Debian From Scratch 0.99.0 review

Debian From Scratch is really two systems: 1) a bootable CD for repairing Linux systems or installing Debian; 2) the program that

License: GPL (GNU General Public License) File size: 628230K Developer: John Goerzen

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Debian From Scratch is really two systems:

1) a bootable CD for repairing Linux systems or installing Debian;
2) the program that generates the CDs that are used for #1.

You can expect the following from your DFS CD:

* Bootable CD featuring the GNU Grub bootloader. Can be used to boot hard disk partitions even if no hard disk bootloader is present.

* Kernel and userland support for all major filesystems, including ext2, ext3, JFS, XFS, ReiserFS, FAT, VFAT, NTFS, ISO9660, CramFS, tmpfs, and more. Userland support for Reiser4.

* Kernel and userland support for different disk layout schemes including standard partitioning, Logical Volume Manager 2 (LVM2), software RAID, etc.

* Full recovery tools runnable directly from CD, including:

- Filesystem utilities for all mazjor filesystems, including undeletion tools for ext2

- Partition editors (fdisk, cfdisk, parted)

- Text editors (nano, joe, vim, emacs)

- C, Perl, Python, and OCaml development environments. Enough to configure and compile a new kernel and build basic .debs. Kernel 2.6.6 sources included on CD.

- Full networking support, including PPP and various Ethernet cards and DHCP

- Network tools including FTP clients, Web client, ssh, telnet, NFS, smbclient, tcpdump, netcat, etc.

- Backup restoration tools such as rdiff-backup, dump/restore, tar, cpio, amanda client, afbackup client, etc.

- CD and DVD burning tools

- Basic printing tools (cat for local printers, rlpr for remote ones, and netcat for Jetdirect, plus unix2dos for text files and Ghostscript for emergency conversions)

- Mail reader (mutt)

* Base systems for multiple versions of Debian installable directly from CD, including: woody (i386), sarge (i386), sid (i386), and sid (amd64). Alpha CD can install woody, sarge, or sid for Alpha.

* amd64 support: Enough to install or fix an AMD64 system. Includes 64-bit kernel with 32-bit emulation (to run the 32-bit userland on the CD). Also includes 64-bit package for bootstrapping a new AMD64 support. In short, you can boot a 64-bit kernel and be treated as a first-class citizen in almost all respects.

* i386 or x86_64 (amd64) kernels bootable directly from initial boot menu.

* DFS generation scripts support custom kernels, packages, mirrors, compressed ISO images, and a high degree of flexibility.