AMPArch Linux 1.0 Alpha (Update: Alpha 2 as of 6/29)

Question

hi all,
For about the past month and a half or so I've been working on an installable live CD "distribution" based on Arch Linux and the Larch scripts (http://larch.berlios.de).  My goals have changed and broadened, where at the beginning I just hoped to write some configuration scripts that would fully configure a minimal system, when I found Larch I decided to just create the ISO myself, and things moved quickly from there.
AMPArch Linux is one part Arch Linux (2008-04-rc), and one part Larch installable liveCD.  My philosphy is to keep things as simple as possible, have one program for each task, and try not to get in the way too much.  The desktop environment is based on OpenBox, PCManFM (desktop, wallpaper, file manager), PyPanel, and Wbar (quick launcher).  I've included GUI configuration tools where possible, and even written a few GUI utilities of my own for the project, such as amp-calendar (lets you view AND change the system date/time), and amp-exit, a custom exit widget with buttons for shutdown, restart, logout, hibernate, and standby.  In the future, I will provide more such utilities to facilitate doing everyday tasks through the GUI.
Right now, AMPArch is in Alpha stage, which means that everything I have in mind for 1.0 is implemented and working for me, but there may be issues.  I would appreciate it if people could download the ISO, give it a shot (works great in a VM), and tell me what they think.  You can read more and see screenshots at my website:
Website: http://atticus.angryhosting.com/amparch/
Edit:  There is now a torrent up at linuxtorrents.org.  I am currently the only one seeding, at the rate of 30KB/s, so more seeders are welcome
Last edited by Atticus (2008-06-29 23:45:45)

Answer 1

godane wrote:I think the best way of doing this is to use archiso scripts used for archlinux livecds. But to do it somethings are going to have to chanage in it to make it into a modular design livecd like slax.
I like the slax design as a live system, but I think it might be a little over-complicated for some uses. The module orientation (which certainly has advantages) instead of the package orientation takes it a little further away from the underlying Arch system, which could have disadvantages. I suppose maintenance is then done at the module level?
Are there any consequences of this modular design for data persistence (what I have called session saving in larch)?
godane wrote:
2) Were going to need to add find command to klibc for doing the modular design. This is so we can find all sqaushfs files (to find all .sqfs files) and added them in to unionfs.
3) We need to be able to added/remove modules to/from union when its running. This is so it can work more like a slax system.
Maybe you won't need a klibc based 'find'. If you can implement point 3, I guess you can find and load your various modules after loading a base module with the required utilities.
Alternatively (if you really want to do more fancy stuff in the initramfs) it is possible to use the code within a module from the initramfs environment by mounting it (it doesn't even need to be within a union) and using chroot (together with 'mount -o bind' if necessary). An example for this sort of thing is the way the larch initramfs scripts use tar and lzop from the main system squashfs file. No special klibc versions of these utilities are necessary.
I would also have another question to this modular approach, regarding installation. I note that many (all?) slax/linux-live based distributions do not offer genuine (i.e. equivalent to the original underlying distribution's non-live installer) hard-disk installation. For example, I believe there is some reason or other why it is not really possible (or is it just not recommended?) to install a normal slackware system from slax. Is this inherent in the design? Is it something that can be overcome? I ask because one of the aims of AMPArch and the larch scripts is that the live system can be used to install Arch Linux to hard disk, in a completely equivalent way to the standard Arch installation, but pre-configured to some extent (and thus for some users more conveniently).
But actually this thread was about the existing AMPArch, I think this modular discussion might be a bit off-topic and should probably be done elsewhere.
Last edited by gradgrind (2008-06-28 14:30:00)