[uml-devel] UML "Distro" ?

[uml-devel] UML "Distro" ?

[roland]

Hi folks, 

I would like to hear your opinion if it`s worth thinking about a "UML Linux Distribution".

It could be based on another distro (debian? fedora?) and contain:

- A setup for installation of a minimalistic, UML-"ready" base system - call it a "UML 
  runtime environment". That means: Recent and skas/sysemu-patched kernel(2.6), modules, 
  X, uml-utilities, screen, scripts, bridge-utils......
- Pre-configured environment (bridge setup,tmpfs,mountpoints...)
- some UML kernels
- basic root-filesystems "ready to run"

This could be valuable to people who want to get UML run quickly at good performance or want 
to roll it out in larger environments

What do you think ?

( ) Ohhhh - nooooo, not another Distro!
( ) probably useful to make setup/usage of UML easier
( ) becoming useless, if skas/sysemu go into vanilla kernel

:)

regards
Roland




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Re: [uml-devel] UML "Distro" ?

[Cameron Patrick]

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roland wrote:

> I would like to hear your opinion if it`s worth thinking about a
> "UML Linux Distribution".

Sounds like an eminently sensible idea to me :-)

> It could be based on another distro (debian? fedora?) and contain:

My personal bias would be to base it on Debian, as it is generally
quite readily hackable, and has a lot of the infrastructure to support
UML already there.  Dunno, I don't think it really matters that much.

> - A setup for installation of a minimalistic, UML-"ready" base
> system - call it a "UML runtime environment". That means: Recent and
> skas/sysemu-patched kernel(2.6), modules, X, uml-utilities, screen,
> scripts, bridge-utils......

Is having X installed really desirable most of the time?  Most of the
uses for this distro would be on servers, and having X on the host
makes maintaining the distro harder for relatively little benefit.

> - Pre-configured environment (bridge setup,tmpfs,mountpoints...)

Scripts to make it easy to add and remove UML guest instances would
also be quite useful -- especially if it could take care of having
UMLs running as their own user id (for security reasons) and setting
up a root filesystem.

> - basic root-filesystems "ready to run"

Or alternatively, including tools like rootstrap to make generating
root fs'es easy?

Cameron.


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Re: [uml-devel] UML "Distro" ?

[Henrik Nordstrom]

On Thu, 21 Oct 2004, Cameron Patrick wrote:

> Is having X installed really desirable most of the time?  Most of the
> uses for this distro would be on servers, and having X on the host
> makes maintaining the distro harder for relatively little benefit.

It would probably make sense to have the X libraries and some clients, but 
probably not worth it to try to maintain X servers other than virtual 
ones such as VNC or NX.

Regards
Henrik


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Re: [uml-devel] UML "Distro" ?

[Michael Richardson]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----


>>>>> "Henrik" == Henrik Nordstrom <uml@hno.marasystems.com> writes:
    >> Is having X installed really desirable most of the time?  Most of
    >> the uses for this distro would be on servers, and having X on the
    >> host makes maintaining the distro harder for relatively little
    >> benefit.

    Henrik> It would probably make sense to have the X libraries and
    Henrik> some clients, but probably not worth it to try to maintain X
    Henrik> servers other than virtual ones such as VNC or NX.

  I concur. When I run multiple UMLs, I often use rxvt's to display to
my desk, and our default vty support uses xterms..

  I would like to be able to recommend this distro for people who want
to work on Openswan with UMLs. 
  This also is a good base for people who want to work on UML code itself.

  I would recommend that some scripts/mirrors that can mirror
source/patches from sf.net, and yes, build root images.
  I also think debian is a good system to base things on, and it would
ideal if one could also install the "umlstuff" package to an existing
debian system.

- --
]     "Elmo went to the wrong fundraiser" - The Simpson         |  firewalls  [
]   Michael Richardson,    Xelerance Corporation, Ottawa, ON    |net architect[
] mcr@xelerance.com      http://www.sandelman.ottawa.on.ca/mcr/ |device driver[
] panic("Just another Debian GNU/Linux using, kernel hacking, security guy"); [
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[uml-devel] Re: [uml-user] UML "Distro" ?

[NTEK Technologies]

My company is already working on such distro, but we're targetting server
market, so no X or any fancy desktop stuff... our distro is based on Trustix
Secure Linux 2.0, with our own enhancements.

