om

I noticed the thread about putting togeather a bare-bones squeak linux
distribution and wish to contribute some suggestions.

The suggestions on the table were 
- to replace init with a squeak loader. and 
- to use the X server. 

As for init, there is a kernel parameter that lets you specify an
alternate init. It should be possible to add a lilo option to any
distribution that will boot squeak directly. 

Squeak should _NOT_ use X, as that would be redundant and wasteful. I
beleive that recient kernels have a "framebuffer" device of some sort.
Development should focus on using these. 

I should also mention that I have a dual-display setup. While I don't
use the second display frequently, it would be nice to have some
commands in the system to configure Squeak for multi-display operation.
As the system is now, it is extremely convenient as I can have a
full-screen squeak *and* a full screen linux session. 

Now as for creating a squeak only distribution, the chalenges are much
more significant as the system needs to be picked appart to discover
what is absolutly essential to proper operation. 

A major goal of any such distribution is to be fully self-maintaining.
It must provide the user the ability to maintain anything on the system.
The kernel consists of many thousands of lines of badly written C/C++ so
supporting GCC/binutils and a number of supporting packages is
unavoidable. Unfortunately these packages have many flaws including a
heavy dependancy on the unix-style file structures (which suck). 

It should not be terrably difficult to support these provided that
squeak can launch system-level processes using the same meathods init
does. On a squeak system that seeks to be a step on an evolution to pure
squeak, extranious software must be keept to the absolute minimum. 

After I work through the tutorials I would be glad to contribute to such
an effort as I think it is definetly a step towards better software.

-- 
Linux has more source code than my brain.
http://users.rcn.com/alangrimes/