.. sectnum:: :start: 0 .. SPDX-FileCopyrightText: 2022 Dor Askayo .. SPDX-FileCopyrightText: 2021 Andrius Štikonas .. SPDX-FileCopyrightText: 2021 Paul Dersey .. SPDX-FileCopyrightText: 2021-23 fosslinux .. SPDX-FileCopyrightText: 2021 Melg Eight .. SPDX-FileCopyrightText: 2024 Gábor Stefanik .. SPDX-License-Identifier: CC-BY-SA-4.0 bootstrap-seeds =============== This is where it all begins. A kernel bootstrapping option is used by default at the beginning. The tiny ``builder-hex0-x86-stage1`` binary seed boots, builds and runs the ``builder-hex0-x86-stage2`` kernel. The ``builder-hex0-x86-stage1`` and ``builder-hex0-x86-stage2`` kernels are written in ``hex0``. The stage2 kernel has its own built-in shell, the ``hex0`` compiler and the ``src`` tool to load files into its memory file system. In this case the first step is to build the ``hex0-seed`` and ``kaem-optional-seed`` binaries from ``hex0`` source. Note that all early shells and compilers before ``mes`` are part of `stage0-posix `_. ``builder-hex0-x86-stage2`` runs as the kernel for building the stage0-posix compilers and then ``mes`` and ``tcc``. Then the `Fiwix ` kernel is built and launched. Then Fiwix runs the build until Linux takes over. If chroot or bwrap is specified or if a pre-existing kernel is provided then we start with the two raw binary seeds ``hex0-seed`` and ``kaem-optional-seed``. We use those seeds to rebuild themselves. hex0 ==== ``hex0`` is fairly trivial to implement and for each pair of hexadecimals characters it outputs a byte. We have also added two types of line comments (``#`` and ``;``) to create a well commented lines like: .. code:: scheme # :loop_options [_start + 0x6F] 39D3 ; cmp_ebx,edx # Check if we are done 74 14 ; je !loop_options_done # We are done 83EB 02 ; sub_ebx, !2 # --options In the first steps we use initial ``hex0`` binary seed to rebuild ``kaem-optional`` and ``hex0`` from their source. ``hex0`` code is somewhat tedious to read and write as it is basically a well documented machine code. We have to manually calculate all jumps in the code. ``hex0`` can be approximated with: ``sed 's/[;#].*$//g' $input_file | xxd -r -p > $output_file`` builder-hex0-x86-stage1 ======================= By default (when kernel bootstrap is enabled), the ``builder-hex0-x86-stage1`` boot loader/compiler boots from a hard drive and loads ``hex0`` source code from disk, compiles, and runs the ``builder-hex0-x86-stage2`` kernel. ``builder-hex0-x86-stage1`` is written in ``hex0`` and can be compiled with any one of ``hex0-seed``, ``sed``, or the tiny ``builder-hex0-mini`` binary. builder-hex0-x86-stage2 ======================= When kernel bootstrap is enabled, the ``builder-hex0-x86-stage2`` kernel loads an enormous shell script which embeds files (loaded with the ``src`` command) and the initial commands to build ``hex0-seed``, ``kaem-optional-seed``, and the command which launches stage0-posix using ``kaem-optional-seed`` and the stage0-posix launch script ``kaem.x86``. kaem-optional ============= ``kaem-optional`` is a trivial shell that can read list of commands together with their command line arguments from a file and executes them. It also supports line comments but has no other features. hex1 ==== This is the last program that has to be written in ``hex0`` language. ``hex1`` is a simple extension of ``hex0`` and adds a single character labels and allows calculating 32-bit offsets from current position in the code to the label. ``hex1`` code might look like: .. code:: scheme :a #:loop_options 39D3 ; cmp_ebx,edx # Check if we are done 0F84 %b ; je %loop_options_done # We are done 83EB 02 ; sub_rbx, !2 # --options hex2 ==== ``hex2`` is our final hex language that adds support for labels of arbitrary length. It also allows accessing them via 8, 16, 32-bit relative addresses (``!``, ``@``, ``%``) and via 16-bit or 32-bit (``$``, ``&``) absolute addresses: .. code:: scheme :loop_options 39D3 ; cmp_ebx,edx # Check if we are done 74 !loop_options_done ; je8 !loop_options_done # We are done 83EB 02 ; sub_ebx, !2 # --options catm ==== ``catm`` allows concatenating files with ``catm output_file input1 input2 ... inputN``. This allows us to distribute common code in separate files. We will first use it to append ELF header to ``.hex2`` files. Before this step the ELF header had to be included in the source file itself. M0 == The ``M0`` assembly language is the simplest assembly language you can create that enables the creation of more complicated programs. It includes only a single keyword: ``DEFINE`` and leverages the language properties of ``hex2`` along with extending the behavior to populate immediate values of various sizes and formats. Thus ``M0`` code looks like: .. code:: bash DEFINE cmp_ebx,edx 39D3 DEFINE je 0F84 DEFINE sub_ebx, 81EB :loop_options cmp_ebx,edx # Check if we are done je %loop_options_done # We are done sub_ebx, %2 # --options cc_x86 ====== The ``cc_x86`` implements a subset of the C language designed in ``M0`` assembly. It is a somewhat limited subset of C but complete enough to make it easy to write a more usable C compiler written in the C subset that ``cc_x86`` supports. At this stage we start using `M2libc `_ as our C library. In fact, ``M2libc`` ships two versions of C library. There is a single-file library that contains just enough to build ``M2-Planet`` and there is a full version that is rather well-featured. M2-Planet ========= This is the only C program that we build with ``cc_x86``. `M2-Planet `_ supports a larger subset of C than ``cc_x86`` and we are somewhat closer to C89 (it does not implement all C89 features but on the other hand it does have some C99 features). ``M2-Planet`` also includes a very basic preprocessor, so we can use stuff like ``#define``, ``#ifdef``. ``M2-Planet`` is also capable of using full ``M2libc`` C library that has more features and optimizations compared to bootstrap version of ``M2libc``. ``M2-Planet`` supports generating code for various architectures including ``x86``, ``amd64``, ``armv7``, ``aarch64``, ``riscv32`` and ``riscv64``. Up until this point bootstrap has been very architecture specific. From now on we still have platform specific bits of code but they are usually handled