Carbs Linux

August 2020 News Post

Cem Keylan — Mon, 03 Aug 2020

August 2020 News Post

We are having some stalls during this summer, as I am currently working on university-related stuff. Nonetheless, there are some important changes that I want to share in this month’s post.

INDEX

Carbs Packaging Tools
Docs
Re-opening the Carbs Linux server

Carbs Packaging Tools

This month I have reworked kiss into a new package manager, now renamed as cpt. Updating kiss will now bootstrap the new package manager, so you don’t have to manually edit your system. If you don’t like the idea of this, you can look up the post-install script on core/kiss and apply the changes manually.

You will also need to rename your KISS* variables to CPT*. So, KISS_PATH becomes CPT_PATH.

The rework changes the previous commands on the package manager into standalone tools, and move the package manager functions to a library. This makes it easier for a user to import functions and variables from the package manager, and extend the package manager with their own intended way. Previously this required ugly hacks and workarounds to use the package manager functions. I will be making use of these changes to re-implement binary package management functions as well.

If you want to use the library on your script you can simply do this:

+--------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|                                                                          |
| #!/bin/sh                                                                |
| . cpt-lib                                                                |
| (...)                                                                    |
|                                                                          |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------+

There are obviously some clean-up and simplifications needed in this new tool-based package management method.

Docs

I have added documentation for the distribution, and finally updated the guide for installation. It is now almost complete. These docs can be installed to your system for online viewing. I will also add a documentation crawler similar to how werc^1 works (but as an offline viewer). You can find carbs-docs from the repository. Currently, the documentation lacks but I will be adding new stuff. These will solely be distribution specific documentation and will not be a wiki-like source. If anyone would like to contribute to a wiki-like documentation source, I would happily re-open the distribution wiki. You can find the source on https://github.com/CarbsLinux/docs

Re-opening the Carbs Linux server

Back in May, I had shutdown the Carbs Linux server due to financial issues, but I am slowly reverting to the self-hosted model. Back then, the git repositories were mirrored to GitHub, and the management was overall much more flexible. The server used to run Carbs Linux as well (that was fun and horrifying at the same time). Now, I will be relaunching the git server which will be the upstream source before August 5. You can switch your remote, but GitHub will stay as a remote nonetheless.

EDIT: The git-server is up!

June Newspost

Cem Keylan — Wed, 17 Jun 2020

June Newspost

This will be an active month for Carbs as major changes to the base and the package manager will be coming up.

Statically linking the base

For the past couple of weeks I have been trying to simplify the base and statically link the core (mostly binaries rather than libraries). I usually see some people extremely opposed to static linking as I also see the opposite on people.

I believe that binaries on the core should always be linked statically. This ensures that an SONAME bump to libObscure.so will not break the core functionality of your system, forcing you to use external resources to recover from such an issue. As long as you can compile, use core utilities, edit text, and access the web, you can solve any given issue on your system.

However, I don’t think that removing shared libraries is sensible either. Not every piece of software out there is good quality enough to be statically linked.

Major changes on the core repository

There have been drastic changes to the core repository and the base rootfs this month (with more on the way). Right now changes are as follows.

Removed from Core

git
libressl
grub
bison
dhcpcd
ubase

Added to Core

bearssl, as a libressl replacement
byacc, as a bison replacement

Statically linked

kiss
neatvi
mandoc
byacc
m4
e2fsprogs
make
pkgconf
sbase
libnl
wpa_supplicant
bearssl

Making the wiki available offline

Soon, all documentation regarding Carbs Linux will be avaialable to be installed from the core repository in a carbs-docs package along with its own document crawler. Currently, the documentation regarding the installation process is a little outdated which will also receive some important updates.

ISO image for Carbs

I am thinking of releasing an ISO image in order to provide a standardized environment for installation along with installation helper tools in the spirit of arch-install-scripts. Let’s see how that’s going to play out.

kiss 2.0.0 and overall changes

Cem Keylan — Thu, 28 May 2020

kiss 2.0.0 and overall changes

Carbs Linux kiss version 2.0.0 has been released which introduces rsync repositories.

Git is no longer a mandatory dependency for the package manager, every git source on the core repository has been replaced with https sources (sbase, sinit), and rootfs tarballs will no longer ship with git. Repositories in the upcoming tarball will be rsync repositories.

