[Solar-general] Miren esto Gentoo con kernel NT!!! Puaj!!!!

Vie Abr 1 16:55:04 CEST 2005

Begin forwarded message:

Date: Fri, 01 Apr 2005 10:37:57 -0400
From: Jose Angel Rodriguez Leyva <jar en villazul.ltu.sld.cu>
To: Lista tecnica de ayuda y soporte de linux <linux-l en mail.linux.cu>
Subject: GeNToo - Gentoo on the Microsoft NT kernel

Posted on 1 April 2005 by Patrick Lauer

We are happy to announce the first experimental release of Gentoo for 
the NT kernel! Away from mainstream Gentoo a group of developers has 
managed to push the flexibility of our distribution to new heights and 
getting it to run natively on the well-known NT kernel!

Further information, a howto, some screenshots and installscripts can
be 
found at the project's website.

Note: GeNToo is not officially supported yet, please address enquiries 
directly to the developers listed on its project pages.

Del sitio del proyecto:

http://gentooexperimental.org/nt/

GeNToo - Gentoo on the NT kernel
Contents:

1. Introduction

Why GeNToo?

Short answer: Gentoo is about choice.

Long answer:

A very frequent complaint in the open-source community is the Linux 
kernel's poor interactive performance and sometimes lackluster driver 
support. While the most common (and older) hardware is usually 
supported, the latest and greatest seldom is. In particular, laptops, 
printers and "gadgets" take a long time to receive proper, stable 
drivers, even from Linux-friendly vendors (c.f. ipw2100).

Also, the we have been receiving feedback from users who are upset
about 
what they perceive as an embarrassing string of bad 2.6 kernel
releases. 
They are fed up with show-stopping bugs in the virtual memory manager, 
real-time clock anomalies on suspend and other unfortunate "features".

If we allow ourselves to think out of the box, we will realize that the 
Microsoft NT kernel is an alternative to Linux, that is both proven and 
commercial-grade. It has support from nearly all hardware vendors in
the 
world, and practically every PC comes with an license for the NT
kernel. 
This means: the monetary cost of a copy of the NT kernel is close to 
non-existent for the average end-user.

So, let's use it!

How?

The first thing to be aware of, is that the NT kernel has a well-
defined 
interface to usermode, which does not favour the Win32 API (at least
not 
overly much). Just as glibc can be seen as a wrapper around the Linux 
usermode interface, the Win32 API is a wrapper over the native NT 
interface. In fact, NT goes one step further and formalizes such a 
wrapper as a subsystem.

Microsoft itself ships its NT-based products with subsystems for Win32 
(the most evolved), POSIX (a very minimal and rather useless 
implementation), OS/2 (even less useful than their POSIX subsystem),
DOS 
and Win16 (also known as Windows-on-Windows [WOW]).

Unfortunately for us, the POSIX facilities provided by Microsoft are 
rather shoddy, and clearly inadequate for running any decent set of
Unix 
programs. This shortcoming was apparent to Rodney Ruddock, who
developed 
a more complete POSIX layer, named OpenNT. This subsystem provides 
mmap'ed files, full POSIX.1 with terminal facilities, Berkeley sockets, 
and also perl, Korn shell, X11 and a telnet daemon. In fact, this 
subsystem turned out to be so well done that it was bought by
Microsoft, 
renamed to Windows Services for NT, and is now made availble for free
on 
their web page as Windows Services for Unix (SFU).

Unfortunately, the publicity around OpenNT stopped after it was
consumed 
by Microsoft, but see SunExpert Magazine, March 1998, for a detailed 
technical review. These days, some references to OpenNT can be found in 
the Microsoft KnowledgeBase, such a description of OpenNT as a "peer 
environment to the Win32 subsystem".

Using a full NT/XP/2K installation with Windows Services for UNIX
(SFU), 
you get access to all important GNU tools, as SFU bundles the GNU 
toolchain, shells, sed, awk, the works, compiled natively against the 
POSIX layer provided by SFU. This means: practically every command-line 
tool in SFU is a POSIX executable and has no requirement on Win32 
whatsoever.

