Aleph GNU/Linux distribution version <a href="version.txt">0.2.9</a>
:
<ol>
  <li><a href="distribution_content/aleph.krnl">kernel</a></li>
  <li><a href="distribution_content/aleph.ird">init ram disk</a></li>
  <li><a href="distribution_content/aleph.sfs">squash file system</a></li>
  <li><a href="distribution_content/aleph.iso">live ISO</a></li>
</ol>

<hr/>

Aleph GNU/Linux is a <a href="https://www.debian.org/" target="_blank">Debian
</a> based distribution, inspired from the container analogy, aiming to reduce
the time needed to make a hardware usable, by removing the need to install an
Operating System, to configure it, or even deploy software to it. Aleph brings
up your system, with pre-installed and pre-configured software that runs in a
volatile environment(RAM) - persistent storage(HDD) is not even needed.

<hr/>

Boot the OS, using
<a href="https://wiki.syslinux.org/wiki/index.php?title=PXELINUX"
  target="_blank">PXELINUX</a>:
<pre>
label aleph
  kernel http://192.168.10.2/aleph.krnl
  append initrd=http://192.168.10.2/aleph.ird ip=:::::enp0s8:dhcp console=ttyS0 console=tty0 boot=pxe maxTryCount=10 config_srv_url=http://192.168.10.2/aleph_config rooturl=http://192.168.10.2/aleph.sfs
</pre>

The kernel(<8MiB) and the "init ram disk"(IRD)(<45MiB) is loaded. IRD brings up
the network - see kernel `ip` parameter for network configuration. Then IRD
loads the URL: <a href="./ird_net" target="_blank">${config_srv_url}/ird_net</a>
as a script responsible for downloading and mounting the "actual" file system,
which is a "squash file system" (SFS) of varying sizes. Once this is mounted,
PID 1 is started from /sbin/init . Once the system booted from our SFS, a
subsequent script is loaded from URL: ${config_srv_url}/boot which is
responsible for further configuring the system, on top of what the SFS provides.

<hr/>

If you like containers, you can think of the machine/node as being the
container, and the SFS as being the "container image" that comes with an
(actual) operating system environment, configuration, libraries/dependencies and
the software/server that you want to run. The "boot" URL/script is the
equivalent of an entrypoint to make small tweaks to the system. You can also
create new SFS images/files by expanding them, or starting from scratch.

<hr/>

Author: Tancredi-Paul Grozav - paul@grozav.info