annotate www/about.html @ 1320:c93eb8e54015

Announce 1.0.1.
author Rob Landley <rob@landley.net>
date Mon, 03 Jan 2011 02:08:33 -0600
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1 <html>
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2 <title>About Aboriginal Linux</title>
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3 <body>
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4 <!--#include file="header.html" -->
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6 <b><h1><a href=documentation.html>What is Aboriginal Linux?</a></h1></b>
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8 <blockquote>
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9 <table border=1><tr><td bgcolor="#C0C0FF">
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10 <p>Aboriginal Linux is a set of tools to build custom virtual machines.
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11 It lets you boot virtual PowerPC, ARM, MIPS and
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12 <a href=screenshots>other exotic systems</a> on
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13 your x86 laptop (using an emulator such as QEMU). These virtual system
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14 images provide a simple development environment within which you can compile
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15 software and run the result.</p>
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16 </td></tr></table>
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17
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18 <p>Aboriginal Linux has an obvious niche within the embedded community, but
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19 has many other uses as well:</p>
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20
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21 <ul>
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22 <li><p><b>Allow package developers and maintainers to reproduce and fix bugs
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23 on architecures they don't have access to or experience with.</b></p>
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24
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25 <p>Bug reports can include a link to a system image and a
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26 reproduction sequence (wget source, build, run this test). This provides
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27 the maintainer both a way to demonstrate the issue, and a native
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28 development environment in which to build and test their fix.</p>
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29
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30 <p>No special hardware is required for this, just an open source emulator
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31 (generally QEMU) and a system image to run under it. Configure and make
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32 your package as normal, using standard tool names (strip, ld, as, etc).
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33 You can even build and test on a laptop in an airplane, without internet
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34 access.</p>
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35 </li>
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36
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37 <li><p><b>Build arbitrarily complex Linux distributions without messing with
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38 cross compiling.</b></p>
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40 <p>The point is to separate _what_ you build from _how_ you build. Build
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41 systems have enough to do handling package dependencies and configuration
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42 without entangling cross compiling into it. If one system builds the right
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43 set of packages and another system works on the right type of hardware, life
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44 is much easier if they can work together to produce a single result.</p>
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45
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46 <p>If you need to scale up development, Aboriginal Linux lets you throw
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47 hardware at the scalability problem instead of engineering time, using distcc
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48 acceleration and distributed package build clusters to compile entire
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49 distribution repositories on racks of cheap x86 cloud servers.</p>
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50 </li>
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51
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52 <li><p><b>Automated cross-platform regression testing and portability auditing.</b></p>
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53
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54 <p>Aboriginal Linux lets you build the same package across multiple
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55 architectures, and run the result immediately inside the emulator. You can
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56 even set up a cron job to build and test regular repository snapshots of a
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57 package's development version automatically, and report regressions when
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58 they're fresh, when the developers remember what they did, and when
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59 there are few recent changes that may have introduced the bug.</p></li>
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60
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61 <li><p><b>Use current vanilla packages, even on obscure targets.</b></p>
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62
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63 <p>Embedded hardware often receives less testing than common desktop and server
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64 platforms, so regressions accumulate. This can lead to a vicious cycle where
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65 everybody sticks with private forks of old versions because making the new
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66 ones work is too much trouble, and the new ones don't work because nobody's
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67 testing and fixing them. The farther you fall behind, the harder it is to
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68 catch up again, but only the most recent version accepts new patches, so
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69 even the existing fixes don't go upstream. Worst of all, working in private
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70 forks becomes the accepted norm, and developers stop even trying to get
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71 their patches upstream.</p>
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72
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73 <p>Aboriginal Linux uses the same (current) package versions across all
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74 architectures, in as similar a configuration as possible, and with as few
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75 patches as we can get away with. We (intentionally) can't upgrade a package
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76 for one target without upgrading it for all of them, so we can't put off
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77 dealing with less-interesting targets.</p>
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78
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79 <p>This means any supported target stays up to date with current packages in
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80 unmodified "vanilla" form, providing an easy upgrade path to the next
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81 version and the ability to push your own changes upstream relatively
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82 easily.</b></p>
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83 </li>
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84
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85 <li><p><b>Provide a minimal self-hosting development environment.</b></p></li>
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86
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87 <blockquote><p>Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add,
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88 but when there is nothing left to take away." - Antoine de Saint Exupery</p>
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89 </blockquote>
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90
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91 <p>Most build environments provide dozens of packages, ignoring the questions
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92 "do you actually need that?" and "what's it for?" in favor of offering
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93 rich functionality.</p>
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94
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95 <p>Aboriginal Linux provides the simplest development environment capable
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96 of rebuilding itself under itself. This currently consists of seven packages:
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97 busybox, uClibc, linux, binutils, gcc, make, and bash. (We include one more,
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98 distcc, to optionally accelerate the build, but install it in its own
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99 subdirectory which is only optionally added to the $PATH.)</p>
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100
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101 <p>This minimalist approach makes it possible to regression test for
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102 environmental dependencies. Sometimes new releases of packages simply won't
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103 work without perl, or zlib, or some other dependency that previous versions
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104 didn't have, not because they meant to but because they were never tested in
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105 a build environment that didn't have them, so the depencency leaked in.</p>
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106
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107 <p>By providing a build environment that contains only the bare essentials
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108 (relying on you to build and install whatever else you need), Aboriginal
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109 Linux lets you document exactly what dependencies packages actually require,
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110 figure out what functionality the additional packages provide, and measure
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111 the costs and benefits of the extra code.</p>
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112 </li>
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113
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114 <li><p><b>Document how to put together a development environment.</b></p>
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115
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116 <p>The build system is designed to be readable. That's why it's written in
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117 Bash (rather than something more powerful like Python): so it can act as
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118 documentation. Each shell script collects the series of commands you need
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119 to run in order to configure, build, and install the appropriate packages,
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120 in the order you need to install them in to satisfy their dependencies.</p>
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121
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122 <p>The build is organized as a series of orthogonal stages. These are called
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123 in order from build.sh, but may be run (and understood) independently.
