site
news
contactGuidelines for debugging EasyOS
Created: August 12, 2020
Updated: June 14, 2023; June 15, 2023
Making a start on writing this page...
EasyOS boots up from a boot-manager, such as Limine, rEFInd or GRUB, which loads the Linux kernel, file 'vmlinuz', and the tiny complete Linux OS into RAM, file 'initrd'. The 'init' script inside 'initrd' is then run, which does a lot of setting-up, especially creating the aufs layered filesystem, consisting of a read-write folder on top and file 'easy.sfs' on the bottom. There is then a switch_root onto the aufs layers, and hence to the desktop.
Translate EasyOS to your language
Originally posted January 12, 2020.
Updated: Feb. 9, 2020. June 11, 2023
It is quite easy to create a complete translation of EasyOS to any desired language. The tool used is MoManager, that was created for Puppy Linux in 2012, and is now used in various derivatives and forks of Puppy, including EasyOS. MoManager is a GUI application, written by Barry Kauler (BarryK in the Puppy Forum). A fork was maintained by Lutz Ulrich (L18L in the forum) and that one is used in the current Puppy Linux.
MoManager may be used to translate just one file, or many, and will generate a tarball of changes made in the current session (newtranslations-<language>-<date>.tar.gz) as well as a tarball of all translations (translations-<language>-<date>.tar.gz).
Coding for EasyOS
Page originally written: December 21, 2019
Updated: August 23, 2022; September 19, 2022
This is a page for developers, anyone who creates applications,
utilities, or systems-level scripts, in a variety of languages,
from shell script to compiled languages. If you are interested in
getting involved in EasyOS development, read on...
I, Barry Kauler, am writing this page in the first-person, for more personal interaction. Any questions, there is a "Contact me" link at the top of this page -- though do note, although I read all messages, I don't always reply, or a reply might be delayed -- this is just a question of efficiency of time, and do recognise that I consider all suggestions, and often have to file them away for future consideration.
How to compile a Linux distribution from source
Most Linux distributions are built from the binary packages of another distribution. For example, Ubuntu is built from Debian binary packages. There are only a few distributions that are built with binary packages that they have compiled from source -- this list includes Debian, Arch and Slackware.
EasyOS belongs to this very exclusive group. And EasyOS is perhaps the only one that offers simple automated steps to cross-compile the entire suite of packages, currently over 860, for target architectures such as x86_64 and aarch64.
These simple steps are explained in a blog post:
https://bkhome.org/news/202112/how-to-cross-compile-850-packages-using-yoctoopenembedded.html
How to run a Linux distribution in a container
Page created January 17, 2021. Updated April 25, 2021
This tutorial is written in the first-person by Barry Kauler (BarryK on the forums). Switching to first-person mode now...
EasyOS is able to run an application in a container, but can also run
a complete Linux distribution. This web page introduces containers from
a user-perspective: