LWN: Comments on "T2 SDE 8.0: a universal distribution build kit"

T2 SDE 8.0: a universal distribution build kit

netmana — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 12:46:34 +0000

I too working on an OS for the Cobalt Raq4 which is based on 486-arch. I use T2 and it have not given me any problems. Although, i am working on the kernel to boot from rom 2.10.x, which has given me problems over the past few days. Aniways, good luck!

T2 SDE 8.0: a universal distribution build kit

rmason — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 12:00:54 +0000

I've been playing with T2 for about 2 weeks. I got off to a slow start because I could not build an ISO on my existing system (gentoo). Once I downloaded the 8.0 minimal and installed it progress became more rapid. I have now built and installed a minimal + basic desktop target on a couple of machines, including one or two custom package selections. I was also able to build an ISO that boots using syslinux and contains an option to install lilo versus grub for one of my systems that will not boot using the latter.

I have found the installation process from a CD (or USB stick) to be completely painless and rapid. All the systems I have installed using my ISO have booted without any problems and I have been able to add packages to the ISO and to the running systems without trouble. I particularly like the fact that I am building a customised distribution that I can install quickly on as many systems as desired. For me, T2 combines the convenience of a binary distribution with the flexible configuration possibilities of a source based distribution.

I should add that I have no formal background in computer science: I am primarily a user who writes programs for scientific data processing. I have been using linux for about 12 years.

T2 SDE 8.0: a universal distribution build kit

MattPerry — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 19:33:49 +0000

This sounds fantastic! I have an old Cobalt Raq2 which is MIPS-based which I was planning on junking. Now I'm wondering if I can build my own distro for it and put it to use. I can't wait to try out T2 this weekend.

T2 SDE 8.0: a universal distribution build kit

V-Li — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 15:00:38 +0000

As interesting the concept is, there are huge similarities to Gentoo, which is often regarded as a meta-distribution. A given set of a profile/USE flag combination is a new distribution, a lot of cross-compilation tools exist and the initial system is quite bare, plus a lot of concepts are BSD-inspired, while the package managment is superior to that of T2 (as least what I can read from the description), though far from perfect.

Bias note: I am a Gentoo developer.