Harri
http://www.ntek.tk

> Hi folks,
>
> I would like to hear your opinion if it`s worth thinking about a "UML
Linux Distribution".
>
> It could be based on another distro (debian? fedora?) and contain:
>
> - A setup for installation of a minimalistic, UML-"ready" base system -
call it a "UML
>   runtime environment". That means: Recent and skas/sysemu-patched
kernel(2.6), modules,
>   X, uml-utilities, screen, scripts, bridge-utils......
> - Pre-configured environment (bridge setup,tmpfs,mountpoints...)
> - some UML kernels
> - basic root-filesystems "ready to run"
>
> This could be valuable to people who want to get UML run quickly at good
performance or want
> to roll it out in larger environments
>
> What do you think ?
>
> ( ) Ohhhh - nooooo, not another Distro!
> ( ) probably useful to make setup/usage of UML easier
> ( ) becoming useless, if skas/sysemu go into vanilla kernel
>
> :)
>
> regards
> Roland
>
>
>
>
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[uml-devel] Re: [uml-user] UML "Distro" ?

[Gerd Knorr]

"roland" <for_spam@gmx.de> writes:

> What do you think ?
> 
> ( ) Ohhhh - nooooo, not another Distro!
> ( ) probably useful to make setup/usage of UML easier
> ( ) becoming useless, if skas/sysemu go into vanilla kernel

[x] Distributions already working on it ;)

SuSE ships uml + skas-patched kernels for quite some time.  The other
stuff also slowly moves forward to better UML support, the yast2
installer runs just fine within a UML environment for example.

Debian also has uml packages (havn't tested them through).

  Gerd

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Re: [uml-devel] Re: [uml-user] UML "Distro" ?

[Geert Uytterhoeven]

On Thu, 21 Oct 2004, Gerd Knorr wrote:
> "roland" <for_spam@gmx.de> writes:
> > What do you think ?
> > 
> > ( ) Ohhhh - nooooo, not another Distro!
> > ( ) probably useful to make setup/usage of UML easier
> > ( ) becoming useless, if skas/sysemu go into vanilla kernel
> 
> [x] Distributions already working on it ;)
> 
> SuSE ships uml + skas-patched kernels for quite some time.  The other
> stuff also slowly moves forward to better UML support, the yast2
> installer runs just fine within a UML environment for example.
> 
> Debian also has uml packages (havn't tested them through).

Put AFAIK the standard Debian kernels don't contain the SKAS patch. They do
ship kernel-patch-skas as a separate package.

Gr{oetje,eeting}s,

						Geert

--
Geert Uytterhoeven -- There's lots of Linux beyond ia32 -- geert@linux-m68k.org

In personal conversations with technical people, I call myself a hacker. But
when I'm talking to journalists I just say "programmer" or something like that.
							    -- Linus Torvalds


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Re: [uml-devel] Re: [uml-user] UML "Distro" ?

[kaz]

Gerd Knorr wrote:
> "roland" <for_spam@gmx.de> writes:
> 
>>What do you think ?
>>
>>( ) Ohhhh - nooooo, not another Distro!
>>( ) probably useful to make setup/usage of UML easier
>>( ) becoming useless, if skas/sysemu go into vanilla kernel
> 
> [x] Distributions already working on it ;)
> 
> SuSE ships uml + skas-patched kernels for quite some time.  The other
> stuff also slowly moves forward to better UML support, the yast2
> installer runs just fine within a UML environment for example.

You can give UML a try in a live-cd manner with Knoppix Japanese edition
which supports UML, available at; http://unit.aist.go.jp/it/knoppix/uml/
Also FreeNX server and IPv6 are supported, too.

> Debian also has uml packages (havn't tested them through).

uml debian packages may have been removed from sarge recently.
Debian only apply patches listed at;
http://user-mode-linux.sourceforge.net/dl-sf.html
and not applying incremental patches at;
http://user-mode-linux.sourceforge.net/patches.html

Jeff, could you please kindly update patches at dl-sf.html ?




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Re: [uml-devel] Re: [uml-user] UML "Distro" ?

[Jeff Dike]

shigekazun@yahoo.co.jp said:
> Jeff, could you please kindly update patches at dl-sf.html ? 

I'll update the 2.4 patch when I next merge stuff into it.

At this point, I'm planning on not releasing 2.6 patches any more.  UML is
in the stock kernel, so I don't see any reason so release the traditional
patch.

				Jeff



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