Git is now on the extra repository and is still (optionally) used in the package manager.

The idea behind this change is size reductions and increased speed with rsync. As I said on the previous post, git repositories get larger and larger over the time span. Currently my personal copy of the git repository is around 77MB and I have forked KISS Linux (as a shallow copy) around December. Obviously, I have commits that I ommitted. I tend to create commits I dislike, which I change with ‘git reset –soft HEAD^’, which doesn’t actually remove the commits, etc. A user will have a repository much smaller than mine.

This is a precaution with the added bonuses of speed and dropping a mandatory dependency.

You can see the rest of the changelog here.

Binary Repositories

A few days ago, I have also published kiss-bin, a first version for managing binary repositories. Currently, there are some caveats that I’ll be fixing along the way. I decided not to include this in the package manager natively as managing the source based and binary based packages together adds levels of complexity that we do not want. Instead, this is an extension for kiss which sources the package manager as a library. I hope to see it being adopted by others interested on the matter as well.

That’s about it.

Cheers, Cem

The Relation of Carbs and KISS

Cem Keylan — Fri, 08 May 2020

The Relation of Carbs and KISS

Date: May 08 2020

Since I have forked KISS, I have received many questions that can be summarized as “Why?”. I have realized that I never truly answered this question. That’s the reason I am writing this post, to give some background on Carbs, and some differences between KISS Linux and Carbs Linux for anyone who may be wondering. Perhaps I could make this a “FAQ” page later on.

History

I had the idea of creating my own Linux distribution since the May of 2019. Back then, I had my own Linux from Scratch build, and I wanted to slim it down my own way and replace the software (with musl,sbase,etc.). The name Carbs Linux was in my mind since then. I wanted to write my own package manager, but I wasn’t satisfied with anything I had built.

I had written some incomplete package managers (all named fat) and I quickly threw them into the trash can, where they honestly belonged. I would want to share them with you for laughs, but my hard-drive got wiped and I have a problem of not doing an “initial commit” until a program I write is in a usable state.

I have obtained the ‘carbslinux.org’ domain name in September 2019, but then life got on the way, and I stopped for a long time.

One day on Reddit, I saw Dylan’s post on r/unixporn about KISS, and I really thought that it was interesting. Here is my comment to Dylan on that post. I checked out the package manager and the repository. The packaging system was extremely clean and well-thought. I decided to give it a go and fork KISS.

Differences between KISS and Carbs

Now, I still baffle when people ask me this question. My intention was never to create a distribution with specific differences between KISS. My intention was being my own BDFL of a distribution I maintain. There are lots of differences between the main repositories, but they are subtle and not worth talking about. I personally never even installed KISS Linux on my system. So Carbs, isn’t something like a downstream fork of KISS, it is just a distribution that was initially based on KISS.

I try to contribute as much as I can to KISS Linux. I think that it is a brilliant distribution, and it was a great starting point for Carbs. I am really grateful to Dylan and all the other contributors.

What I’m working on now

Currently I have a few projects that I’m working on for Carbs. These are,

A BSD port for Carbs. For a while, I have been working on BSD compatibility on my fork of the package manager. I have tested, without any more issues, on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. The biggest issues remaining are choosing a vendor for BSD, packaging the BSD source, and providing a minimal base (like busybox for BSD). If you aren’t familiar with BSD, it has a single source code for all of the utilities (kernel, command line programs, etc.). Contributions (even chipping in ideas) are very welcome.

Adding binary package distribution support natively to the package manager. Biggest issue in small/old computers are compile times. This feature is for the bigger packages such as webkit, clang, llvm that take a considerable amount of time. Some computers with low memories cannot even compile firefox/webkit.

Adding rsync repository support to the package manager. This is not a current issue, but rather a futureproofing. As time passes, distribution repositories grow larger. KISS and Carbs are young distributions without this problem right now. But in something like 5 years, this size will presumably increase to hundreds of megabytes. At that point it will be pointless to have the repository sources unless you specifically need them.

What’s up with all the init/service daemons?