as conditionals in the same application rather than having completely different applications. mescc-tools =========== Now we build ``blood-elf`` used to generate debug info, C version of ``hex2`` (also called ``hex2``) and C version of ``M0`` called ``M1``. These are more capable than their platform specific hex counterparts and are fully cross-platform. Thus we can now have the whole toolchain written in C. Then we rebuild ``mescc-tools`` again, so all our tools are using new toolchain written in C. Finally, we build `kaem` which is a more capable version of `kaem-optional` and adds support for variables, environmental variables, conditionals and aliases. It also has various built-ins such as `cd` and `echo`. M2-Mesoplanet ============= ``M2-Mesoplanet`` is a preprocessor that is more capable than ``M2-Planet`` and supports ``#include`` statements. It can also launch compiler, assembler and linker with the correct arguments, so we don't need to invoke them manually. At the moment it is only used to build ``mescc-tools-extra``. M2-Planet ========= We rebuild ``M2-Planet`` with ``M2-Planet``. From here, we can move on from the lowest level stuff. mescc-tools-extra ================= ``mescc-tools-extra`` contains some additional programs, namely filesystem utilities ``cp`` and ``chown``. This allows us to have one unified directory for our binaries. Furthermore, we also build ``sha256sum``, a checksumming tool, that we use to ensure reproducibility and authenticity of generated binaries. We also build initial ``untar``, ``ungz``, ``unxz`` and ``unbz2`` utilities to deal with compressed archives, as well as ``replace``, a trivial search-and-replace program. live-bootstrap seed =================== ``stage0-posix`` executes a file ``after.kaem``, which creates a kaem script to continue the bootstrap. This is responsible for cleaning up the mess in ``/x86/bin`` and moving it to the permanent ``/usr/bin``, and setting a few environment variables. script-generator ================ ``script-generator`` is a program that translates live-bootstrap's domain-specific manifest language into shell scripts that can be run to complete the bootstrap. The translator is implemented in ``M2-Planet``. The language is fairly simple; each line has the format ``: ``. A predicate only runs the line if a particular condition is true. The following directives are supported: * ``build``, builds a particular package defined in ``steps/``. * ``improve``, runs a script making a distinct and logical improvement to the live bootstrap system. * ``define``, defines a variable evaluated from other constants/variables. * ``jump``, moves into a new rootfs/kernel using a custom script. * ``uninstall``, removes a previously built package for file. checksum-transcriber 1.0 ======================== ``checksum-transcriber`` is a small program that converts live-bootstrap's source specification for packages into a SHA256SUM file that can be used to checksum source tarballs. simple-patch 1.0 ================ ``simple-patch`` is a rudimentary patching program. It works by matching for a text block given to it, and replacing it with another text block. This is sufficient for the early patching required before we have full proper GNU patch. mes 0.26 ======== GNU ``mes`` is a scheme interpreter. It runs the sister project ``mescc``, which is a C compiler written in scheme, which links against the Mes C Library. All 3 are included in this same repository. There are two stages to this part: 1. Compiling an initial mes using ``M2-Planet``. Note that this is *only* the Mes interpreter, not the libc or anything else. 2. We then use this to recompile the Mes interpreter as well as building the libc. This second interpreter is faster and less buggy. The ``mescc`` component depends on the ``nyacc`` parsing library, version 1.00.2. We use a modified version, 1.00.2-lb1, which incorporates Timothy Sample's changes required to bootstrap ``mescc`` without relying on pregenerated files. From this point until musl, we are capable of making non-standard and strange libraries. All libraries are in ``/usr/lib/mes``, and includes are in ``/usr/include/mes``, as they are incompatible with musl. tinycc 0.9.26 ============= ``tinycc`` is a minimal C compiler that aims to be small and fast. It complies with all C89 and most of C99 standards. First, we compile janneke’s fork of tcc 0.9.26 using ``mescc``, containing 27 patches to make it operate well in the bootstrap environment and make it compilable using ``mescc``. This is a non-trivial process and as seen within tcc. kaem has many different parts within it: a. tcc 0.9.26 is first compiled using ``mescc``. b. The mes libc is recompiled using tcc (``mescc`` has a non-standard ``.a`` format), including some additions for later programs. c. tcc 0.9.26 is recompiled 3 times to add new features, namely ``long long`` and ``float``. Each time, the libc is also recompiled. tinycc 0.9.27 ============= Now, we compile upstream tcc 0.9.27, the latest release of tinycc, using the final version of tcc 0.9.26. From this point onwards, until further notice, all programs are compiled using tinycc 0.9.27. Note that now we begin to delve into the realm of old GNU software, using older versions compilable by tinycc. Prior to this point, all tools have been adapted significantly for the bootstrap; now, we will be using old tooling instead. fiwix 1.5.0-lb1 =============== If the kernel bootstrap option is enabled then the Fiwix kernel is built next. This is a Linux 2.0 clone which is much simpler to understand and build than Linux. This version of Fiwix is an intermediate release on top of 1.5.0 that contains many modifications and enhancements to support live-boostrap. lwext4 1.0.0-lb1 ================ If the kernel bootstrap option is enabled then `lwext4 ` is built next. This is a library for creating ext2/3/4 file systems from user land. This is combined with a program called ``make_fiwix_initrd.c`` which creates and populates an ext2 files system which Fiwix uses for an initial ram drive (initrd). This file system contains all of the files necessary to build Linux. kexec-fiwix =========== If the kernel bootstrap option is enabled then a C program `kexec-fiwix` is compiled and run which places the Fiwix ram drive in memory and launches the Fiwix kernel. make 3.82 ========= GNU ``make`` is now built so we have a more robust building system. ``make`` allows us to do things like define rules for files rather than writing complex kaem scripts. patch 2.5.9 =========== ``patch`` is a very useful tool at this stage, allowing us to make significantly more complex edits, including just changes to lines. gzip 1.2.4 ========== ``gzip`` is the most common compression format used for software source code. It is more capable than ``ungz`` from ``stage0-posix`` and also supports compression. tar 1.12 ======== We build GNU Tar 1.12, the last version compilable with mes libc. sed 4.0.9 ========= You are most likely aware of GNU ``sed``, a line editor. bzip2 1.0.8 =========== ``bzip2`` is a compression format that compresses more than ``gzip``. It is preferred where we can use it, and makes source code sizes smaller. coreutils 5.0 ============= GNU Coreutils is a collection of widely used utilities such as ``cat``, ``chmod``, ``chown``, ``cp``, ``install``, ``ln``, ``ls``, ``mkdir``, ``mknod``, ``mv``, ``rm``, ``rmdir``, ``tee``, ``test``, ``true``, and many others. A few of the utilities cannot be easily compiled with Mes C library, so we skip them. The ``cp`` in this stage replaces the ``mescc-tools-extra`` ``cp``. byacc 20240109 ============== The Berkeley Yacc parser generator, a public-domain implementation of the ``yacc`` utility. Differently from the analogous ``bison`` utility from the GNU project, it can be compiled with a simple ``Makefile``. Some code is backported from an earlier version of byacc, 20140101, because of an incompatibility of newer versions with meslibc. bash 2.05b ========== GNU ``bash`` is the most well known shell and the most complex piece of software so far. However, it comes with a number of great benefits over kaem, including proper POSIX sh support, globbing, etc. Bash ships with a bison pre-generated file here which we delete. Unfortunately, we have not bootstrapped bison but fortunately for us, Berkeley Yacc is able to cope here. setup_repo ========== This is a simple script that sets up the ``/external/repo`` directory to hold binary tarballs of artifacts built in each step. It also creates ``base.tar.bz2``, a tarball containing every artifact built before ``setup_repo``, which have no individual repository tarballs corresponding to them. From this point on, every package is built and installed into a temporary directory, packaged from there into a repository tarball, and then installed onto the live system from the newly built repository tarball. update_env ========== This is a simple script that makes some small updates to the env file that were not possible when using kaem. merged_usr ========== Sets up symlinks from folders outside the ``/usr`` hierarchy to the corresponding ``/usr`` ones ("merged-usr" file system layout). populate_device_nodes ===================== Sets up important device nodes under ``/dev``. These nodes are temporary, as once the Linux kernel is started, ``devtmpfs`` is used to maintain ``/dev``. open_console ============ In interactive mode only, sets up an interactive Bash console, accessible by pressing Ctrl+Alt+F2. Because the early Bash doesn't support true interactive operation, we emulate it using a REPL. A side effect of this is that after every command entered, one must press Enter followed by Ctrl+D, rather than just Enter as with a real interactive shell. tcc 0.9.27 (patched) ==================== We recompile ``tcc`` with some patches needed to build musl. musl 1.1.24 and musl_libdir =========================== ``musl`` is a C standard library that is lightweight, fast, simple, free, and strives to be correct in the sense of standards-conformance and safety. ``musl`` is used by some distributions of GNU/Linux as their C library. Our previous Mes C library was incomplete which prevented us from building many newer or more complex programs. ``tcc`` has slight problems when building and linking ``musl``, so we apply a few patches. We do not use any of ``/usr/lib/mes`` or ``/usr/include/mes`` any longer, rather using ``/usr/lib`` and ``/usr/include`` like normal. tcc 0.9.27 (musl) ================= We recompile ``tcc`` against musl. This is a two stage process. First we build tcc-0.9.27 using tcc-0.9.26 that itself links to Mes C library but produces binaries linked to musl. Then we recompile newly produced tcc with itself. Interestingly, tcc-0.9.27 linked against musl is self hosting. musl 1.1.24 (tcc-musl) ====================== We now rebuild ``musl`` with the just built ``tcc-musl``, which fixes a number of bugs, particularly regarding floats, in the first ``musl``. tcc 0.9.27 (musl v2) ==================== Now that we have a ‘fixed’ ``musl``, we now recompile ``tcc`` as ``tcc`` uses floats extensively. sed 4.0.9 ========= ``sed`` is rebuilt against musl. bzip2 1.0.8 =========== ``bzip2`` is rebuilt unpatched with the new tcc and musl fixing issues with reading files from stdin that existed in the previous build. m4 1.4.7 ======== ``m4`` is the first piece of software we need in the autotools suite, flex 2.6.4 and bison. It allows macros to be defined and files to be generated from those macros. heirloom devtools ================= ``lex`` from the Heirloom project. The Heirloom project is a collection of standard UNIX utilities derived from code by Caldera and Sun. Differently from the analogous utilities from the GNU project, they can be compiled with a simple ``Makefile``. Because issues with the Heirloom version of ``yacc`` compiled against musl, we continue using Berkeley Yacc together with Heirloom ``lex`` for the next few steps. flex 2.5.11 =========== ``flex`` is a tool for generating lexers or scanners: programs that recognize lexical patterns. Unfortunately ``flex`` also depends on itself for compiling its own scanner, so first flex 2.5.11 is compiled, with its scanner definition manually modified so that it can be processed by lex from the Heirloom project (the required modifications are mostly syntactical, plus a few workarounds to avoid some flex advanced features). flex 2.6.4 ========== We recompile unpatched