Small debian based server distribution

[Oron Peled]

On Wednesday, 27 בOctober 2010 13:44:27 Nadav Har'El wrote:
> On Wed, Oct 27, 2010, Elazar Leibovich wrote about "Small debian based 
server distribution":
> > I'm looking for a debian compatible distribution (so that I'll be able to
> > use debian's security updates, and enjoy the breadth of packages etc) 
which
> > will be small and will contain only the bare minimum for a functional 
server
> I once did something like this for Redhat.
> 
> Basically, I took all the redhat RPMs and wrote a script which takes a list
> of RPMs and opens them up in a directory, which I later copied to the target
> machine. Choosing the right set of RPMs took some experimentation, but 
wasn't
> too difficult. I ended up with a Linux system with sshd, busybox, httpd,
> and not much more, in much less than 100 MB.

Hmmm.... you actually did a BadThing(tm) -- totally bypassing the package
management mechanisms:
 * No dependency tracking -- you selected the packages by trial and error.
   You cannot be sure you didn't miss some dependencies:
   - Maybe some runtime dependency which you'll hit only when the
     dependent software pass via some (maybe rarely used) code path.
   -  Maybe the an updated package would have new dependencies.
      are you going to do a regression testing every time?

 * No pre/post install/uninstall  scripts are run:
    - Sometimes it's critical (e.g: adding a specific user)
    - On embedded systems, should be run on the target, not the
      development host.
    - Debian's packages support it (separate install and configure stages)
      [Debian's debootstrap(1) use this feature: look for the --foreign
      options]

 * After debootstraping, you can always chroot into the generated
      tree and use APT to install/remove *with* dependency information
 * All of this is pretty trivial to script.


-- 
Oron Peled                                 Voice: +972-4-8228492
oron at actcom.co.il                  http://users.actcom.co.il/~oron
A train stops at a trainstation, a bus stops at a bustation,
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