changeset 70:2b66e5d3ae79

More website updates.
author Rob Landley <rob@landley.net>
date Thu, 28 Dec 2006 17:57:38 -0500
parents c2becd45f162
children f55a1dba637d
files www/design.html www/footer.html www/header.html www/history.html www/index.html
diffstat 5 files changed, 64 insertions(+), 27 deletions(-) [+]
line wrap: on
line diff
--- a/www/design.html	Thu Dec 28 17:21:05 2006 -0500
+++ b/www/design.html	Thu Dec 28 17:57:38 2006 -0500
@@ -2,6 +2,10 @@
 
 <h1>The Firmware Linux build process</h1>
 
+<p>Firmware Linux is an embedded Linux distribution builder, which creates a
+bootable single file Linux system based on uClibc and BusyBox/toybox.  It's
+basically a shell script that builds a complete Linux system from source code.</p>
+
 <p>FWL builds a cross-compiler and then uses it to build a minimal system
 containing a native compiler, BusyBox and uClibc.  Then it runs this minimal
 system under an emulator (QEMU) to natively build the final system.  Finally it
--- a/www/footer.html	Thu Dec 28 17:21:05 2006 -0500
+++ b/www/footer.html	Thu Dec 28 17:57:38 2006 -0500
@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
 </td></tr></table>
 <hr />
 <table width="100%">
-<tr><td>Copyright 2006 Rob Landley <rob@landley.net></td></tr>
+<tr><td>Copyright 2006 Rob Landley &lt;rob@landley.net&gt;</td></tr>
 </table>
 </body>
 </html>
--- a/www/header.html	Thu Dec 28 17:21:05 2006 -0500
+++ b/www/header.html	Thu Dec 28 17:57:38 2006 -0500
@@ -5,19 +5,29 @@
 <body>
 <table border=0 cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0>
 <tr><td>
-  <table border=0 cellspacing=1 cellpadding=2>
+  <table border=0 cellspacing=1 cellpadding=4>
     <tr><td><h1>Firmware Linux</h1></td></tr>
   </table>
 </td></tr>
 
-<tr><td>
+<tr><td valign=top>
   <b>About</b>
   <ul>
-    <li><a href="about.html">About FWL</a></li>
-    <li><a href="news.html">News</a></li>
-    <li><a href="design.html">Design</a></li>
-  <ul>
+    <li><a href="index.html">News</a></li>
+    <li><a href="about.html">What is it?</a></li>
+    <li><a href="design.html">Design Docs</a></li>
+  </ul>
   <b>Download</b>
   <ul>
-    <li><a href="
+    <li><a href="/hg/firmware">Mercurial Repository</a></li>
+    <li><a href="downloads">Release Tarballs</a></li>
+  </ul>
+  <b>Development</b>
+  <ul>
+    <li><a href="/notes.html">Maintainer's Log</a></li>
+    <li><a href="http://www2.them.com:8080/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/firmware">Mailing List</a></li>
+  </ul>
+</td>
 
+<td valign=top>
+
--- /dev/null	Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 1970 +0000
+++ b/www/history.html	Thu Dec 28 17:57:38 2006 -0500
@@ -0,0 +1,40 @@
+<!--#include "header.html" -->
+
+<b><h2>History</h2></b>
+
+<p>I've been working on this project on and off since 1999; it's what 
+got me into BusyBox and uClibc and compilers and so on.  Now it's where I put
+together everything else I'm doing (like toybox and the relocatable gcc
+wrapper) to see what actually works and give it a good stress-test.  (Eating
+your own dogfood, and all that.)</p>
+
+<p>When the Firmware Linux project started, busybox applets like sed and sort
+weren't powerful enough to handle the "./configure; make; make install" of
+packages like binutils or gcc.  Busybox was usable in an embedded router or
+rescue floppy, but trying to get real work done with it revealed numerous
+bugs and limitations.  (It hung, it segfaulted, produced the wrong output,
+refused to run due to unrecognized command line options...  You name it.)</p>
+
+<p>So I spent about 3 years improving Busybox (and pestering other people into
+improving their bits), and along the way accidentally become the BusyBox
+maintainer (at least until the project's crazy-uncle founder showed up and
+<a href=http://lwn.net/Articles/202106/>drove me away again</a>).  The result
+is that in Firmware Linux, Busybox now functions as an effective replacement
+for bzip2, coreutils, diffutils, e2fsprogs, file, findutils, gawk, grep,
+inetutils, less, modutils, net-tools, patch, procps, sed, shadow, sysklogd,
+sysvinit, tar, util-linux, and vim.  I was in the process of writing a new
+shell to replace bash with when I left.</p>
+
+<p>Firmware Linux stalled while I was BusyBox maintainer (2005-2006) due to
+lack of time, and since that ended most of my spare programming time has gone
+into launching toybox.  But one of the main goals of toybox is to replace
+BusyBox in Firmware Linux, so as toybox matures it'll naturally lead to more
+of my time spent working on FWL.</p>
+
+<p>The server behind this website does not currently run on Firmware Linux.
+Making it do so is a TODO item.  After that, I'd like to get it to the point
+where I can use it on my laptop. :)</p>
+
+<p>A snapshot of the old website is <a href=old>available here</a>.</p>
+
+<!--#include "footer.html" -->
--- a/www/index.html	Thu Dec 28 17:21:05 2006 -0500
+++ b/www/index.html	Thu Dec 28 17:57:38 2006 -0500
@@ -1,8 +1,4 @@
-<html>
-<title>Firmware Linux</title>
-<body>
-<h1>Firmware Linux</h1>
-
+<!--#include "header.html" -->
 <b><h2>News</h2></b>
 <p><a href=http://landley.net/hg/firmware?cl=27>Changeset 27</a> builds
 a relocatable armv4l cross-compile toolchain!  Download the tarball,
@@ -10,18 +6,6 @@
 directory and use "bin/armv4l-unknown-linux-gnu-gcc" out of that (which
 I admit is a bit of a mouthful, for which I blame the FSF).</p>
 
-<b><h2>What is it?</h2></b>
-
-<p>Firmware Linux is an embedded Linux distribution builder that creates a
-bootable single file Linux system, based on uClibc and BusyBox/toybox.  It's
-basically a shell script that builds a complete Linux system from source code.</p>
-
-<p>FWL builds a cross-compiler and then uses it to build a minimal system
-containing a native compiler, BusyBox and uClibc.  Then it runs this minimal
-system under an emulator (QEMU) and natively builds the final system.  Finally
-it packages the resulting system (kernel, initramfs, and root filesystem) into
-one big bootable file.</p>
-
 <p>Here is a description of <a href=design.html>the design of Firmware
 Linux</a>.  That's the new (QEMU-based, capable of cross-compiling for non-x86)
 design I'm working on now.  The old (UML-based, x86 only) design is described
@@ -93,5 +77,4 @@
 
 <p>I need to reorganize this web page.</p>
 
-</body>
-</html>
+<!--#include "footer.html" -->