CRUX is a lightweight
x86-64 Linux distribution targeted at experienced
Linux
Linux ( ) is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an kernel (operating system), operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically package manager, pac ...
users and delivered by a tar.gz-based package system with
BSD-style initscripts. It is not based on any other Linux distribution. It also utilizes a
ports system to install and upgrade applications.
Although ''
crux'' is the Latin word for "cross," the choice of the name "CRUX" itself has no meaning. Per Lidén chose it because it "sounded cool," and ends in "X" which puts it in line with various other
Unix flavors such as
IRIX,
Ultrix,
Mac OS X and
IBM AIX.
Installation
CRUX does not include a
GUI installation program. Instead, the user boots the
kernel stored on either a
CD or
diskette;
partitions the
hard disk drive(s) to which the
operating system
An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs.
Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ...
will be installed (using a program such as
fdisk or
cfdisk); creates the appropriate
file systems on the various partitions;
mounts the CD or
NFS share along with the partitions made previously for use by the package installation script; compiles a new kernel; and installs a
bootloader, all via
shell commands.
Package management
CRUX implements an infrastructure similar to that of
BSD-based operating systems for package management. Packages consist of a Pkgfile (which is a
shell script), any
patches required to adjust the program to work,
md5sum hashes used to verify the integrity of the downloaded files and a footprint file listing the files to be included in the packages. These files are downloaded from a CRUX
software repository,
compiled, and installed using the prt-get frontend to .
The software sources are downloaded from the websites of their respective upstream at the address specified in the Pkgfile.
Releases
Reviews
Simone Rota reviewed CRUX for OSNews:
Review: CRUX Linux
, OSNews
References
External links
*
CRUX for Alternative Architectures: x86_64, ppc, ppc64, arm, sparc64
*
{{Linux distributions
Source-based Linux distributions
Linux distributions without systemd
Linux distributions