Building a tiny Linux from scratch

Building a tiny Linux from scratch

Last week, I built a tiny Linux system from scratch, and booted it on my laptop!

Last week, I built a tiny Linux system from scratch, and booted it on my laptop! Here’s what it looked like:  Let me tell you how I got there. I wanted to learn more about how the Linux kernel works, and what’s involved in booting it. So I set myself the goal to cobble together the bare neccessities required to boot into a working shell. In the end, I had a tiny Linux system with a size of 2.5 MB, which I could boot from a USB stick on my laptop! What you’ll get out of this article: - A better understanding of what happens when your computer boots Linux. - What terms like bzImage, initrd and UEFI mean. - Ideas for how to deal with the problems that I encountered. - And if you haven’t used Nix, it might be interesting to see how I used it to manage the tools and libraries I needed.  originally posted at

Stacker News

Building a tiny Linux from scratch \ stacker news ~Design

Last week, I built a tiny Linux system from scratch, and booted it on my laptop! Here’s what it looked like: Let me tell you how I got there. I w...

I'll think twice before using Github Actions again

I'll think twice before using Github Actions again

The blog post discusses dissatisfaction with GitHub Actions due to its limitations in managing complex workflows, especially in monorepo setups wit...

Before I rant about GitHub Actions, I'd like to set the context on where this dissatisfaction comes from. My team consists of about 15 engineers constantly pushing to the main branch. Our code lives in a monorepo split per module, which, through trunk based development, gets deployed multiple times a day. I want to emphasize that your mileage may vary. There will be folks who say GitHub Actions are great (I also use them for smaller projects), but as with any tool, it has limits and might not be suitable for all problems. Let's look at some of them. **GitHub doesn't care** Of all the pain points, this is the worst one. It seems that GitHub doesn't care about fixing any of these issues or improving its product. Some of the threads have been open for years without any action taken by GitHub. A lot of these issues have been recently closed by GitHub causing a backlash from the community. There are no signs that these will be addressed based on their public roadmap.  originally posted at

Stacker News

I'll think twice before using Github Actions again \ stacker news ~Design

Before I rant about GitHub Actions, I'd like to set the context on where this dissatisfaction comes from. My team consists of about 15 engineers co...

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