This is a proof-of-concept of an extremely minimalistic Linux distribution, built directly from upstream source. The distribution consists only of:
- Linux kernel
- musl libc
- busybox init and userland utilities
- LLVM compiler infrastructure, including clang, libc++ and binutils
In theory, this is just enough to have a working shell, a text editor and a compiler. You can write everything else you need yourself. :)
The distribution is cross-compiled by default and currently x86_64 and ARM64 targets are supported. Everything is statically linked for simplicity. All sources are copied into this repository from upstream, without any modifications or patches.
There is no real build and packaging system. The entire build process is wrapped in a very simple, linear shell script. It is intended to be easy to understand and strip the entire process of any magic. You could theoretically just copy and paste each commands into your shell.
- A C/C++ compiler toolchain (GCC or Clang)
- ccache to make recompilation faster for huge Linux and LLVM codebases
- QEMU and libguestfs tools to run the built distribution in a virtual machine
First, we build the cross-compilation toolchain based on LLVM:
./toolchain.shThis installs the toolchain in ./toolchain, including clang, binutils and
libc++ statically linked against musl. This toolchain is capable of producing
binaries for all supported platforms (x86_64 and ARM64) and the host system.
Next, we use the toolchain to build the actual target system. This is done with a simple script, taking the target architecture as its only argument.
./target.sh x86_64
./target.sh arm64After the build, the complete target sysroot can be found in
./target/<architecture>. It can be used directly as a chroot environment, or
serve as an actuall root filesystem booted into by a real machine.
Included script allows you to build a disk from the previously built systroot and run it using QEMU.
./run.sh x86_64
./run.sh arm64