GNU ``flex`` using older flex 2.5.11. This is again a two stage process, first compiling flex using ``scan.c`` (from ``scan.l``) created by old flex, then recompile ``scan.c`` using the new version of flex to remove any buggy artifacts from the old flex. bison 3.4.1 =========== GNU ``bison`` is a parser generator. With ``m4`` and ``flex`` we can now bootstrap it following https://gitlab.com/giomasce/bison-bootstrap. It’s a 3 stage process: 1. Build bison using a handwritten grammar parser in C. 2. Use bison from previous stage on a simplified bison grammar file. 3. Build bison using original grammar file. Finally we have a fully functional ``bison`` executable. grep 2.4 ======== GNU ``grep`` is a pattern matching utility. Is is not immediately needed but will be useful later for autotools. diffutils 2.7 ============= ``diffutils`` is useful for comparing two files. It is not immediately needed but is required later for autotools. coreutils 5.0 ============= ``coreutils`` is rebuilt against musl. Additional utilities are built including ``comm``, ``expr``, ``dd``, ``sort``, ``sync``, ``uname`` and ``uniq``. This fixes a variety of issues with existing ``coreutils``. coreutils 6.10 ============== We build ``date``, ``mktemp`` and ``sha256sum`` from coreutils 6.10 which are either missing or don't build correctly in 5.0. Other utils are not built at this stage. gawk 3.0.4 ========== ``gawk`` is the GNU implementation of ``awk``, yet another pattern matching and data extraction utility. It is also required for autotools. perl 5.000 ========== Perl is a general purpose programming language that is especially suitable for text processing. It is essential for autotools build system because automake and some other tools are written in Perl. Perl itself is written in C but ships with some pre-generated files that need perl for processing, namely ``embed.h`` and ``keywords.h``. To bootstrap Perl we will start with the oldest Perl 5 version which has the fewest number of pregenerated files. We reimplement two remaining perl scripts in awk and use our custom makefile instead of Perl’s pre-generated Configure script. At this first step we build ``miniperl`` which is ``perl`` without support for loading modules. perl 5.003 ========== We now use ``perl`` from the previous stage to recreate pre-generated files that are shipped in perl 5.003. But for now we still need to use handwritten makefile instead of ``./Configure`` script. perl 5.004_05 ============= Yet another version of perl; the last version buildable with 5.003. perl 5.005_03 ============= More perl! This is the last version buildable with 5.004. It also introduces the new pregenerated files ``regnodes.h`` and ``byterun.{h,c}``. perl 5.6.2 ========== Even more perl. 5.6.2 is the last version buildable with 5.005. autoconf 2.52 ============= GNU Autoconf is a tool for producing ``configure`` scripts for building, installing and packaging software on computer systems where a Bourne shell is available. At this stage we still do not have a working autotools system, so we manually install ``autoconf`` script and replace a few placeholder variables with ``sed``. Autoconf 2.52 is the newest version of ``autoconf`` that does not need ``perl``, and hence a bit easier to install. This is not a full featured autoconf install, it is missing other programs such as ``autoheader`` but is sufficient to build autoconf 2.53. automake 1.6.3 ============== GNU Automake is a tool for automatically generating Makefile.in files. It is another major part of GNU Autotools build system and consists of ``aclocal`` and ``automake`` scripts. We bootstrap it using a 2 stage process: 1. Use ``sed`` to replace a few placeholder variables in ``aclocal.in`` script. Then we manually install ``aclocal`` script and its dependencies. 2. Patch ``configure.in`` to create ``automake`` file but skip ``Makefile.in`` processing. Again we manually install ``automake`` script and its dependencies. autoconf 2.53 ============= We now start bootstrapping newer versions of autoconf. Version 2.53 now uses ``perl``. In order to build it with ``autoconf-2.52`` we have to patch it a bit. automake 1.7 ============ Automake 1.7 and Autoconf 2.54 depend on each other, so we patch out two offending autoconf macros to make it build with ``autoconf-2.53``. autoconf 2.54 ============= Never version of ``autoconf``. autoconf 2.55 ============= Even newer ``autoconf``. This is the last version of ``autoconf`` that is buildable with ``automake-1.7``. automake 1.7.8 ============== Newer ``automake``. This is the latest ``automake`` that is buildable with ``autoconf-2.55``. autoconf 2.57 ============= Newer ``autoconf``. This time we were able to skip version 2.56. autoconf 2.59 ============= Again, we managed to skip one version. automake 1.8.5 ============== We need newer ``automake`` to proceed to newer ``autoconf`` versions. This is the latest automake version from 1.8 release series. help2man 1.36.4 =============== ``help2man`` automatically generates manpages from programs ``--help`` and ``--version`` outputs. This is not strictly required for bootstrapping but will help us to avoid patching build process to skip generation of manpages. This is the newest version of ``help2man`` that does not require Perl 5.8. autoconf 2.61 ============= Yet another version of ``autoconf``. automake 1.9.6 ============== Latest GNU Automake from 1.9 series. Slightly annoyingly depends on itself but it is easy to patch to make it buildable with 1.8.5. automake 1.10.3 =============== GNU Automake from 1.10 series. ``aclocal`` is slightly patched to work with our ``perl``. autoconf 2.64 ============= Slightly newer version of GNU Autoconf. At this stage Autoconf is mostly backwards compatible but newer versions need newer ``automake``. automake 1.11.2 =============== GNU Automake from 1.11 series. This is not the latest point release as newer ones need Autoconf 2.68. Newer major version of ``automake`` also depends on a newer ``bash``. autoconf 2.69 ============= This is a much newer version of GNU Autoconf. libtool 2.2.4 ============= GNU Libtool is the final part of GNU Autotools. It is a script used to hide away differences when compiling shared