CRUX is a lightweight

x86-64 x86-64 (also known as x64, x86_64, AMD64, and Intel 64) is a 64-bit extension of the x86 instruction set architecture, instruction set. It was announced in 1999 and first available in the AMD Opteron family in 2003. It introduces two new ope ...

Linux distribution A Linux distribution, often abbreviated as distro, is an operating system that includes the Linux kernel for its kernel functionality. Although the name does not imply product distribution per se, a distro—if distributed on its own—is oft ...

targeted at experienced

Linux Linux ( ) is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an kernel (operating system), operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically package manager, pac ...

users and delivered by a tar.gz-based package system with

BSD The Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD), also known as Berkeley Unix or BSD Unix, is a discontinued Unix operating system developed and distributed by the Computer Systems Research Group (CSRG) at the University of California, Berkeley, beginni ...

-style initscripts. It is not based on any other Linux distribution. It also utilizes a

ports system Ports collections (or ports trees, or just ports) are the sets of makefiles and patches provided by the BSD-based operating systems, FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD, as a simple method of installing software or creating binary packages. They are usual ...

to install and upgrade applications. Although ''

crux CRUX is a lightweight x86-64 Linux distribution targeted at experienced Linux users and delivered by a tar.gz-based package system with BSD-style initscripts. It is not based on any other Linux distribution. It also utilizes a ports system ...

'' is the Latin word for "cross," the choice of the name "CRUX" itself has no meaning. Per Lidén chose it because it "sounded cool," and ends in "X" which puts it in line with various other

Unix Unix (, ; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multi-user computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, a ...

flavors such as

IRIX IRIX (, ) is a discontinued operating system developed by Silicon Graphics (SGI) to run on the company's proprietary MIPS architecture, MIPS workstations and servers. It is based on UNIX System V with Berkeley Software Distribution, BSD extensio ...

Ultrix Ultrix (officially all-caps ULTRIX) is the brand name of Digital Equipment Corporation's (DEC) discontinued native Unix operating systems for the PDP-11, VAX, MicroVAX and DECstations. History The initial development of Unix occurred on DEC eq ...

Mac OS X macOS, previously OS X and originally Mac OS X, is a Unix, Unix-based operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 2001. It is the current operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. With ...

and

IBM AIX AIX (pronounced ) is a series of Proprietary software, proprietary Unix operating systems developed and sold by IBM since 1986. The name stands for "Advanced Interactive eXecutive". Current versions are designed to work with Power ISA based ...

Installation

CRUX does not include a

GUI Gui or GUI may refer to: People Surname * Gui (surname), an ancient Chinese surname, ''xing'' * Bernard Gui (1261 or 1262–1331), inquisitor of the Dominican Order * Luigi Gui (1914–2010), Italian politician * Gui Minhai (born 1964), Ch ...

installation program. Instead, the user boots the

kernel Kernel may refer to: Computing * Kernel (operating system), the central component of most operating systems * Kernel (image processing), a matrix used for image convolution * Compute kernel, in GPGPU programming * Kernel method, in machine learnin ...

stored on either a CD or

diskette A floppy disk or floppy diskette (casually referred to as a floppy, a diskette, or a disk) is a type of disk storage composed of a thin and flexible disk of a magnetic storage medium in a square or nearly square plastic enclosure lined with a ...

; partitions the hard disk drive(s) to which the

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ...

will be installed (using a program such as

fdisk fdisk is a command-line utility for disk partitioning. It has been part of DOS, DR FlexOS, IBM OS/2, and early versions of Microsoft Windows, as well as certain ports of FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, DragonFly BSD and macOS for compatibilit ...

cfdisk cfdisk is a Linux partition editor, similar to fdisk, but with a different, curses (programming library), curses-based user interface. It is part of the util-linux package of Linux utility programs. The current cfdisk implementation utilizes th ...

); creates the appropriate file systems on the various partitions; mounts the CD or NFS share along with the partitions made previously for use by the package installation script; compiles a new kernel; and installs a

bootloader A bootloader, also spelled as boot loader or called bootstrap loader, is a computer program that is responsible for booting a computer and booting an operating system. If it also provides an interactive menu with multiple boot choices then it's o ...

, all via shell commands.

Package management

CRUX implements an infrastructure similar to that of

-based operating systems for package management. Packages consist of a Pkgfile (which is a

shell script A shell script is a computer program designed to be run by a Unix shell, a command-line interpreter. The various dialects of shell scripts are considered to be command languages. Typical operations performed by shell scripts include file manipu ...

), any patches required to adjust the program to work,

md5sum is a computer program that calculates and verifies 128-bit MD5 hashes, as described in RFC 1321. The MD5 hash functions as a compact digital fingerprint of a file. As with all such hashing algorithms, there is theoretically an unlimited number ...

hashes used to verify the integrity of the downloaded files and a footprint file listing the files to be included in the packages. These files are downloaded from a CRUX

software repository A software repository, or repo for short, is a storage location for Package format, software packages. Often a table of contents is also stored, along with metadata. A software repository is typically managed by source or version control, or rep ...

compiled In computing, a compiler is a computer program that translates computer code written in one programming language (the ''source'' language) into another language (the ''target'' language). The name "compiler" is primarily used for programs that ...

, and installed using the prt-get frontend to . The software sources are downloaded from the websites of their respective upstream at the address specified in the Pkgfile.

Releases

Reviews

Simone Rota reviewed CRUX for OSNews:Review: CRUX Linux
, OSNews

References

External links

*
CRUX for Alternative Architectures: x86_64, ppc, ppc64, arm, sparc64
* {{Linux distributions Source-based Linux distributions Linux distributions without systemd Linux distributions