose system anymore.
- I can't stand the hideousness of gcc and llvm which seem to be a
requirement to get it done
- I wasn't able to create a statically linked cross target gcc setup
that is easy to port among different hosts/targest (host=target works,
but it sucks).
If one wants a general purpose system, there are plenty to pick from.
Granted, there are 0 statically linked ones. And that's the point. A
statically linked system *should not* be general purpose, it ought to
be special purpose instead.
The special purpose I think stali now will become is this: it will be
a multi-target static distro (pick your root fs flavour as you like)
without aiming to be self-bootstrappable. The target will most likely
be fully compiler- and build-chain less. This makes the target system
execution-only oriented and more compact. My next goal is to target
the arm64 (pi3) platform now.
In terms of "package management" this has also the implication, that
one can thing of extra/ add-on overlays that keep src/ sane. And such
ending up in the particular rootfs flavour. Whenever someone wants to
part a certain package to stali, just create a setup that relies on
the fact that $STALI_ROOT/src and $STALI_ROOT/toolchain-<arch> exists
and good is. We will need general purpose (Debian, Gentoo, Arch,
whatever) build environments though.
(I will present some ideas at slcon3 about actual projects I'm working
on right now in terms of observing my bee hives with pi zeros that
will become stali based.)
Some days ago I branched src's master into a x86_64 branch, this will
aim for a very basic suckless target system featuring an X +
dwm/dmenu/st on top of the base system, Potentially with the addition
of a webkitgtk + surf static build.
My current arm64 branch will aim for a X-less target of course with
only the absolutely necessary stuff. I will create some extra repos on
top of that for some observation tools using different pi gadgets,
such as temp+humidity sensors and a IR camera.
> I tried to do something similar on my lan when I first heard of stali,
> with a bunch of overlaid rsync repositories. I guess I'm mostly
> curious about how i can help :)
Any help is welcome under the new premises above. I think it is kind
of a hygene factor to not aim for a self-bootstrappable environment.
The beauty is that target platform, not the src/. The src/ is hideous
in most parts anyways, if you consider what stali relies on.
BR,
Anselm
Received on Thu Aug 11 2016 - 09:44:45 CEST