libraries on different platforms. automake 1.15.1 =============== GNU Automake from 1.15 series. This is the last version that runs on Perl 5.6. binutils 2.30 ============= The GNU Binary Utilities, or binutils, are a set of programming tools for creating and managing binary programs, object files, libraries, profile data, and assembly source code. In particular we can now use full featured ``ar`` instead of ``tcc -ar``, the GNU linker ``ld``, which allows us building shared libraries, and the GNU assembler ``as``. musl 1.1.24 (v3) ================ We rebuild musl for the third time. This time we can use GNU as to build assembly source files, so those assembly files that tcc failed to compile no longer have to be patched. tcc 0.9.27 (musl v3) ==================== We rebuild tcc against new musl. gcc 4.0.4 ========= The GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) is an optimizing compiler produced by the GNU Project. GCC is a key component of the GNU toolchain and the standard compiler for most projects related to GNU and the Linux kernel. Only the C frontend is built at this stage. At this stage we are not yet able to regenerate top-level ``Makefile.in`` which needs GNU Autogen and hence Guile. Luckily, building GCC without top-level ``Makefile`` is fairly easy. findutils 4.2.33 ================ GNU Find Utilities can be used to search for files. We are mainly interested in ``find`` and ``xargs`` that are often used in scripts. musl 1.2.4 ========== GCC can build the latest as of the time of writing musl version. We also don't need any of the TCC patches that we used before. To accomodate Fiwix, there are patches to avoid syscalls set_thread_area and clone. Linux headers 4.14.341-openela ============================== This gets some headers out of the Linux kernel that are required to use the kernel ABI, needed for ``util-linux``. The version of the Linux kernel used comes from the Open Enterprise Linux Association, who maintain this version as a continuation of the now ended 4.14 LTS release, to the same maintenance standards as the LTS. Because this isn't directly available as an efficiently compressed tarball, we start with the final LTS release, version 4.14.336, and apply the differences using a patch file. gcc 4.0.4 ========= Rebuild GCC with GCC and also against the latest musl. util-linux 2.19.1 ================= ``util-linux`` contains a number of general system administration utilities. This gives us access to a much less crippled version of ``mount`` and ``mknod``. The latest version is not used because of autotools/GCC incompatibilities. dhcpcd 10.0.1 ============= ``dhcpcd`` is a DHCP client daemon, which we later use to obtain an IP address. Only wired interfaces are supported at the moment. kbd 1.15 ======== ``kbd`` contains ``loadkeys`` which is required for building the Linux kernel. The 2.x series is not used because it requires particular features of autotools that we do not have available. make 3.82 ========= GNU ``make`` is now rebuilt properly using the build system and GCC, which means that it does not randomly segfault while building the Linux kernel. ed 1.4 ====== ``ed`` is a very basic line editor. This is the last version that is not distributed in ``.tar.lz`` format. ``ed`` is used by ``bc`` build scripts. bc 1.07.1 ========= ``bc`` is a console based calculator that is sometime used in scripts. We need ``bc`` to rebuild some Linux kernel headers. kexec-linux =========== If the kernel bootstrap option is enabled then a C program ``kexec-linux`` is compiled. This can be used to launch a Linux kernel from Fiwix (when not using ``--kernel``). kexec-tools 2.0.22 ================== ``kexec`` is a utility for the Linux kernel that allows the re-execution of the Linux kernel without a manual restart from within a running system. It is a kind of soft-restart. It is only built for non-chroot mode, as we only use it in non-chroot mode. It is used to boot the Linux kernel that will be built next from the current Linux kernel (when using ``--kernel``). clean_sources ============= A script to remove source tarballs no longer needed for subsequent build steps from distfiles. This frees space for the Linux kernel build. clean_artifacts =============== More space freeing in preparation for the kernel build. This time, we clear out any artifacts left over from previous builds that weren't packaged in a proper repository tarball or ``base.tar.bz2`` Linux kernel 4.14.341-openela ============================= A lot going on here. This is the first (and currently only) time the Linux kernel is built. Firstly, Linux kernel version 4.14.y is used because newer versions require much more stringent requirements on the make and GCC versions. This is also modern enough for most hardware and to cause few problems with software built afterwards. Secondly, since 4.14.y is no longer supported by kernel.org, we use the last available kernel.org tarball, 4.14.336, and patch it up to 4.14.341-openela, maintained by the Open Enterprise Linux Association as an ELTS version. Pregenerated files in the kernel have file names appended with ``_shipped`` so we use a ``find`` command to remove those, which are automatically regenerated. The kernel config was originally taken from Void Linux, and was then modified for the requirements of live-bootstrap, including compiler features, drivers, and removing modules. Modules are unused. They are difficult to transfer to subsequent systems, and we do not have ``modprobe``. The linux-libre scripts are no longer used to deblob the kernel, due to undesirable modifications they make beyond just deblobbing. Instead, the remaining 4 drivers that ship binary blobs in line with source code are stripped using a patch - neither of these drivers are relevant to bootstrapping. The kernel is built in 2 stages: 1. We build ``vmlinux`` and all of its dependencies. 