Debian Lovers - Why I love Voyage Linux http://www.adamsinfo.com/debian-lovers-why-i-love-voyage-linux/
I'm Adam Palmer, and I'm an Embedded Linux/Embedded Hardware enthusiast. I spend most of my time managing server clusters, and doing some PHP/MySQL development, whilst what little spare time I have is dedicated to playing with gadgets. I'm always happy to consult on or manage any Linux related, Web Application or Hosting project. Please get in touch with me!
For those Debian lovers I have finally found a great embedded distro. I’ve always stayed away from the multitude of distros available, each with their own package manager or lack of, each with their own preinstalled software or again, lack of, and each with their own caveats.
I began my jorney into Linux with SuSE about 11 years ago at the time of writing, and have also given RedHat a fair chance in the past. In my first employment I was forced to battle against Slackware for two years, and about 7 years ago, discovered Debian.
From that point on, my love for Debian has been absolutely unshakeable. Why do I love Debian? It’s perfectly crafted, clean, unbloated, exquisitely simple yet powerful to the more Novice user, and elegantly understated. I toyed with Ubuntu for some time as a desktop OS, as it’s Debian based, and does most of the Xorg configuration hassle for you, although I usually find myself using a minimalist Windows XP Professional setup on my desktops.
Enter Voyage Linux. It must have been fate.. I was browsing the Alix web site, and noticed amongst many that ‘Voyage Linux’ was supported. Something other than it’s mediocre name must have drawn my attention to it, as a quick Google search lead me to http://linux.voyage.hk
The first sentence sold it to me, “Voyage Linux is Debian derived distribution that is best run on a x86-based embedded platforms such as WRAP, ALIX and Soekris 45xx/48xx boards.”
I downloaded and installed Voyage on my Alix Robot board in minutes, and without delay was up and running. If Debian is clean and unbloated, Voyage is anorexic. It’s so lightweight by default, that you don’t need to even consider removing packages from the default installation. It has a fully working apt package manager, and you can also happily install packages from the main Debian package repositories. It looks, works and behaves just like Debian, no annoyances or broken/badly behaved tools. It’s also shipped with a working set of base utilities and does not rely on busybox as some of the embedded distros do. The default kernel is also incredibly well crafted, and includes madwifi support by default which again is great as I use Atheros chipset. I quickly and cleanly upgrade from the included 2.6.24 to a regular 2.6.27.6 from kernel.org which was the newest available at the time. Rebooted into 2.6.27.6 with no complaints and began copying my C applications over to the new distro to operate the Robot. Absolutely perfect and no complaints.
For a hardcore Debian lover who would never imagine installing anything else… ever… Voyage Linux is now immediately available on my Key chain USB mass storage stick, and I would be hard pushed for a reason to go back to Debian on any embedded/minimalist hardware project.
About Voyage Linux
Published Fri, 2006-01-06 15:49 read moreVoyage Linux is Debian derived distribution that is best run on a x86-based embedded platforms such as WRAP, ALIX and Soekris 45xx/48xx boards.
It can also run on low-end x86 PC platforms. Typical installation requires 128MB disk space, although larger storage allows more packages to be installed. Voyage Linux is so small that it is best suitable for running a full-feature firewall, wireless access point, VoIP gateway and network storage device.
Long "voyage": modpost to work and compile
This is the story: I need to install some additional kernel modules for the WORKIT project on Voyage. All of the kernel modules pass step 1 of the Makefile, and they compile, but then I get the error:
Building modules, stage 2.
MODPOST 1 modules
/bin/sh: scripts/mod/modpost: No such file or directory
A long search for modpost lead me to find that modpost is used for compiling modules, and is part of the kernel development tools (sorry, missing the link for that post, and couldn't find it again on Google - tells you how exotic this modpost is.)
After a lot more trial and error - which included downloading and trying to recompile the Voyage Linux kernels - I found two posts today that helped immensely in coming to the last step:
- No modpost directory - Linux Forums : helped me realize how to build the modpost (but it was referencing the wrong directory; on my Voyage Linux, the code is at /lib/modules/2.6.20-486-voyage/build)
I copied the makefile command, removed the -m directive, and tried compiling again and got a "missing elfconfig.h" error message and other errors dependent on that.
A search for "elfconfig.h" led me to a post of the Linux kernel mailing list about missing elfconfig.h which hints at running "make modules" and "make scripts".
Running those two commands on the /lib/modules/2.6.20-486-voyage/build directory solves the problem - it creates the elfconfig.h (!) file and compiles modpost. (Expect this to take a while - it makes all modules and scripts.)
The Internet Real-Time Lab (IRT) in the Computer Science Department at Columbia University conducts research in the areas of Internet and multimedia services: Internet telephony, wireless and mobile networks, streaming, quality of service, resource reservation, dynamic pricing for the Internet, network measurement and reliability, service location, network security, media on demand, content distribution networks, multicast networks and ubiquitous and context-aware computing and communication.
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