Minimal Linux Live

Minimal Linux Live is an open source, freely distributed and extremely lightweight operating system based on the Linux kernel and the BusyBox software, which includes common UNIX utilities.

It’s available for download as 32-bit/64-bit Live CDs

The distro is available for download as two Live CD ISO images, one for each of the supported hardware platforms: 64-bit (x86_64) and 32-bit (x86). They define the world minimal and have approximately 7MB in size each.

The ISO images can be deployed to CD discs, Mini CD discs or USB thumb drives in order to boot them from the BIOS of a computer. The live system starts automatically, as there’s no bootloader implemented on the Live CDs.

It boots in 3-4 seconds

It is an extremely fast operating system that starts in about 3-4 seconds, dropping users to a shell prompt from where they can access all the pre-installed command-line utilities.

A DIY distribution of Linux

Minimal Linux Live has been designed from the ground up to allow users to create their very own distributions of Linux, based on Minimal Linux Live of course.

To create your own Minimal Linux Live OS, you must download the latest scripts archive from the project’s homepage, extract it and make the scripts executable. Install the requirements, execute the build_minimal_linux_live.sh script and wait.

Depending on your computer’s specs and the distribution of Linux used, the OS creation process shouldn’t take more than 30 minutes. The ISO image will be automatically generated on the same folder where the scripts are.

Not for regular users

We feel obliged to warn our readers that Minimal Linux Live is not a Linux distribution for newbies. It’s designed for advanced Linux users, such as system administrators who are looking for a tiny rescue CD or experienced developers who want to create their own OS.

What is new in this release:

• Updated software base - Minimal Linux Live (MLL) is based on Linux kernel 4.14.12, GNU C library 2.26 and BusyBox 1.27.2. The generated ISO image file is 9MB and requires 256MB RAM in order to run properly.
• 30+ available overlay bundles with new additions like nano, vim, Cloud Foundry and BOSH clients, Open JDK, keyboard layouts, the game 2048 and many more.
• Bundle dependency management - good example is the Open JDK overlay bundle which depends on GLIBC and ZLIB. From end user perspective all you need to do is to add Open JDK to the list of overlay bundles that you want to include in MLL and the overlay build system will automatically prepare the overlay bundles required by Open JDK.
• Separate configuration file for overlay bundles - all bundle specific configuration can be externalized in separate configuration file. This makes the main configuration file much smaller and easier to maintain. The entries in the bundle configuration file take precedence over the entries in the main configuration file.
• Autorun functionality in the initramfs - all scripts in /etc/autorun are automatically executed on boot. This feature is used by some overlay bundles which require some functionality to be triggered on boot (e.g. the DHCP overlay bundle).
• DHCP functionality as separate overlay bundle - the DHCP client functionality is triggered automatically on boot. The default DNS resolver is changed to Quad 9. The public Google DNS resolvers are still present and used as backup. This overlay bundle is enabled by default.
• Source code as separate overlay bundle - previous MLL versions used to include the MLL source code both in the initramfs structure and in the ISO image structure. Now the same source code is included as overlay bundle and can be found either in /minimal/rootfs/usr/src (ISO image) or in /usr/src (initramfs). This overlay bundle is enabled by default.
• Docker compatible image - The MLL build process generates Docker compatible image mll_image.tgz which contains all available software from the MLL ISO image. This image can be imported and used in Docker or in any other container system which supports raw filesystem import. You could add your own software in MLL (e.g. simple HTTP server like 'nweb' which is provided as overlay bundle) and then use Docker instead of running the entire OS.
• Overlay bundles can be merged in the initramfs - all overlay bundles can be "merged" with the initramfs structure. In this way all overlay bundle functionality is available on boot, ragrdless of the limited hardware detection support. This makes the initramfs structure significantly larger and as consequence you need more RAM since all overlay bundles are available as part of the initramfs.
• Structural improvements - the overlay build system is completely separated from the main build system. The main shell scripts are more, but each individual shell script has simpler structure. Both the main build process and the overlay build system rely on "common" logic from separate shell script, which is included in all other relevant shell scripts. The "sparse" image file size has been increased to 3MB in order to handle the size of the default overlay bundles.
• UEFI and BIOS support - MLL provides different build flavors, depending on the targeted firmware compatibility. The "bios" build flavor targets legacy BIOS systems and uses precompiled boot loaders provided by the syslinux project. The "uefi" build flavor targets modern UEFI systems and uses precompiled boot loaders provided by the systemd-boot project. You can also generate "mixed" ISO image which can boot on both legacy BIOS and modern UEFI systems. The default build flavor is "bios".
• ISO image restructuring - the main ISO image directory no longer contains individual files. One exception is "minimal.img" if the "sparse" overlay location has been enabled in the main configuration file. This makes the ISO image structure easier for future maintenance.
• Custom MLL boot logo - the MLL boot logo is provided as separate overlay bundle. However, it is different from the other overlay bundles because it doesn't add overlay functionality. Instead, this overlay bundle "injects" the custom MLL boot logo in the kernel source tree and triggers small kernel rebuild. This overlay bundle is enabled by default.

What is new in version :

• Minimal Linux Live is now based on Linux kernel 4.1.6 and BusyBox 1.23.2.
• The build process is now parallelized between all available CPU cores, therefore the overall build time is significantly reduced.
• There is DHCP network support for all network devices detected by the kernel. Note that DNS is not working due to well known static linking issues caused by glibc.
• The ISO image is now generated by using genisoimage. This fixes some issues with Debian and Arch based host operating systems.
• In addition to the above changes, if you download the latest stable build scripts, you will notice a folder named experimental. This folder contains some interesting scripts which produce ISO based on Linux kernel and ToyBox instead of BusyBox. Please have in mind that this is work in progress and these scripts may not work on your host OS.

What is new in version 07-Feb-2015:

• Minimal Linux Live is now based on Linux kernel 3.18.6 and BusyBox 1.23.1.

What is new in version 25-Aug-2014:

• Minimal Linux Live is now based on Linux kernel 3.16.1 and BusyBox 1.22.1.
• The boot process is now based on /sbin/init and /etc/inittab. There are four available consoles which can be switched with Alt + F1 up to Alt + F4.
• Shell scripts have been updated. Now the downloaded source bundles are stored in separate folder. If the download process is interrupted, it will continue the next time the scripts are executed. The most notable change is in 5_generate_rootfs.sh which now generates root file system with structure compatible with /sbin/init and /etc/inittab.

What is new in version 28-Jul-2014:

• Minimal Linux Live is now based on Linux kernel 3.15.6 and BusyBox 1.22.1.