NOTE: HAL91 is discontinued.
Latest Version: 0.4.5 (Sat Feb 9 16:05:24 CET 2002). MD5 checksum
of disk image: de085cce49fffa01927546a4b71f0dd2. See also the CHANGES file.
[german page]
[italian page]
This is a very small Linux distribution that fits on one floppy disk.
You need at least a 386 machine (fpu not necessary) with 8 mb ram to run HAL91. The entire system runs in ram, so you can remove the floppy after booting. The kernel supports IDE hard disks and ATAPI cdrom drives. Supported filesystems are ext2, iso9660 and vfat, optional encryption using AES is possible. Limited support for ethernet cards (NE2000 only) is also included. Support for scsi adapters, parallel zip drive and other ethernet cards is possible by loading kernel modules from an optional package (see below).
HAL91 contains the following commands:
| bash | bourne again shell |
| bunzip2 | uncompress bzip2 files |
| bzip2 | compress files to .bz2 |
| cat | concatenate files |
| chmod | change file permissions |
| chown | change file ownerships |
| chroot | change root filesystem |
| copydisk | copy whole disk (16 MB required) |
| cp | copy files |
| date | show current date and time |
| dd | read/write devices and files |
| df | show free disk space |
| dmesg | show kernel messages |
| du | show disk usage |
| e2fsck | check/repair an ext2 filesystem |
| elvis | clone of the vi editor |
| fdisk | partition hard disks |
| fmt | format text |
| free | show memory statistics |
| ftp | ftp client |
| grep | search for patterns in files (symlinked to rgrep) |
| gunzip | uncompress gzip files |
| gzip | compress files to .gz |
| halt | halt the system |
| hdparm | show/set hard disk parameters |
| hostname | show/set hostname |
| ifconfig | configure network devices |
| init.net | simple script for configuring ethernet |
| insmod | load kernel modules |
| less | display files |
| ln | create links |
| loadkeys | load keymaps |
| losetup | set up loop device (possibly encrypted) |
| ls | list contents of directory |
| lsmod | show loaded kernel modules |
| md5sum | generate/check file checksums |
| mkdir | create directories |
| mke2fs | create an ext2 filesystem |
| mknod | create special device files |
| mkswap | set up swap partition |
| more | display files (symlinked to less) |
| mount | mount filesystem |
| mv | rename/move files |
| nc | server/client to copy files over network |
| open | open virtual consoles |
| ping | send ICMP requests |
| ppp-nullmodem | simple script for PPP using nullmodem cable |
| pppd | PPP daemon |
| ps | show process status |
| reset | clear the screen |
| rgrep | search for patterns in files |
| rm | remove files/directories |
| rmmod | remove kernel modules |
| route | configure network routes |
| sh | bourne shell (symlinked to bash) |
| sleep | pause for a specified time |
| strings | extract strings from files |
| swapoff | turn off swap (symlinked to swapon) |
| swapon | turn on swap |
| sync | synchronize cache with disks |
| tar | tape archiver |
| telnet | remote login client |
| tr | translate characters in files |
| tree | show a directory tree |
| umount | unmount filesystem |
| update | automatic syncing of filesystems |
| uptime | show uptime and load average |
| vi | vi editor (symlinked to elvis) |
| wc | count lines, words and characters in a file |
| zcat | concatenate gzip compressed file (symlinked to gzip) |
| zless | display gzip compressed files |
First you need the disk image: hal91.img. If you are using DOS/Windows, you also need rawrite2.exe. Then put a blank floppy disk in your drive.
At the command line, type in the following:
If your browser corrupts the disk image, try this link. Note that this is not a zip archive. Just rename the file hal91.zip to hal91.img after downloading.
After booting, HAL91 looks for a file hal91.rc on the floppy. If the file exists, it is executed as a shell script. You can use this feature for automating tasks at boot time.
The following packages do not fit on the disk. However, after booting HAL91, they can be unpacked in the /bin directory with the command tar xzf package.tgz.
Another excellent mini distribution is maintained by Tom Oehser. He also links other mini distributions from his page. A german introduction to the vi editor is here.