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Projects
Redclaw Linux
License: Multiple
A Linux From Scratch build.
About
I came across Linux From Scratch (LFS), specifically the System V build, while using Ubuntu in a virtual machine, specifically VirtualBox, years ago. Even though I barely knew anything about Linux, I went ahead and tried building it. I'm not sure where I stopped, but I know I tried many times.
Now, I have a Raspberry Pi 5, with which I built an 64-bit ARM (aarch64) version of LFS, dubbed Redclaw, and it took me multiple tries to get packages built. I had to recover my host system (Raspberry Pi OS) once because of a stupid mistake to edit essential user files without chrooting into the Redclaw environment.
Redclaw Linux is only available on Raspberry Pi devices for the time being, which is why I'm using PiLFS, until I create a virtual machine and start a x86_64 LFS build of Redclaw.
At the moment, Redclaw has not gone into the BLFS phase, so for the time being, it will remain with a command-line interface.
There's not much you can do with Redclaw for the moment as I am figuring out a way to release a tarball that you can use to build Redclaw yourself, instructions and everything. Stay tuned for that.
Download
After seven attempts, I finally completed build one of Redclaw. It will be a few builds and many interactions away before the first version of Redclaw will be released, codenamed "Dragonfruit".
- redclaw-build1-pilfs-arm64-r12.tar.xz | April 13, 2024
- redclaw-build2-rpi5-arm64-lfs12-sysv.tar.xz | April 15, 2024
- redclaw-build3-rpi5-arm64-lfs12-sysv.tar.xz | May 2, 2024
Note for build1: After unpacking the tarball myself, you are unable to log in to the root account using the password I provided in the README, and I'm not sure why. I promise the password I provided in the tarball works, or did work. The next build will address this issue and you will be able to set your own root password when you first log in. Sorry for the inconvenience.
Note for build2: When booting, ignore the fail message about dhcpcd not present in the system as it does not exist. I did not include dhcpcd in this build and earlier as I'm was trying to level out some issues in build1. Also, ignore the message about a failed login attempt for root. I was testing on first boot for the root password removal, eventually removing it by chrooting and testing again on second boot. You can now login as root and set your own password.
How To Use
Pi builds of Redclaw are built and run on Raspberry Pi 5 computers. I do not release builds for older Raspberry Pi computers, as I only have Pi 5 computers.
In order to use Redclaw, you need a microSD card (at least 8 GiB with a size constraint of 2x) and a Linux system (a separate microSD card that has a system for the Raspberry Pi is recommended) to configure the card.
Read the README file in the tarball to load Redclaw on the microSD card. The tarball comes with the README file, a directory for the firmware partition (bootfs), and a directory for the root partition (rootfs).
The README file also comes with the password for the root user and some commands to set the hardware clock.
Changelog
-
May 3, 2024 - build3
- Rewrote build scripts for Redclaw
- API headers now copied from rpi-6.6.y instead of rpi-6.1.y
- Base system software built w/LSB compliance
- Firmware retrieved from stable branch instead of master branch
-
Temporarily removed wlan0 configuration file
- Prebuilt kernel not built with wireless LAN support
- Extra configuration files added
- usb.conf added back
-
Installed with fcron, dhcpcd, lsb-tools, nano, ntpd, openssh, rngd, sqlite, sudo, and wget
- rngd and sshd-keygen PiLFS bootscripts added
-
April 15, 2024 - build2
- Renamed build from "pilfs-arm64-r12" to "rpi5-arm64-lfs12-sysv"
- Removed preset root password; users can now login and set their own root password
- Set system-wide shell prompt (PS1) in /etc/profile
- Redclaw now boots with Raspberry Pi's prebuilt kernel and bootloader instead of the kernel from PiLFS guide
- switch-cpu-governor script from PiLFS for overclocking no longer installed for Redclaw
- Removed usb.conf from /etc/modprobe.d/
- Added network device configuration files for eth0 and wlan0 for dynamic assignment
-
April 13, 2024 - build1
- Initial release
License
Redclaw Linux is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license, with code licensed under the MIT License. Even though the LFS book itself is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0, Section 4(b) in that license allows me to use a later version of BY-NC-SA to license my work. Code exerpts from the LFS book are also licensed under the MIT license.