2. After clearing away any unnecessary intermediate files, we build the final ``bzImage`` kernel. This is necessary because the whole build wouldn't fit in Fiwix's initrd image all at once. We then kexec to use the new Linux kernel, using ``kexec-tools`` for a Linux kernel and ``kexec-linux`` for Fiwix. move_disk ========= In ``kernel-bootstrap`` mode, we have been working off an initramfs for some things up until now. At this point we are now capable of moving to it entirely, so we do so. finalize_job_count ================== In ``kernel-bootstrap`` mode, up until this point, we had no multiprocessor support, and very limited RAM, so all builds used only one thread. At this point, we allow the full selected thread count to take effect, speeding up subsequent builds thanks to parallelization. finalize_fhs ============ Sets up the file system as per the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard (FHS), creating directories and mounting pseudo-filesystems as necessary. open_console ============ In interactive mode only, sets up an interactive Bash console, accessible by pressing Ctrl+Alt+F2, again. This is still the early Bash, requiring Ctrl+D. swap ==== If enabled in ``bootstrap.cfg``, creates and activates a swap file under the name ``/swapfile``. musl 1.2.4 ========== At this point, it is guaranteed that we are running on Linux with thread support, so we rebuild musl with thread support. curl 8.5.0 and get_network ========================== ``curl`` is used to download files using various protocols including HTTP and HTTPS. However, this first build does not support encrypted HTTPS yet. ``curl`` requires Linux and musl with thread support, which are now available. Once curl is built, we use dhcpcd to set up networking for downloading subsequent source packages. bash 5.2.15 =========== This new version of ``bash`` compiles without any patches, provides new features, and is built with GNU readline support so it can be used as a fully-featured interactive shell. ``autoconf-2.69`` is used to regenerate the configure script and ``bison`` is used to recreate some included generated files. open_console ============ Now that we have a proper interactive shell available, open another interactive console (only in interactive mode), this time accessible using Ctrl+Shift+F3, since Ctrl+Shift+F2 is already occupied by our previous console, running the old Bash. xz 5.4.1 ======== XZ Utils is a set of free software command-line lossless data compressors, including ``lzma`` and ``xz``. In most cases, ``xz`` achieves higher compression rates than alternatives like ``gzip`` and ``bzip2``. file 5.44 ========= file is a utility that is used to get information about files based upon their magic. libtool 2.4.7 ============= A modern version of libtool with better compatibility with newer versions of GNU Autotools. tar 1.34 ======== Newer tar has better support for decompressing .tar.bz2 and .tar.xz archives. It also deals better with modern tar archives with extra metadata. coreutils 9.4 ============== We build the latest available coreutils 9.4 which adds needed options to make results of build metadata reproducible. For example, timestamps are changed with ``touch --no-dereference``. pkg-config 0.29.2 ================= pkg-config is a helper tool that helps to insert compile and link time flags. make 4.2.1 ========== A newer version of make built using autotools is much more reliable and is compiled using a modern C compiler and C library. This removes a couple of segfaults encountered later in the process and allows more modern make features to be used. We do not go for the latest because of the use of automake 1.16 which we do not have yet. gmp 6.2.1 ========= GNU Multiple Precision Arithmetic Library (GMP) is a free library for arbitrary-precision arithmetic, operating on signed integers, rational numbers, and floating-point numbers. GMP is required by newer versions of GCC and Guile. autoconf-archive 2021.02.19 =========================== The GNU Autoconf Archive is a collection of Autoconf macros that are used by various projects and in particular GNU MPFR. mpfr 4.1.0 ========== The GNU Multiple Precision Floating-Point Reliable Library (GNU MPFR) is a library for arbitrary-precision binary floating-point computation with correct rounding, based on GNU Multi-Precision Library. mpc 3.2.1 ========= GNU MPC is a library for multiprecision complex arithmetic with exact rounding based on GNU MPFR. flex 2.5.33 =========== An older version of flex is required for bison 2.3. We cannot use 2.5.11 that was compiled much earlier, as it does not produce reproducible output when building bison 2.3. bison 2.3 ========= This is an older version of bison required for the bison files in perl 5.10.1. We backwards-bootstrap this from 3.4.1, using 3.4.1 to compile the bison files in 2.3. This parser works sufficiently well for perl 5.10.1. bison 3.4.2 =========== Bison 3.4.1 is buggy and segfaults when perl 5.32.1 is built. This is probably because it was built with a hand-written makefile. We do not build the latest bison because perl 5.32.1 requires bison <= 3.4.2. perl 5.10.1 =========== Perl 5.10.1 is an intermediate version used before Perl 5.32. We require this version as it adds a couple of modules into lib/ required to regenerate files in Perl 5.32. We still use the Makefile instead of the metaconfig strategy, as metaconfig history becomes poor more than a few years back. dist 3.5-236 ============ dist is perl's package used for generating Perl's Configure (which is written in Perl itself). We 'compile' (aka generate) metaconfig and manifake only from dist. We do not use dist's build system because it itself uses dist. perl 5.32.1 =========== We finally compile a full version of Perl using Configure. This includes all base extensions required and is the latest version of Perl. We are now basically able to run any Perl application we want. libarchive 3.5.2 ================ ``libarchive`` is a C library used to read and write archives. openssl 3.0.13 ============== OpenSSL is a C library for secure communications/cryptography. We do not use the latest 3.3.0 release because it causes lockups in curl. curl 8.5.0 ========== We rebuild curl with support for OpenSSL. zlib 1.2.13 =========== zlib is a software library used for data compression and implements an abstraction of DEFLATE algorithm that is also used in ``gzip``. automake 1.16.3 =============== GNU Automake from 1.16 series that required newer Perl. autoconf 2.71 ============= GNU Autoconf 2.71 is even newer version