Version 2.0 - 2011/01/01 =========== Since there were maior feature upgrades since version 1.0 I release the new version as BG-Tiny Linux Bootdisk 2.0. The changes since the last public release are: Updated the Linux kernel and dosfstools to the latest versions and added support for the filesystem cramfs and for the loopback device. Added plip support to be able to transfer data over a parallel-port Laplink cable. This makes is possible to use BG-Tiny Linux Bootdisk to install either an old windows version or a linux-2.4 Debian Linux version (eg Woody or Lenny) on an old 4MB-RAM computer which does not have or has an unsupported cdrom-drive. There is free ram of 1168kb and the total amount of free ram (free low ram + buffers + cached) is now 1556kb on a machine with 4MB of total ram. Added oneit_lite 1.0 Updated dosfstools to 3.0.11 Updated linux kernel to 2.4.37.11 Removed toybox 0.1.0 Released Floppy Version. Please report bugs to BG-TLB@Giannone.de Version 1.1 =========== Updated the Linux kernel and dosfstools to the latest versions. Added support for the filesystem cramfs and for the loopback device which both can proove usefull when you want to decompress a Linux-2.4 Debian initrd to a spare partition to do a manual install. Added plip support to be able to transfer data over a parallel-port Laplink cable. This makes is possible to use BG-Tiny Linux Bootdisk to install either an old windows version or a linux-2.4 Debian Linux version (eg Woody or Lenny) on an old 4MB-RAM computer which does not have or has an unsupported cdrom-drive. Added the script /sbin/network to set up the loopback network and to explain how to setup plip-network an how to transfer data using netcat. BG-Tiny Linux Bootdisk is now a full install tool for old computers with 4MB of ram. To perform an eg Windows95 installation on a computer without a cdrom drive you are able to: fdisk, format (mkdosfs/mkfs.fat32), make bootable (ms-sys), copy the installation files over parallel-link network (nc/plip) and finally to reboot and install the system. To perform a Linux-2.4 Debian GNU/Linux (eg Woody or Lenny) installation on a computer without a cdrom drive you are able to: fdisk, create spare/swap/root partitions, format (mke2fs/mkswap), make bootable (lilo), copy the installation files over network (nc,plip), extract the initrd into the spare disk (cramfs/loop) and finally to reboot and install the system. Using oneit_lite instead of the oneit from toybox. This saves 9kb of diskspace and some ram. UPXed lilo, this saves 92kb of disk space. All this modifications of course cost some ram and we have less free ram than with BG-Tiny Linux Bootdisk 1.0. But compared to the 0.x versions we still have much more ram left. The free ram is 1168kb and the total amount of free ram (free low ram + buffers + cached) is now 1556kb on a machine with 4MB of total ram. Included the following new kernel drivers: cramfs, parport. plip. Included the following new busybox applets: ifconfig, losetup. Added oneit_lite 1.0 Updated dosfstools to 3.0.11 Updated linux kernel to 2.4.37.11 Removed toybox 0.1.0 This version was never released. Version 1.0 - 2010/11/29 =========== Released Version 0.9.1 as 1.0 without further changes. The changes since the last public release are: Recompiled and updated the whole system to be a little more up to date. All binaries are statically against uClibc 0.9.27. The system should still run on an i386 (no FPU) with as little as 4MB of RAM. Updated the linux kernel 2.4, dosfstools and ms-sys to the most recent versions. Integrated some of the BG-Rescue Linux patches. Changed the init structure to use less memory and therefore included oneit from Toybox. Changed the keymap script a little to be more selfexplaining and to automatically delete the keymaps also in cases of failure or if the default keymap is used. Added swiss keyboard layouts. After booting there are 1560kb of free ram on a machine with 4MB ram. Added toybox 0.1.0 Updated dosfstools to 3.0.10 Updated linux kernel to 2.4.37.10 Updated ms-sys to 2.2.0 Readded busybox 1.3.2 Readded gpart 0.1h Readded lilo 22.8 Released Floppy Version. Please report bugs to BG-TLB@Giannone.de Version 0.9.1 ============= Recompiled the whole system and linked it statically against uClibc 0.9.27. Now the system should run again on an i386 with as little as 4MB of RAM. Readded busybox 1.3.2 Readded dosfstools 3.0.10 Readded gpart 0.1h Readded lilo 22.8 Readded ms-sys 2.2.0 Readded toybox 0.1.0 This version was never released. Version 0.9 =========== Recompiled and updated the whole system to a little more up to date. For the moment linked all programs statically against uClibc 0.9.31. This has to change again because this library in the used configuration needs at least an i486 and our goal ist clearly to support i386 (even SX). Updated the linux kernel 2.4, dosfstools and ms-sys to the most recent versions. Integrated some of the BG-Rescue Linux patches. Changed the init structure to use less memory and therefore included oneit from Toybox. Changed the keymap script a little to be more selfexplaining and to automatically delete the keymaps also in cases of failure or if the default keymap is used. Added swiss keyboard layouts. Added toybox 0.1.0 Updated dosfstools to 3.0.10 