If you have ever checked the repository, you may have noticed that there are lots of init/service related packages. I have had my fair share of time with all of them, and it is an area that I am really interested in. I have even written my own init daemon and service supervisor. I maintain all those packages on KISS Community Repository as well with the exception of busybox. Those are, busybox init/runit, runit, sinit, and sysmgr. I would definitely recommend checking out shinit and sysmgr.

Why I don’t publicize Carbs

There are a couple of reasons I don’t publicize Carbs a lot.

KISS is the better alternative in terms of support and community. I work on maintaining this distribution just as hard as Dylan, but in the end, Carbs is based on his original hard work, and I believe that he deserves the recognition more than I do.

Since I cannot answer questions like “What is the difference?”, I prefer staying as the silent sibling project of KISS Linux. Plus, there is no point in dividing the newly-emerging community in half.

That’s not because I don’t have ideas for the future of Carbs, I do. I just think that I will deserve the recognition once those above lists are checked.

I think that’s about it, if you have questions you can send me a mail, ping me on IRC (my handle is merakor), and I will be happy to answer. Maybe your question fits this post, and I can update it to thoroughly give an explanation.

Cheers, Cem

Outsource Repository Concept

Cem Keylan — Fri, 10 Apr 2020

Outsource Repository Concept

In April 3rd, I have added submodule support for Carbs Linux’s fork of kiss. Now, from that sentence, it really doesn’t sound exciting at all. But in reality, it opens a path to lots of creative output, and a better way to manage multi-user repositories (such as KISS Community).

When managing a repository of submodules, the repository maintainer’s only job is to deal with adding packages. A package maintainer doesn’t have to wait for the repository maintainer to update their packages, as they are only making the changes to their own repositories.

This way, an end-user can also track from their preferred maintainers, and do that with the tidyness of a single repository in their KISS_PATH.

Carbs Linux now has an outsource repository for some packages. Firefox and its dependencies have been purged from the main repository, but can be found on it.

https://github.com/CarbsLinux/outsource

Roadmap for Carbs

Cem Keylan — Mon, 06 Apr 2020

Roadmap for Carbs

It has been a busy week. There are lots of changes in direction, and more to come. I want to talk a little about all of them.

Carbs Linux Server Going Down

It became harder to maintain and pay for the server, and I will be shutting it down in May. I am currently in the phase of carrying over everything to Github. The repository and the website is served on Github now. I have also moved the Wiki to Github and anyone can edit it there. There are some outdated posts that I will be fixing around this week.

I am not quite sure where to store the downloads page now. But I will be switching that to a new source as well. (Maybe Source Forge?)

I feel a little sad for switching, but serving on Github is faster, cheaper, and hassle-free.

Forking KISS

I had a personal fork of KISS, which I enjoyed thoroughly. I didn’t intend to make it the default when I started it, but it has matured enough to be so. The package manager can now be found on this repository. See it for the added changes.

This will be a change for the better, as I can develop the package manager as it fits my views.

Small Changes on the Website

I have made some small changes on the website. The build is not dependent on Plan9 utilities anymore. It was fun messing around with rc and mk, but they are quite limited compared to POSIX shell.

RSS feeds are finally working as intended, both for the news section, and the blog secion.

You can see every page’s .txt output at the end of the page by clicking ‘View Page Source’. Meanwhile, I will be updating some pages to be a little more ‘human-readable’.

Outsources Repository

I have opened an outsource repository, which I will be pushing this week. I will add a new post when I am ready to push it. I think it will be interesting, it will also make more sense about the changes I have added to the package manager. The now empty repository, can be found here!

New Tarball

Finally, I have released a new tarball today, which can be obtained from the downloads page.

I am planning to add more of these update posts as I’m feeling better about the website structure overall.

- Cem

Switching to New Website

Cem Keylan — Tue, 28 Jan 2020

Switching to New Website

Date: Jan 28 2020

In case you haven’t seen it before, this website was powered by werc. And even though I liked it really much, it was too powerful for a small website like this.

So I have decided to reimplement this website with my own static generation scripts. The source will probably be on https://carbslinux.org/git/website/log.html when I decide to publish the website.

The generation requires Plan9 programs, although I have used them just for my enthusiasm. I have built the site with a combination of mk (instead of make), rc, and POSIX sh. I am not yet exactly familiar with rc, but I will replace the shell scripts when I feel like I can.