of autoconf. It does not build with miniperl, so we postponed it until full perl was built. patch 2.7.6 =========== Our old patch was built with manual makefile and used mes libc. This is a newer version which we need in order to import gnulib into gettext. gettext 0.21 ============ GNU Gettext is an internationalization and localization system used for writing multilingual programs. texinfo 6.7 =========== Texinfo is a typesetting syntax used for generating documentation. We can now use ``makeinfo`` script to convert ``.texi`` files into ``.info`` documentation format. gcc 4.7.4 ========= GCC 4.7.4 is the last version written in C. This time we build both C and C++ backends. The C++ backend has a dependency on ``gperf``, which is written in C++. Fortunately, it is easy to patch it out; the resulting ``g++`` compiler is capable of building ``gperf``. We also add in two patchsets to the compiler; * one to add support for musl shared library support * one providing a few compiler flags/features that are required later to build GCC 10 binutils 2.41 ============= This version of binutils provides a more comprehensive set of programming tools for creating and managing binary programs. It also includes modern versions of the ``ld`` linker, the ``as`` assembler and the ``ar`` program. gperf 3.1 ========= ``gperf`` is a perfect hash function generator (hash function is injective). libunistring 0.9.10 =================== Library for manipulating Unicode and C strings according to Unicode standard. This is a dependency of GNU Guile. libffi 3.3 ========== The libffi library provides a portable, high level programming interface to various calling conventions. libatomic_ops 7.6.10 ==================== ``libatomic_ops`` provides semi-portable access to hardware-provided atomic memory update operations on a number of architectures. boehm-gc 8.0.4 ============== The Boehm-Demers-Weiser conservative garbage collector can be used as a garbage collecting replacement for C malloc or C++ new. guile 3.0.9 =========== GNU Ubiquitous Intelligent Language for Extensions (GNU Guile) is the preferred extension language system for the GNU Project and features an implementation of the programming language Scheme. We use ``guile-psyntax-bootstrapping`` project on Guile 3.0.7 to bootstrap Guile's ``psyntax.pp`` without relying on pre-expanded code. This is then transplanted into Guile 3.0.9. which 2.21 ========== ``which`` shows the full path of (shell) commands. It mostly duplicates bash built-in ``command -v`` but some scripts call ``which`` instead. In particular, ``autogen`` scripts use it. grep 3.7 ======== Newer ``grep`` will be needed to bootstrap ``autogen``. sed 4.8 ======= Earlier ``sed`` was built with manual makefile with most features compiled out. Build a newer ``sed`` using GNU Autotools build system. In particular this will let sed keep executable bit on after in place editing. autogen 5.18.16 =============== GNU Autogen is a tool designed to simplify the creation and maintenance of programs that contain large amounts of repetitious text. Unfortunately, the source is full of pregenerated files that require ``autogen`` to rebuild. We use the `gnu-autogen-bootstrapping `_ project to rebuild those and create (slightly crippled) ``autogen`` that is then able to build a full-featured version. musl 1.2.4 ========== With GCC and binutils supporting a musl-based toolchain natively, musl itself is rebuilt with support for dynamic linking. python 2.0.1 ============ Everything is in place to bootstrap the useful programming language/utility Python. While Python is largely written in C, many parts of the codebase are generated from Python scripts, which only increases as Python matured over time. We begin with Python 2.0.1, which has minimal generated code, most of which can be removed. Lib/{keyword,token,symbol} scripts are rewritten in C and used to regenerate parts of the standard library. Unicode support and sre (regex) support is stripped out. Using the stripped-down first version of Python 2.0.1, Python 2.0.1 is rebuilt, including Unicode and regex support (required for future Python builds). The first version is insufficient to run the Lib/{keyword,token,symbol} scripts, so those continue to use the C versions. Precompiled Python code at this point is highly unreproducible, so it is deleted (JIT compiled instead). This makes Python itself slower, but this is of little consequence. python 2.3.7 ============ Python 2.0.1 is sufficient to build Python 2.3.7. Differences to 2.0.1: * The new "ast" module, performing parsing of Python, is generated from a parsing specification using Python code. * 2.0.1 is insufficient to run 2.3.7's unicode regeneration, so Unicode support is again stripped out. Python 2.3.7 is then rebuilt to include Unicode support. python 2.5.6 ============ Python 2.3.7 is sufficient to build Python 2.5.6, with a few minimal changes to language constructs in scripts. This is the last 2.x version we build. Differences to 2.3.7 are very minimal. python 3.1.5 ============ Python 2.5.6 is new enough to be able to build Python 3.1.5, allowing us to move into the modern 3.x series of Python. Various patching is required, as some scripts in the tree are still Python 2 while others are Python 3. We have to convert the Python 3 ones back to Python 2 to be able to use Python 2.5.6. Differences to 2.5.6: * An include cycle when a distributed file is removed arises, we have to jump through some hoops to make this work. * At the second pass of building, various charset encodings can be regenerated & used in the standard library (required in future Python 3.x). * The new ssl Python library is disabled due to our OpenSSL version being too new. Python 3.1.5 is rebuilt, using Python 3 for the Python 3 scripts in the tree. python 3.3.7 ============ Python 3.1.5 is sufficient to build Python 3.3.7 (rapid language change = small jumps). Differences to 3.1.5: * The ssl Python library can now be re-enabled, and ``_ssl_data.h`` regenerated. python 3.4.10 ============= Python 3.3.7 is sufficient to build Python 3.4.10. Differences to 3.3.7: * The clinic tool has been introduced, which unifies documentation with code. Clinic creates many generated