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124 Dependencies between them are kept to a minimum, and stages which depend on
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125 the output of previous stages document this at the start of the file.</p>
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126
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127 <p>The scripts are also extensively commented to explain why they
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128 do what they do, and there's design documentation on the website.</p>
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129 </li>
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130 </ul>
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131
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132 <p>For more information, see <a href=documentation.html>the documentation
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133 page</a>.</p>
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134 </blockquote>
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136 <b><h1><a href=downloads>Downloading Aboriginal Linux</a></h1></b>
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138 <blockquote>
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139 <table border=1><tr><td bgcolor="#c0c0ff">
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140 <p><a href=downloads/binaries>Prebuilt binary images</a> are available
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141 for each target, based on the current Aboriginal Linux release. This
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142 includes cross compilers, native compilers, root filesystems suitable for
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143 chroot, and system images for use with QEMU.</p>
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144 </td><tr></table>
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145
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146 <p>The <a href=downloads/README>binary README</a> describes each tarball.
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147 The <a href=news.html>release notes</a> explain recent changes.</p>
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148
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149 <p>Even if you plan to build your own images from source code, you should
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150 probably start by familiarizing yourself with the (known working) binary
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151 releases.</p>
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152
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153 </blockquote>
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154
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155 <b><h1><a href=http://impactlinux.com/hg/aboriginal>Development</a></h1></b>
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156 <blockquote>
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157
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158 <table border=1><tr><td bgcolor="#c0c0ff">
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159 <p>To build a system image for a target, download the
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160 <a href=downloads>Aboriginal Linux source code</a> and run "./build.sh"
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161 with the name of the target to build (or with no arguments to list available
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162 targets). See the "config" file in the source for various environment
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163 variables you can export to control the build. See the
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164 <a href=README>source README</a> for additional usage instructions, and the
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165 <a href=news.html>release notes</a> for recent changes.</p>
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166 </td></tr></table>
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167
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168 <p>Aboriginal Linux is a build system for creating bootable system images,
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169 which can be configured to run either on real hardware or under emulators
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170 (such as <a href=http://qemu.org>QEMU</a>). It is intended to reduce or even
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171 eliminate the need for further cross compiling, by doing all the cross
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172 compiling necessary to bootstrap native development on a given target.
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173 (That said, most of what the build does is create and use cross
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174 compilers: we cross compile so you don't have to.)</p>
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175
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176 <p>The build system is implemented as a series of bash scripts which run to
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177 create the various binary images. The "build.sh" script invokes the other
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178 stages in the correct order, but the stages are designed to run individually.
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179 (Nothing build.sh itself does is actually important.)</p>
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180
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181 <p>Aboriginal Linux is designed as a series of orthogonal layers (the stages
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182 called by build.sh), to increase flexibility and minimize undocumented
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183 dependencies. Each layer can be either omitted or replaced with something
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184 else. The list of layers is in the <a href=README>source README</a>.</p>
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185
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186 <p>The project maintains a <a href=http://impactlinux.com/hg/aboriginal>development repository</a>
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187 using the Mercurial source control system. This includes RSS feeds for
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188 <a href=http://impactlinux.com/hg/aboriginal/rss-log>each checkin</a>
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189 and for <a href=http://impactlinux.com/hg/aboriginal/rss-tags>new releases</a>.</p>
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190
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191 <p>Questions about Aboriginal Linux should be addressed to the project's
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192 <a href=http://lists.impactlinux.com/listinfo.cgi/firmware-impactlinux.com>mailing
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193 list</a>, or the IRC channel #edev on irc.freenode.org. The project
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194 maintainer's <a href=http://landley.net/notes.html>blog</a> often includes
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195 notes about ongoing Aboriginal Linux development.</p>
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196 </blockquote>
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198 <!--#include file="footer.html" -->