[Nottingham] PiXiE distibution

[Michael Erskine]

Hi folks,

After blabbing about my miniature distribution at last night's meeting,
I thought I should let people take a look at it. it is called "PiXiE"
and has a temporary home at one of my other projects at...

   http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/tvlistings/pixie_1.zip?download=20

This package consists of the /tftpboot dir that resides on a Linux or
Windows DHCP/boot server. One can take a look at the contents of the
ramdisk (initrd) by mounting it thus...

   mount initrd /mnt -t cramfs -o loop

...and one may get a better feel of it by...

   chroot /mnt

...but to run it, one would need a Via Eden machine (see
http://www.mini-itx.com/) -- although theoretically it should run on a
typical i386 with pxe, via rhine lan, Trident Blade3D gfx, & 256mb ram.
The startup procedure is pretty straightforward...

init -> /etc/inittab -> ::sysinit:/etc/pixie.init -> ...

I would very much like to demonstrate it at the Feb meeting -- by then I
will have organised a good housing for the little boards.

Regards,

Michael.


Michael Erskine
Senior Software Engineer
Jasmin Simtec Limited
michael.erksine@jasmin.plc.uk