Introduction

TWINCLING Linux is a Linux distribution derived from and compatible with Gentoo Linux from package management perspective.
What makes it unique is Installer and Base system definition.

Key Highlights

• Facade
• Configuration
• Cartridge
• Connectivity

Value proposition

• One CD
• One screen install
• one config (sysctl)
• one desktop (KDE)
• one management
• one liveCD
• one 32-bit base
• cartridge concept (more granular than package) 

Platform

• support for Pentium III/Celeron and above
• 256Mb RAM, x86 (32-bit)
• LiveCD
• multi-boot support
• 32-bit GRUB 

Dual-boot options

• NTFS support (read, write)
• Leverages on TACOS 

Engineering, Communication & Coordination

IRC	#twincling (irc.freenode.net)
Mailing List	http://groups.yahoo.com/group/twincling-linux
Engineering Site	https://launchpad.net/twincling
Source code	https://code.launchpad.net/twincling/
Blueprints	https://blueprints.launchpad.net/twincling/+spec/twincling-linux-spec/
Project Team	https://launchpad.net/~twincling-linux
Legal	info@twincling.org

 

 

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Product Specification

Product Specification

Facade

• User Experience with installation (installer)
• User Experience with services (configuration, service management)
• User Experience with features (cartridge)

 

Installer

• cleanroom implementation of primary and exception use cases
• memory and performance efficient
• implemented in Lua
• single screen install with a crisp set of queries
• installs everything from the CD till all is done. Entire stuff is in binary and installation is opening a set of .ctd (internally tar.bz2) for each cartridge.
• Resume install feature (voluntary decision or after a electricity failure for example, use USB for persistence)

 

Cartridges

• Core cartridge
• Java
• PERL
• Ruby
• PHP
• Python
• Lua
• JavaScript
• C
• C++
• Apache
• Database (SQLite, MySQL, PostGreSQL, BerkeleyDB)
•  

 

Connectivity

• Tata Indicom
• BSNL DataOne
• Hathway
• Sify
• BEAM Cable
• via Router
• via LAN (on DHCP)
• using my Cellphone
• no Network

 

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FAQs

Frequently Asked Questions

Why another distro ?

TWINCLING Linux builds on the strengths of available distributions and uniquely adds components like Installer, Cartridge and a precise Base system definition to address some of the requirements that we have within the Society.

How to contribute to the project ?

 To contribute to TWINCLING Linux Project, you need  to have,

• interest in technical issues
• working setup
• communication infrastructure

What are the technical issues ?

There are multiple components of the system in interplay at the sametime and a sucessful system setup means that each of those components actually did their job properly.

There are many components and there are multiple approaches possible. So we need to be able to process, discuss and understand a lot of technical stuff in a very short period of time.

what do I need for  a Working Setup ?

The current focus area is in making the entire process from boot up till package installation seamless.

The chunk of code that we would be working with will continuously evolve and we will fix bugs. Hence writing ISO images to a CD or rebooting is not an option !

All the engineering work - prototyping, development or testing happens in an emulator environment. We use QEMU.

You are expected to have a Pentium III / Celeron machine with 512MB (1024 Mb is better) of RAM. Ideally you should be able to allocate atleast 512MB of RAM on your box to qemu.

What Communication infrastructure is required ?

An internet connection will facilitate searching, reading HowTos, software downloads and team communication.

We hang around on #twincling channel on irc.freenode.net

There is a mailing list as well. Please see the Communication & Coordination section.

What is the language of implementation used ?

Most of the stuff that we write is in ISO C and Lua.

Where is the source code repository maintained ?

https://code.launchpad.net/twincling/

 

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Environment Setup Notes

Qemu setup

On Linux, kqemu (kernel module) and build qemu from sources (Gentoo) or rpm (OpenSuSe)

Qemu requires gcc 3.3.6 (gcc 4.1.x) (using gcc 3.4.6)

Qemu gentoo HowTo

http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO:_Qemu

Installing Qemu on Gentoo with gcc 3.x

http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Installing_Qemu_on_Gentoo_x86_with_GCC_3

On Windows, download the binaries from

KQemu (accelerator)

http://www.h6.dion.ne.jp/~kazuw/qemu-win/Kqemu-1.3.0pre11-install.exe

Qemu (has fmod, SDL and pcbios.bin) for WinXP

http://www.h6.dion.ne.jp/~kazuw/qemu-win/Qemu-0.9.0-install.exe

Gentoo minimal x86 CD boot on windows XP + Qemu worked fine.

Qemu on OpenSuSe

http://en.opensuse.org/Qemu_with_kqemu_kernel_module_support

Qemu on Ubuntu Linux

http://oui.com.br/n/content.php?article.21

Device entry /dev/kqemu does not get created in the case of Fedora / Ubuntu

mknod /dev/kqemu c 250 0

chmod 666 /dev/kqemu

Device entry /dev/kqemu is not accessible to all users on OpenSuSe 10.2

chmod 666 /dev/kqemu

 

LiveCD

LiveCD from scratch

http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_build_a_LiveCD_from_scratch

OpenBSD LiveCD HowTo

http://www.nomoa.com/news/OpenBSD_LiveCD_-_HowTo

 

Tomcat virtual hosting

http://mobilefish.com/developer/tomcat/tomcat_quickguide_webappdir.html

http://www.onjava.com/pub/a/onjava/2003/06/25/tomcat_tips.html?page=2

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Roadmap

The success of TWINCLING Linux Project depends on the interest and contribution of Open Source geeks.

The road map will be shortly evolved.

 

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Whiteboard

. KDE desktop
. KDevelop
. engineering tools
  automake, autoconf, make, libtool, cmake
  gdb, gcc, g++, cachegrind, cvs, svn,
  diff, patch, ctags, cscope

. Firefox
  firefox extensions - chatzilla, venkman, DOM inspector, SQLite
. elinks

. Umbrello

•  

Out of the box configuration

• LAMP

• Ruby on Rails

• PERL infrastructure

• Language documentation

• Support libraries

• Relevant Drivers

. Qt 3.3.8

. OpenSSL
. GPG

. nano
. bash

. OpenOffice
. mplayer (with full feature support)
  (link to codecs to download)

. Java 6 SDK
. Adobe Acrobat Reader

. Special Memory optimizations
 

ToDo Items

Tomcat virtual hosting scenario and required configuration.

 

 ToDo
 make a simple liveCD to gain experience on how to set it up.

Description
 the user places TWINCLING Linux CD in CD-ROM, closes the tray and reboots the machine. After POST, the bootable CD is read and the liveCD mechanism starts which detects basic system parameters and the installer is launched.

The installer is a single screen interface which presents the user with a very intuitive workflow to setup the machine.

Market Research

Installer
 . Installer feature bloat
 . Trying to do everything.

Typical steps seen are,

Welcome [click]
|
Language selection
|
Keyboard selection
|
Partition choice (1-9 screens)  [big blocker]
|
Choice of disk, filesystem etc.
|
Choice of bootloader (1-3 screens)
|
Network Settings (1-5 screens)
|
firewall setup
|
SELinux
|
Time Zone setup
|
Additional Language Support
|
Root password
|
Packages Selection (1-n steps) [major time waster]
|
Choice of default shell
|
Installation will Begin [start]
|
Notification about list of CDs reqd
|
Formatting system
|
Online Repositories choice
|
X window configuration
|
Congratulations [reboot]
|
------- REBOOT -----------
Acceptance of License
|
Hostname
|
Additional IP, Nameservers
|
User account setup
|
Sound detection
|
------- REBOOT -----------
|
Login to your system

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xinetd

service management
 - system
 - application

resume feature