Development Build 2

A lot has happened since this released. One of the biggest things is readapting the musl C library. My motivation for that is the lightweightness of the core system (15MB vs 60MB), along with security and safety. The LiveCD Filesystem and Xiongnu init were also heavily modified. Instead of switch_rooting into the filesystem found on the image, it instead just remounts the initramfs in RAM and read-write, meaning changes can be made, but nothing will be retained when rebooted.

A SquashFS can solve this (if created using a USB drive), but that's for another time. StelaLinux at the moment is very minimal, with only core libraries and executables being installed. Libraries include the musl C library and ncurses, and binaries include the BusyBox userland, util-linux, and vim. The next release will focus on binaries and libraries for allowing StelaLinux to be installed to a real drive (e2fsprogs, zlib, etc).

StelaLinux, for the moment, will follow the most stable kernel, which included with this build is 5.5, instead of the latest LTS. This ensures StelaLinux gets the latest and greatest features. When a package manager eventually comes to StelaLinux, this will likely change, as ABI stability will become of great importance. RISCV and ARM (Raspberry Pi 4) support is also on the radar.

The StelaLinux Script, stela.sh, was also modified to treat toolchain packages the same as normal packages. It was also greatly rewritten to be a lot more functional. Eventually, the image function will be updated to create an EFI compatible bootable disk image.

New Features

• Read-Write LiveCD Filesystem which is loaded into RAM
• ncurses library, util-linux (cfdisk, etc), and vim text editor (overwrites vi)
• i686 support (i586 unofficially supported)

Specifications

• Linux Kernel 5.5.4 (Stable)
• musl C library (1.1.24)
• BusyBox 1.31.1 (Stable)
• Xiongnu Init (nova - heavily modified)

Side Note:

You should try Ataraxia Linux or other musl distributions like Void or Apline Linux. With numbers come power.

Development Build 1

After some experimentation with the musl C Library, I reached a roadblock that would require the musl toolchain to be generated locally. Not many people run musl-based Linux Distributions and only a few exist, so I found it impracticable (at the moment) to require the user to have to create a toolchain every time they want to build StelaLinux. For now, the project will adopt the GNU C Library due to it being found on most mainstream distributions, and being present on the StelaLinux Build Server. Unfortunately at the moment, the GNU C Library is very feature incomplete due to the mere size of it (only a minimal amount of the GNU C Library is installed by default). The StelaLinux ISO is also slightly larger.

New Features

Development Build is the new name for Technical Preview. This development build features similar functionality to StelaLinux Technical Preview 1, with the following changes:

• New default login user: root (password toor)
• TTY support instead of cttyhack
• Loss of 32-bit support (at the moment)
• Rewritten stelalinux.sh script
• StelaLinux Build Script Command (all) to build complete StelaLinux Build
• StelaLinux Build Variables

Specifications

Linux Kernel 5.4.3 (LTS)
GNU C Library: 2.30
BusyBox: 1.31.1 (Stable)
Xiongnu Init (nova): vGIT (12/14/19)

Side Note:

2020 will be the year of the Linux Desktop due to Microsoft replacing the NT Kernel with the Linux Kernel.

StelaLinux Technical Preview 1

After a lot of research to migrate from Glibc to musl (which requires its own Cross Compiler) and rewriting code from the messy StarLinux codebase, I am glad to announce the release of StelaLinux Technical Preview 1. Technical Previews are unscheduled releases of StelaLinux which can be used to show off the progress made. They will be released in the form of bootable ISOs whenever something large happens (the next one being when StelaLinux is installable, maybe). Development should be a lot faster as I have revived my old HP ProLiant, and the Linux Kernel (my biggest source package so far) takes about 6 minutes to build, compared to my laptop which took 12 or Digital Ocean which took 20.

New Feature

This Technical Preview shows off StelaLinux as a bootable (but barely usable and unsafe) Linux Distribution, which is a great step in the right direction. There is only x86_64 support (for now), but I plan on supporting the i486 architecture as StelaLinux can have a good use case for giving old machines a new life. An i486/i686 experimental build of StelaLinux Technical Preview 1 is also available.

Specifications

Linux Kernel: 5.4.2 (LTS)
BusyBox: 1.31.1 (Stable)
musl C Library: 1.1.24
Xiongnu Init: vGIT (12/8/19)

Side Note:

Nvidia's huge 2020 Linux announcement is going to involve Open Sourcing their Nvidia drivers (like AMD does). I'm calling it, and if that is the case StelaLinux's next goal will be supporting Steam (probably not soon).