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introduction

hdwlinux is a collection of shell scripts automating the build process of a user defined linux distribution. if everything works fine only three commands are necessary to 'puzzle' the configuration, 'download' the sources and finally 'build' the target.

the build process is seperated in three parts. at the beginning an appropriate toolchain is build, containing compiler, linker and the c library. with the help of these host independent tools a temporary environment is created in step two. as a last step this 'sandbox' is used to produce a clean build of the target system.

work is still in progress. in the future crossbuilds will be possible. using the toolchain concept mentioned above, the basic functionality is allready implemented.

there are a couple of predefined distributions / targets for unexperienced users . nevertheless it is easy to create your own compilation of packages contained in your personal distribution. as simple shell scripts are used hacking modifications to the code is generally not that difficult.

hdw-get is the hdwlinux packetmanager. once the target system is build binary packages can be created which may be installed/removed by hdw-get. hdw-get is able to fetch packages via internet and may install a whole distribution reading from a package list file.

there are by now no install disks. though there are quite a few possibilities to install hdw. one reason for not investigating in install disks is the more easy fai (fully automated install) method, a powerfull concept to install a maximum of computers at minimum cost.

motivation

why did i do that? well, there are many reasons ...

usual distributions simply suck. they are not optimized. they are patched. they are included in a way the distribution maintainer thinks it is good. single packages are often splitted in more than one package (libraries/headers - ok, that may have advantages too). that's why i dedcided to take a look at lfs (linux from scratch) and started to build my optimized, minimal patched, not bloated linux system with packages installed according to the authors idea.

having automated the lfs procedure with simple scripts i recognized one of the coolest proojects ever. rock linux - the distribution build kit. i used it for quite a while. i wanted to join development but things were too hard for me to understand so i decided to do it from scratch. that's what hdwlinux is all about. be prepared to hit a mixture of the lfs build method and a rock-like script structure (though not far as advanced as rocklinux).

the idea of the fai install method arised while working for the system administrator of the physics institute i am studying at. they use fai for debian to install their linux boxes. hdw fai is more simple ofcourse. though it's the prefered method installing fresh build hdw targets on my computers using at most a single floppy if the box does not support pxe boot.

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