Updated linux kernel to 2.4.37.10 Updated ms-sys to 2.2.0 Readded busybox 1.3.2 Readded gpart 0.1h Readded lilo 22.8 This version was never released. Version 0.8 - 2008/05/04 =========== Updated the Linux kernel to 2.4.36.3. Removed the devfsd applet from busybox since it is not needed any more. Removed the init applet from busybox and compiled an extra busybox containing only init and halt/poweroff/reboot. This saves a lot of ram since not all busybox code has to be kept in ram when running init. It uses more disk space but there is still some left... When compared to version 0.7 the total amount of free ram (free low ram + buffers + cached) is now 844kb instead 772kb on a machine with 4 MB of ram. This is an improvement of free RAM of 72kb! Released Floppy Version. Please report bugs to BG-TLB@Giannone.de Version 0.7 - 2008/04/27 =========== UPXed the kernel with "--all-methods --all-filters --best". This saves some more kilobytes of diskspace. Recompiled busybox and linked it staticly against uClibc 0.9.27. This saves some more kilobytes of diskspace. Activated the askfirst feature to start shells on additional terminals only when needed. This saves quite a lot of ram. Recompiled the whole system and linked it staticly against uClibc 0.9.27. This saves some more kilobytes of diskspace and makes further developement easier. Recompiled busybox and added the unzip applet. When compared to version 0.6 the total amount of free ram (free low ram + buffers + cached) is now 772kb instead 672kb on a machine with 4 MB of ram. This is an improvement of free RAM of 100kb! Released Floppy Version. Please report bugs to BG-TLB@Giannone.de Version 0.6 - 2008/04/20 =========== Compressed the linux kernel with upx. Even if I wanted to avoid upx this is still a good idea because this will not affect the system once booted. And the system still boots happily with 4MB RAM. There is exactly the same amount of free ram like before. And there is a little more disk space. Added ms-sys 2.1.3 (statically linked). Since partition tools like fdisk and the e2fsprogs are included into busybox and we include separately dosfsprogs, gpart and ms-sys we now have a pretty complete rescue system for computers with very low ram. Supported filesystems are ext2, ext3, iso9660 and vfat. The system should boot on any 386 (fpu not neccessary) with at least 4 MB RAM. Released the first Floppy Version. Please report bugs to BG-TLB@Giannone.de Version 0.5 =========== Added a little welcome message to the beginning of the boot process. So the user knows what system he is starting... Added dosfsprogs 2.11-2.3 with debian patches (statically linked). Added gpart 0.1h-4.1 with debian patches (statically linked). Recompiled lilo 22.8 and removed some unneeded config options: -DEVMS -DREISERFS -DVIRTUAL -DDEVMAPPER This version was never released. Version 0.4 =========== Added linux kernel 2.4.36.2 with the patches from BG-Rescue Linux. Added a little kernel patch to make it possible to boot without user interaction. This would be needed normally because when one uses /dev/fd0 as root device the kernel change_floppy mechanism is activated. Added /sbin/help a little utility to list the available programs. This is a good idea because there are no bisybox symlinks to save space. So one would assume that there are almost no programs included. Added many new keyboard layouts for the user to choose one at boot time. The used ones are the familiar ones from BG-Rescue Linux. This does not waste much space and is very comfortable. At least it does not use additional ram. This version was never released. Version 0.3 =========== Changed the bootloader to extlinux a version of syslinux which is suited to boot from an ext2 file system. Added the vfat filesystem along with the needed codepages for accessing dos/windows filesystems. Removed serial port support. Removed devfs support. Using an old style static /dev directory again. This saves quite a lot of ram. Unfortunatelly it uses space on the floppy but fortunatelly not too much ;-) ... This version was never released. Version 0.2 =========== Addes some new busybox applets: loadkmap, devfsd. Switched the logging modes to silent. Not using devfsd because it needs too much ram. The goal is to use only 4 MB of RAM for the whole system. Updated the scripts in etc and some symlinks in /sbin and /bin. The system is more comfortable now. Using german keymap. This version was never released. Version 0.1 =========== This is the initial release of BG-TinyLinuxBootdisk (BG-TLB) my fork of Tiny Linux Bootdisk (TLB). The functionality should now be almost the same. BG-TLB is a very small rescue linux system which runs from one single floppy disk without using a ramdisk. So it can run on systems with *very little* ram. The negative part is that you can't remove the floppy disk. The advantage is that we use a newer busybox version and static linking. Therefore we can save much space and achive the same functionality without compressing with UPX on a single 1.4MB floppy disk. And we have some free space left for cool things. Included the following programs: busybox 1.3.2 (statically linked akainst uClibc 0.9.24) lilo 22.8 with some tlb patches (statically linked akainst uClibc 0.9.24) This version was never released.