Last week, I built a tiny Linux system from scratch, and booted it on my laptop!
Here’s what it looked like:
Let me tell you how I got there.
I wanted to learn more about how the Linux kernel works, and what’s involved in booting it. So I set myself the goal to cobble together the bare neccessities required to boot into a working shell.
In the end, I had a tiny Linux system with a size of 2.5 MB, which I could boot from a USB stick on my laptop!
What you’ll get out of this article:
- A better understanding of what happens when your computer boots Linux.
- What terms like bzImage, initrd and UEFI mean.
- Ideas for how to deal with the problems that I encountered.
- And if you haven’t used Nix, it might be interesting to see how I used it to manage the tools and libraries I needed.
Nice Framework btw
Very cool post man!
Very nice! Small is beautiful, isn't it?
Are you familiar with ELKS, the Embeddable Linux Kernel Subset? You might find it interesting/helpful.
ELKS is a project providing a Linux-like OS for systems based on the Intel IA16 architecture (16-bit processors: 8086, 8088, 80188, 80186, 80286, NEC V20, V30 and compatibles). Such systems are ancient computers (IBM-PC XT / AT and clones) as well as more recent SBCs, SoCs, and FPGAs. ELKS supports networking and installation to HDD using both MINIX and FAT file systems.