The trick here is as follows: From a WinXP installation CD, we can 
create a minimal Windows Preinstallation Environment (WinPE). A WinPE
is 
basically a Windows livecd. We can strip the WinPE further, by removing 
the graphical subsystem and everything Win32. On top of this, we can 
slap the files necessary for the POSIX subsystem, and build a complete 
stage1 (and eventually a stage3) from there.

In order to obtain our "pure" Gentoo installation, we take a WinXP CD 
(but Windows 2000 works as well), extract only the files belonging to 
the kernel, and place these onto a new ISO, as a WinPE. From the SFU 
download, we extract the pre-compiled command-line utilities (including 
gcc 3.3) and also place it into the ISO. We add some more glue (such as 
a pre-compiled python) to the ISO, and now we have enough tools to act 
as a minimal Gentoo livecd.

Obviously, we cannot redistribute this ISO due to copyright 
restrictions. We do not own the copyright to the NT kernel, for one. 
However, we have written a script which does all of this for you. It 
requires you to provide a Windows XP installation CD with Service Pack
2 
applied (it is also known to work off a Windows 2000 CD, but this is 
less tested). You must also register and download the Windows Services 
for Unix (SFU) 3.5. The script will then download some precompiled 
binaries off our site, and construct a bootable ISO for you. This CD is 
exactly enough to kickstart the normal Gentoo installation process, but 
with the NT kernel (and thus proper driver support) instead of Linux.

Installing GeNToo

Installation of GeNToo from the livecd is not very different from a 
normal Gentoo installation. However, due to the immaturity of some 
tools, and the total absence of others (fdisk), some advance
preparation 
is necessary before you dive into a full install. Please read the
GeNToo 
Quick Installation Referencehandbook, which follows the familiar Quick 
Installation Reference format we have for most architectures.

Note: There are numerous things which will not work properly in this 
early version of GeNToo. Only the really adventurous should proceed.

     * No graphical subsystem. We do not provide X11. This requires 
major work, and is not likely to change in the near future.
     * Poor network support. While the drivers work, the user mode
tools 
do not exist in POSIX form. This is being worked on. In the meantime,
we 
are making available some Win32 text-mode tools, but these require you 
to install a minimal Win32 subsystem.
     * No configuration tools. The NT kernel is designed to be 
controlled via the registry. While we do provide a minimal registry 
editor, it is unfortunately rather difficult to use for non-experts to 
do any kind of configuration. We are considering various options here, 
the most likely candidate being a /proc-like filesystem as an interface 
to the registry.
     * No partitioning tools. We don't (yet) have fdisk, so all 
partitioning must be done before installation.

More information

For more information about this project, see the FAQ.

Also, take a peek at the screenshots.

-- 
"And if the cloud bursts, thunder in your ear
  You shout and no one seems to hear.
  And if the band you're in starts playing different tunes
  I'll see you on the dark side of the moon."

"and everything under the sun is in tune
  but the sun is eclipsed by the moon."

  TDSOTM - P.F.

_______________________________________________
Linux-l maillist  -  Linux-l en mail.linux.cu
Web interface: http://www.linux.cu/mailman/listinfo/linux-l
Mail interface:(help,info,subscribe):linux-l-request en mail.linux.cu
archives search:http://www.linux.cu/mailman/listinfo/linux-l

-- 
  ,= ,-_-. =.  |Mate.Cosido (..aun fuera de la ley)
 ((_/)o o(\_)) |
  `-'(. .)`-'  |UTUTO XS GNU System with Linux
      \_/      |Linux 2.6.7-HR4 / GCC 3.4.3.1
---------------------------------------------------
Mi BLOG: http://daniel.ututo.org.ar
Celular / Cell Phone (SMS): (+5411) 5707-5013
SipPhone      : 1-747-600-6721 en proxy01.sipphone.com
ICQ: 8368437  / Jabber: dolivera en jabber.org

Estudien mucho para poder dominar la tecnica que
permite dominar la naturaleza. CHE
------------ próxima parte ------------
Se ha borrado un mensaje que no está en formato texto plano...
Nombre     : no disponible
Tipo       : application/pgp-signature
Tamaño     : 189 bytes
Descripción: no disponible
Url        : /pipermail/solar-general/attachments/20050401/1a1b6756/attachment.pgp