» Finnix

Article posted on Jan 1

New Finnix website

• Posted by Ryan Finnie on January 1, 2006, 6:40 pm

We got a nice new wiki (ain't she a beautiful sight?)

Notice that since I have the power of TEH MOD_REWRITE, the home page isn't something like http://www.finnix.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

• Comments Off
• Posted in Finnix
• This post was imported from LiveJournal.

Article posted on Nov 26

No Title

• Posted by Ryan Finnie on November 26, 2005, 2:11 pm

Despite having a mac mini, I'm still doing Finnix development on the graphite G4. It's been very stable, up until last night, when I was compiling the latest and greatest kernel, I got the occasional failure like so:

CC drivers/pci/probe.o
include/asm/processor.h: In function 'pci_scan_child_bus':
include/asm/processor.h:186: internal compiler error: Segmentation fault
Please submit a full bug report,
with preprocessed source if appropriate.
See for instructions.
For Debian GNU/Linux specific bug reporting instructions,
see .
make[2]: *** [drivers/pci/probe.o] Error 1
make[1]: *** [drivers/pci] Error 2
make: *** [drivers] Error 2

But upon, resuming the compile, the failed object would compile successfully. This happened several times, which suggested bad memory. I slept on it, and this morning, tried again:

CC [M] drivers/usb/misc/idmouse.o
fixdep: inclu`e/asm-generic/local.h: No such file or directory
make[3]: *** [drivers/usb/misc/idmouse.o] Error 2
make[2]: *** [drivers/usb/misc] Error 2
make[1]: *** [drivers/usb] Error 2
make: *** [drivers] Error 2

"inclu`e"? Yep, that's bad ram. Too bad there's no memtestppc. I'll have to swap it out into a PC to test.

• 6 Comments
• Posted in Finnix
• This post was imported from LiveJournal.

Article posted on Nov 21

Announce (Woo!): Finnix 86.1 for x86/PowerPC/UML/Xen Released

• Posted by Ryan Finnie on November 21, 2005, 10:33 pm

Finnix is a small, self-contained, bootable Linux CD distribution for system administrators, based on Debian testing. Today marks the release of version 86.1 for the x86, PowerPC, and UML/Xen platforms.

PowerPC Support: The largest change for version 86.1 has been the inclusion of a PowerPC port. Finnix for PowerPC (Finnix-PPC) is a 115MB ISO that functions identically to the main x86 Finnix distribution. Simply insert the CD and boot while holding down the "C" key. Finnix-PPC is well supported on G4 and NewWorld G3 hardware, including PowerMacs, PowerBooks, iBooks, iMacs and the Mac Mini. G5 support is present, but still experimental.

UML/Xen Support: Finnix 86.1 can be deployed as a guest image on User Mode Linux (UML) and Xen virtualization systems. UML/Xen administrators can go to http://www.finnix.org/uml.php for information on deploying Finnix in a UML or Xen environment. Additionally, the x86 Finnix CD includes a built-in UML demo. Once at the bash prompt, you can type "finnix create", and a UML guest session is created within the running CD session, using the same media as the CD session itself. Full networking is available in this running guest.

Other Changes: Finnix 86.1 includes Linux kernel 2.6.14.2, unionfs 1.1.1, and updated upstream packages. Many bugs have been fixed; most visibly, the CD will now reliably eject before system shutdown. For a full changelog, see the link below.

Home page: http://www.finnix.org/
SourceForge page: http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/finnix/
Download:
* x86: http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/finnix/finnix-86.1.iso?download
* PowerPC: http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/finnix/finnix-ppc-86.1.iso?download
ChangeLog: http://sourceforge.net/project/shownotes.php?group_id=3892&release_id=371261
Finnix for UML/Xen: http://www.finnix.org/uml.php

• Comments Off
• Posted in Finnix
• This post was imported from LiveJournal.

Article posted on Nov 6

Awww, isn't it cute...

