Next: 1.2 What is ttylinux Up: 1 Introduction Previous: 1 Introduction
ttylinux is a minimalistic Linux distribution. It can be installed by hand or by using the bootable CD version that includes an installer script. For a custom installation by hand, another Linux system already up and running is needed.
ttylinux aims to put as much as possible into as little space as possible. It provides multi-tasking, multi-user, and networking capabilities within less than 8 megabytes of operating system size.
The main use that ttylinux comes prepared for is dialing into an Internet provider by modem or ISDN. A text mode web browser is present.
A package management script capable of installing and removing binary software packages is included. This makes it possible to adapt ttylinux to specific needs.
ttylinux can be installed onto hard disk, CD-ROM, or any other media you can boot from. With a custom made bootable CD-ROM, as little as 4 MB of space are enough. The basic filesystem (excluding the kernel) is 8 MB in size. If you use the installer provided by the bootable CD-ROM version of ttylinux, a kernel image of a little under 2 MB will also be installed. This makes the minimum workable size for a hard disk partition to install ttylinux on around 10-12 MB.
You can also use ttylinux as a basis for putting together a more complete minimal system. ttylinux uses the same C library as full Linux systems, so compiling programs on another Linux machine and copying them over to the ttylinux filesystem should result in working programs.