files. We run the clinic tool across all files using clinic. * The ssl library breaks in much more ugly ways than before, but unlike previous versions, it passes over this error silently. python 3.8.16 ============= Python 3.4.10 is sufficient to build Python 3.8.16. Differences to 3.4.10: * The build system has been significantly revamped (coming in line with modern standards). * Many of our previous regenerations can be replaced with one ``make regen-all`` invocation. * The stringprep Python module, previously deleted, is now required, so it is regenerated. python 3.11.1 ============= The newest version of Python, Python 3.11.1 can now be built. Differences to 3.8.16: * Unfortunately, the build system has regressed slightly. We must choose the order to perform regenerations in the Makefile ourselves, as some regenerations use other regenerations, but the Makefile does not include them as dependencies. * The concept of "frozen" modules has been introduced, adding a layer of complexity to regeneration. * ``stdlib_module_names.h`` is a new file that must be built using data from a current Python binary. To achieve this, a dummy ``stdlib_module_names.h`` is used for the build, then ``stdlib_module_names.h`` is created, and Python is rebuilt using the proper ``stdlib_module_names.h``. Unfortunately this greatly increases the time taken to build Python, but it is not trivial to work around. * A new generated script ``Lib/re/_casefix.py`` is introduced. * The ssl module, now unbroken, can be built again. * Very recent Python versions allow for the use of ``SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH`` to make output of precompiled Python libraries (``.pyc``) deterministic. Finally, we can re-enable compiling of Python modules. gcc 10.4.0 ========== GCC 10.x series is the last version of GCC that is able to be built with the C/C++ standards available in GCC 4.7. Instead of manually configuring & compiling every subdirectory, since we now have ``autogen`` available we are able to use the top-level configure to build the project. We do not use GCC's bootstrap mode, where GCC is recompiled with itself after being built, since we're just going to use this GCC to compile GCC 13, it adds build time for little benefit. binutils 2.41 (pass 2) ====================== We recompile Binutils with the full intended autogen top-level build system, instead of the subdirectory build system used before. This creates a binutils that functions completely correctly for the build of GCC 13 (eg, fixes the mistaken plugin loading support). Other modern features are added, including; * threaded linking * 64-bit linking on 32-bit x86 * the modern, rewritten gold linker used by some distributions gcc 13.1.0 ========== This is the most recent version of GCC. With this version of GCC, the final gcc-binutils-musl toolchain is complete. The focus of further builds shifts to rebuilds for correctness, cleanup and preparation for downstream consumption. In line with this, a variety of modern features + minor build changes are used to ensure the compiler is suitable for downstream consumption; * A full internal GCC bootstrap is used to ensure there are no lagging historical problems. * PIE and SSP are enabled by default, as is done on every major modern Linux distribution. * libssp is disabled and handed off to the libc (done by many modern Linux distributions). libssp in GCC is very broken and glibc-centric - it should really be handled by the libc, which is what most distributions do. * LTO now fully functions correctly, despite both the linker and the compiler being static binaries. libmd 1.1.0 =========== libmd provides message digest functions. In GNU/Linux, this is typically provided by glibc, but we need libmd to provide it since we are using musl. libbsd 0.11.8 ============= libbsd provides BSD-centric functions. We need this in order to build shadow, which expects either glibc or libbsd. shadow 4.14.3 ============= shadow provides a variety of command line utilites to work with users and groups, avoiding the need for manual modification of ``/etc/passwd`` and ``/etc/group``. This allows unprivileged users to be created by, or for, post-bootstrap build systems. opendoas 6.8.2 ============== opendoas is a port of 'doas' from OpenBSD to Linux. It has all functions of sudo that could be conceivably needed in live-bootstrap, and is much simpler to build. This allows build systems that expect sudo after live-bootstrap to use it. gzip 1.13 ========= The version of gzip we have been using up until now is really old, all the way back from mes libc era! Somehow we've managed not to have any problems with it, though. This builds a gzip that is properly packaged and can be handled by all modern build systems. diffutils 3.10 ============== We already have a perfectly functional diffutils, but some core modern software does require newer diffutils (understandably, given our diffutils is from 1994). This also gives the additional diffutils commands ``diff3`` and ``sdiff``. gawk 5.3.0 ========== Similarly to diffutils, our gawk is currently very ancient (1999). That doesn't cut it for modern software such as glibc. We update gawk to a much more modern version. m4 1.4.19 ========= We are in need of a newer version of m4 for some modern software. Attempts to update m4 1.4.7 earlier in the bootstrap demonstrate some issues with Fiwix, so we build a newer m4 at the end of the bootstrap instead. cleanup_filesystem ================== Remove any remaining loose build artifacts from ``steps``. If preseeding was used, this step also removes the ``repo-preseeded`` directory. null_time ========= If FORCE_TIMESTAMPS is enabled, resets all file times in the file system to the Unix epoch, to ensure maximum file system reproducibility. update_checksums ================ If checksum updating is enabled, regenerates SHA256SUMS.pkgs to contain the actual hashes of the packages just built. after ===== At the end of the bootstrap, executes any additional shell scripts placed in the ``/steps/after`` directory (if it exists), opens an interactive console (only in interactive mode), and finally ensures a clean shutdown of the bootstrap system (only needed in qemu and on bare metal).