• Posted by Ryan Finnie on November 6, 2005, 8:25 pm

I now own a 1.25GHz/256MB Mac Mini. Got a sweet deal too. That now makes 4 mac machines I own, technically:

* Beige G3 "Server" with like 4 SCSI disks that equal about 2GB, hasn't been powered on in years
* Beige G3 tower, no hard drive currently, but I may install OS9 (and BootX so I can run linux on it, as it's OldWorld) that came with the mini
* 400MHz Graphite G4 AGP, debian installed, currently doing Finnix development
* 1.25GHz G4 Mini, dual-booting Tiger and debian, Finnix development will eventually be moved here

• 4 Comments
• Posted in Finnix
• This post was imported from LiveJournal.

Article posted on Nov 4

Calling all Mac geeks!

• Posted by Ryan Finnie on November 4, 2005, 10:53 am

Finnix-PPC development is coming along nicely. It's "stable", but since I don't have 100 different ppc machines lying around like I do for x86, I'm turning to livejournal for hardware testing before I "publicly" release it. So if you have a NewWorld[0x01] Mac (ESPECIALLY a G5):

Read the rest of this entry »

• Comments Off
• Posted in Finnix
• This post was imported from LiveJournal.

Article posted on Nov 2

iFinnix

• Posted by Ryan Finnie on November 2, 2005, 12:41 am

Where the last 6 hours and 27 CD coasters have gone:

• 1 Comment
• Posted in Finnix
• This post was imported from LiveJournal.

Article posted on Oct 24

Finnix 86.0 Released

• Posted by Ryan Finnie on October 24, 2005, 1:03 am

http://sourceforge.net/forum/forum.php?forum_id=505408 (Ain't I good at writin'?)

Nearly 6 years ago, Finnix 0.03 made history as one of the first bootable CD Linux distributions. It may have taken awhile, but Finnix is back as a small (less than 100MB), fully-featured LiveCD for system administrators.

Finnix 86.0 includes 336 Debian packages, Linux kernel 2.6.13, and advanced system utilities such as LVM2. You can mount and manipulate hard drives and partitions, monitor networks, rebuild boot records, install other operating systems, and much more. Finnix can be run in as little as 32MB RAM, but if you have at least 192MB RAM, you can run the entire distribution from a ramdisk, saving access time during use, at the expense of a small wait during boot while the CD is copied to RAM (this wait is negligible due to the distribution's small size).

Most importantly, Finnix can be burned to a "Mini-CDR", which, as a fashion statement, goes great with your laptop bag or pocket.

Please visit http://www.finnix.org/ to learn more or download a copy!

• Comments Off
• Posted in Finnix
• This post was imported from LiveJournal.

Article posted on Oct 18

No Title

• Posted by Ryan Finnie on October 18, 2005, 3:21 pm

I've spent the better part of the last 24 hours wrestling with making my newly-bought 512MB USB key reliably boot. As of now, though, I've got a key with a dev version of Finnix that boots... on, like, a lot of stuff!

This functionality will be in the final verson, come hell or high water.

• Comments Off
• Posted in Finnix
• This post was imported from LiveJournal.

Article posted on Oct 14

We got yer livecds right here, pal.

• Posted by Ryan Finnie on October 14, 2005, 3:26 pm

Finnix 86.0-pre3 is released! It was supposed to be 86.0-pre2, but that turned out to be a brown paper bag release (One of the last things I did was upgrade isolinux, and I tested nearly all "finnix" combinations of booting, but not "memtest"... it broke horribly.)

Anyways, download it (it's just over 100MB for god sakes), test it, and let me know what breaks, if anything.

• Comments Off
• Posted in Finnix
• This post was imported from LiveJournal.

Article posted on Oct 13

Thank god for vmware

• Posted by Ryan Finnie on October 13, 2005, 12:07 pm

In the last week, I'm guessing that I've built and started approximately 500 ISOs, if not more.

In TOTALLY unrelated news, I've started work on Finnix again. I've almost got a stable product, and the website is completely redone.

(Check out the screenshots.)

Update: Yeah, I forgot to mention, it's not out yet... but soon!

• 4 Comments
• Posted in Finnix
• This post was imported from LiveJournal.