Small debian based server distribution

[Nadav Har'El]

On Wed, Oct 27, 2010, Oron Peled wrote about "Re: Small debian based server distribution":
> Hmmm.... you actually did a BadThing(tm) -- totally bypassing the package
> management mechanisms:
>  * No dependency tracking -- you selected the packages by trial and error.
>...
>  * No pre/post install/uninstall  scripts are run:
>...

Actually, those things *were* done, because if I remember correctly (this
was years ago, and I can't find the code now...) I used "rpm --root" to
open the RPMs, and at the same time do all the normal dependency checking,
post/pre-install scripts, and so on. After the new tree was built,
I deliberately removed all the /etc/rpm/* stuff, because it takes up quite
a bit of space, and not needed in run time (when the system was upgraded,
it was upgrade as a whole, not using individual RPMs).

This sort of Redhat-based distribution was very easy to create - took me
a couple of days to write the code, and a few minutes to recreate the tree
when new Redhat updates came in. This replaced a system that another guy
created by hand by compiling the Linux kernel, busybox, ssh, and so on himself
and fitting all the peaces together, which took him months and was never
updated in a timely fashion when security holes were found.


-- 
Nadav Har'El                        |  Wednesday, Oct 27 2010, 20 Heshvan 5771
nyh at math.technion.ac.il             |-----------------------------------------
Phone +972-523-790466, ICQ 13349191 |AlGoreithm, n: Repeating a calculation
http://nadav.harel.org.il           |until a prior desired result is produced.