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<p class=header><strong>Carbs Linux - a simple busybox linux distribution</strong></p>
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<p><strong>Date:</strong> May 08 2020</p>
<p>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.</p>
<h2>History</h2>
<p>I had the idea of creating my own Linux distribution since
the May of 2019. Back then, I had my own <a href="https://linuxfromscratch.org">Linux from Scratch</a>
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.</p>
<p>I had written some incomplete package managers (all named <code>fat</code>)
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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>One day on Reddit, I saw Dylan’s post on <a href="https://reddit.com/r/unixporn">r/unixporn</a> about
KISS, and I really thought that it was interesting. Here is
my <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/unixporn/comments/ducd34/sowm_kiss_d/f7lua7x">comment</a> 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.</p>
<h2>Differences between KISS and Carbs</h2>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<h2>What I’m working on now</h2>
<p>Currently I have a few projects that I’m working on for Carbs.
These are,</p>
<p>A BSD port for Carbs. For a while, I have been working on BSD
compatibility on my fork of the <a href="https://github.com/carbslinux/kiss">package manager</a>. 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<h2>What’s up with all the init/service daemons?</h2>
<p>If you have ever checked the <a href="https://github.com/carbslinux/repository">repository</a>, 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 <a href="https://github.com/cemkeylan/shinit">init daemon</a>
and <a href="https://github.com/cemkeylan/sysmgr">service supervisor</a>. I maintain all those packages on KISS
Community Repository as well with the exception of busybox. Those
are, <code>busybox init/runit</code>, <code>runit</code>, <code>sinit</code>, and <code>sysmgr</code>. I would
definitely recommend checking out <code>shinit</code> and <code>sysmgr</code>.</p>
<h2>Why I don’t publicize Carbs</h2>
<p>There are a couple of reasons I don’t publicize Carbs a lot.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>I think that’s about it, if you have questions you can send me a
mail, ping me on IRC (my handle is <code>merakor</code>), and I will be happy
to answer. Maybe your question fits this post, and I can update it
to thoroughly give an explanation.</p>
<p>Cheers,
Cem</p>
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<p class=footer>Linux® is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds</p>
<p class=footer>Copyright © 2019-2020 Cem Keylan</p>
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