Commit a7adad415c995886abe300ad941eb59815d39033 - The-Platform

Begin developing 0.4 on a dedicated branch. Begin by editing README. Chris Pressey 7 years ago

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2	2
3	3	Hey, if Haskell can have a Platform, why can't we? It's only fair.
4	4
5		The Cat's Eye Technologies Platform is a [NetBSD][]-based,
6		[toolshelf][]-powered, [Funicular][]-built "distro" containing almost all of
7		[Cat's Eye Technologies][]' software distributions. It is an anthology of
8		our work in a "stand-alone" format, a bootable disk image.
9
10		If you want to download a pre-built disk image of The Platform,
11		open this torrent in your torrent client:
12
13		* [The-Cats-Eye-Technologies-Platform-0.3.torrent][]
14
15		If you already have a copy of the pre-built disk image,
16		and you want to know how to use it, see this document:
17
18		* [USAGE.markdown](USAGE.markdown)
19
20		If you wish to build a disk image of The Platform from source files,
21		or if you simply want to know more about its internals, read on.
22
23		[The-Cats-Eye-Technologies-Platform-0.3.torrent]: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/catseye/The-Platform/master/torrent/The-Cats-Eye-Technologies-Platform-0.3.torrent
24
25		Motivation
26		----------
27
28		If pressed, I could come up with a serious rationalization for this. Picking
29		a fixed version of an operating system means that, once the versions of the
30		supporting software and the versions of our software have been picked, it
31		will all build and work consistently (and, we can only hope, correctly.)
32		Since it is not intended to be connected to a network, the need for upgrades
33		due to security, hardware support, and "new hawtness" is diminished.
34
35		Or: establishing a platform is to bitrot what canning food is to spoilage.
36
37		It also provides answers to the question "What is a minimal set of software
38		that'd be needed to run almost everything from Cat's Eye Technologies?"
39
40		As I said, I could come up with a serious rationalization for this.
41		But mainly, it's fun. A certain awful flavour of fun, maybe, but still fun.
42
43		Version
44		-------
45
46		Each version of The Cat's Eye Technologies Platform can be thought of as a
47		"versionset" on a collection of software distributions, "frozen" at points
48		in their development where they are all mutually compatible.
	5	This is version 0.4 of _The Cat's Eye Technologies Platform_, a
	6	[NetBSD][]-based, [shelf][]-powered, [Funicular][]-built "distro"
	7	containing almost all of [Cat's Eye Technologies][]' software
	8	distributions. It is an anthology of our work in a "stand-alone"
	9	format, a bootable disk image.
	10
	11	Version 0.4 is currently under development; no binary distribution
	12	is available yet.
49	13
50	14	The current released version of The Cat's Eye Technologies Platform is
51	15	version 0.3. It can be built with Funicular version 0.3 and

53	17	Its source code can be found at the tag `0.3` in the repository, for
54	18	example [on Github here](https://github.com/catseye/The-Platform/tree/0.3).
55	19
	20	Background
	21	----------
	22
	23	Each version of The Cat's Eye Technologies Platform can be thought of as a
	24	"versionset" on a collection of software distributions, "frozen" at points
	25	in their development where they are all mutually compatible.
	26
	27	Picking a fixed version of an operating system means that, once the
	28	versions of the supporting software and the versions of our software
	29	have been picked, it will all build and work consistently (and, we
	30	can only hope, correctly.)
	31
	32	Since it is not intended to be connected to a network, the need for upgrades
	33	due to security, hardware support, and "new hawtness" is diminished.
	34	Establishing a platform in this way is to bitrot what canning food is to
	35	spoilage. It also answers the question "What is a minimal set of software
	36	that'd be needed to run almost everything from Cat's Eye Technologies?"
	37
56	38	All of the pieces of software that make up The Platform are interoperable;
57	39	that is, every piece builds successfully on NetBSD 6.1.5, and those with
58	40	test suites pass all of their relevant automated tests. The pieces are
59	41	not, however, thoroughly tested manually.
60	42
61		Quick Start
62		-----------
63
64		You can download a pre-built disk image of The Platform via the torrent
65		link given above. Or, if you are on a Unix-like operating system, you
66		can build your own image from source by following the following steps.
67		Either way, the disk image is roughly 3.6G in size, so make sure you have
68		some free space.
69
70		* Install [Funicular][] 0.3 (via [toolshelf][], we would suggest,
	43	Building
	44	--------
	45
	46	If you are on a Unix-like operating system, you can build your own disk
	47	image with the following steps. It is roughly 3.6G in size, so make sure
	48	you have some free space.
	49
	50	* Install [Funicular][] 0.4 (via [shelf][], we would suggest,
71	51	although this is not strictly necessary)
72	52	* Put a copy of (or a symbolic link to) the
73	53	[NetBSD 6.1.5](http://www.netbsd.org/releases/formal-6/NetBSD-6.1.5.html)

77	57	by some other method.
78	58	* In this repo's directory, run
79	59
80		funicular init 3600
	60	IMAGE_SIZE=3686400 funicular init system
81	61	funicular install
	62	funicular init setup
82	63	funicular setup
83	64
84	65	and follow the instructions given to you at each step.
85	66
86	67	[NetBSD]: http://netbsd.org/
87		[toolshelf]: https://github.com/catseye/toolshelf/
	68	[shelf]: https://github.com/catseye/shelf/
88	69	[Funicular]: https://github.com/catseye/Funicular/
89	70	[Cat's Eye Technologies]: http://catseye.tc/
	71
	72	things below this line need review
90	73
91	74	What's Included?
92	75	----------------

100	83	`skel` directory for more accurate, machine-readable version numbers.
101	84
102	85	The Platform can be thought of as being constructed in stages, with each
103		stage building upon the previous. The first stage (the "NetBSD Gondola" stage,
104		although this is something of a misnomer now) consists of:
	86	stage building upon the previous. The first stage consists of:
105	87
106	88	* NetBSD 6.1.5 (minimal install + compiler tools) ♡ + ♢
107	89	* Lua 5.1.4 (note that this is already a part of NetBSD 6.1.5) ♡
	90	* toolshelf 0.1-2016.0315 ♡
	91
	92	The second stage, "Infrastructure", consists of:
	93
	94	* GNU Make 3.82 ♢
108	95	* cPython 2.7.8 ♦¹
109		* toolshelf 0.1-2016.0315 ♡
110
111		The second stage, "Infrastructure", consists of:
112
113		* GNU Make 3.82 ♢
114		* Mercurial 1.9.3 ♢
115	96	* Perl 5.20.1 ♦²
116	97	* Hugs98-plus Sep2006 ♡
117	98	* Erlang/OTP R16B03-1 (stripped down, e.g. no megaco, etc.) ♦³