[PLUG] Re: Suggest a Linux distro to run off compact flash card?

[eehouse]

I asked:

> > I'm looking for a Linux distro to run an apache server on a low-power
> > x86 board (WRAP).  Anybody here running something you can recommend?

and Aaron Burt <aaron at bavariati.org> replied:

> Buildroot?  http://buildroot.uclibc.org/
> 
> I haven't successfully built an image with it yet, but the OpenWRT and
> other embedded folks use it extensively.

Hmmm.  I'm hoping for something closer to a standard linux distro, but
optimized to run off a CF card.  Usually that means the root FS and
other frequently modified files are loaded onto a RAM disk rather than
being run in place on the card.

The WRAP board has an x86 processor, 128M of RAM, and with a 1G CF
card enough storage for a desktop distro, especially if it excludes
anything requiring X.  But CF cards wear out pretty quickly if you let
the OS touch them as often as it wants to touch a disk.  So some
changes are necessary, or at least advised.

(Yeah, one option is to keep the receipt on the "lifetime warranty" CF
card.  But I don't want to replace and rebuild every six months. :-)

Thanks,

--Eric
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