fosslinux/live-bootstrap on Hacker News

…kernel) and build from source instead. https://bootstrappable.org/ https://lwn.net/Articles/983340/ https://github.com/fosslinux/live-bootstrap https://stagex.tools/

comment by pabs3 · 2026-04-19 · in Binary Dependencies: Identifying the Hidden Packages We All Depend On

…to tinycc ~c99 compiler, from simple shell to scheme interpreter to Fiwix unix-like kernel. https://github.com/fosslinux/live-bootstrap/blob/master/part...

comment by ValdikSS · 2025-12-23 · in Show HN: C-compiler to compile TCC for live-bootstrap

…build time or making it more unattended (by automating the image creation steps, for example). https://github.com/fosslinux/live-bootstrap/ Other efforts around the same problem are trying to make it more architecture independent or…

comment by alganet · 2025-10-24 · in Reasoning is not model improvement

…https://bootstrappable.org/ Actual project capable of bootstrapping Linux system from scratch: https://github.com/fosslinux/live-bootstrap

comment by ivanjermakov · 2025-07-17 · in Ukrainian hackers destroyed the IT infrastructure of Russian drone manufacturer

…code, they build up to a Linux distro. https://bootstrappable.org/ https://lwn.net/Articles/983340/ https://github.com/fosslinux/live-bootstrap/blob/master/part... https://stagex.tools/

comment by pabs3 · 2025-05-20 · in Edit is now open source

…C compiler at least once, I doubt their chance against a backdoor hidden in the 100s of steps of https://github.com/fosslinux/live-bootstrap/blob/master/part...

comment by fuhsnn · 2025-04-10 · in Fifty Years of Open Source Software Supply Chain Security

…do this today I am aware of is via hex0 building up to Mes and tinycc on up to a modern c compiler: https://github.com/fosslinux/live-bootstrap/blob/master/part... As far as I know Gentoo, even from their "stage0" still assumes you bring…

comment by lrvick · 2025-04-08 · in Fifty Years of Open Source Software Supply Chain Security

It is sort of like that. It's been documented: https://github.com/fosslinux/live-bootstrap/ (This is an alternative to the Guix/Scheme thing).

comment by XorNot · 2025-03-26 · in Debian bookworm live images now reproducible

…parser generators, bash and so on. https://bootstrappable.org/ https://lwn.net/Articles/983340/ https://github.com/fosslinux/live-bootstrap/blob/master/part...

comment by pabs3 · 2025-02-18 · in Ask HN: Language After Python and C?

Worth checking out https://github.com/fosslinux/live-bootstrap which starts from a handwritten hex bootloader and later a Scheme interpreter that implements a C compiler that compiles tcc Full steps on…

comment by declank · 2024-11-11 · in The Design of a Self-Compiling C Transpiler Targeting POSIX Shell

…the same (this is why any useful system bootstrapping project should also be reproducible [1]). [0] https://github.com/fosslinux/live-bootstrap [1] https://bootstrappable.org/best-practices.html

comment by maxdamantus · 2024-08-27 · in Writing a Rust compiler in C

…may not necessarily compile or be able to compile further programs on these architectures. [1]: https://github.com/fosslinux/live-bootstrap

comment by ryan77627 · 2024-08-27 · in Bootstrappable Builds

…amounts of items there are just repeatedly rebuilding auto-stuff and their dependencies[1]. [1] https://github.com/fosslinux/live-bootstrap/blob/master/part...

comment by fuhsnn · 2024-08-26 · in Writing a Rust compiler in C

…a way to build a C compiler without having C compiler binaries yet. https://bootstrappable.org/ https://github.com/fosslinux/live-bootstrap/

comment by pabs3 · 2024-08-26 · in Writing a Rust compiler in C

▲ 53

Bootstrap a Linux system from a 512 byte binary seed with 170 steps

story by chubot · 2024-08-25 · 9 comments

…I learned a lot about system calls and ELF. [1] https://github.com/FransFaase/Emulator/ [2] https://github.com/fosslinux/live-bootstrap/

comment by fjfaase · 2024-07-10 · in Things I learned while writing an x86 emulator (2023)

…yes, it all feels very orthogonal from that perspective! Thanks for writing this blog entry! [1]: http://github.com/fosslinux/live-bootstrap

comment by alganet · 2024-07-10 · in Towards Idempotent Rebuilds?

Yes! You can see the full path here: https://github.com/fosslinux/live-bootstrap/blob/master/part...

comment by alganet · 2024-07-06 · in Fiwix: Unix-like kernel for the i386 architecture

…the final state of the VM it made. I may still have the image it made lying around somewhere. [1]: https://github.com/fosslinux/live-bootstrap

comment by ryan77627 · 2024-07-05 · in Fiwix: Unix-like kernel for the i386 architecture

…the information [2]. For this, I wrote a C program to parse and process the output of strace. [1] https://github.com/fosslinux/live-bootstrap [2] https://fransfaase.github.io/Emulator/

comment by fjfaase · 2024-06-09 · in Finding out where syscalls are called from: Stack traces with strace

…source when you don't have any binaries for compilers, kernels etc. https://bootstrappable.org/ https://github.com/fosslinux/live-bootstrap/ https://bootstrapping.miraheze.org/wiki/Stage0

comment by pabs3 · 2024-06-05 · in Ask HN: Going low-level – what to learn next?

▲ 2

Automated Bootstrapping from Source

story by fanf2 · 2024-05-26 · 0 comments

…bootloader and a little bit of source code and building all the way up to a complete linux distro https://github.com/fosslinux/live-bootstrap (checkout the builder-hex0/fiwix work)

comment by z29LiTp5qUC30n · 2023-08-02 · in Bored? How about trying a Linux speedrun? (2020)

…which uses about a KB of binary to do a full "Linux from scratch" style thing - read https://github.com/fosslinux/live-bootstrap/blob/master/part... for all 143 steps you have to go through to get there.

comment by fosslinux · 2023-05-25 · in SectorC: A C Compiler in 512 bytes

…Also higher-level languages like Ocaml are getting bootstrapped. https://github.com/oriansj/stage0 https://github.com/fosslinux/live-bootstrap/ https://www.fiwix.org/ https://github.com/Ekdohibs/camlboot I'm not aware of any…

comment by pabs3 · 2022-12-10 · in Goodbye to the C++ Implementation of Zig

It's possible to bootstrap GCC starting from only a 357-byte binary seed: https://github.com/fosslinux/live-bootstrap

comment by movq · 2022-08-20 · in Zig is now self–hosted by default

…its way up to modern GCC for C++... It's a fascinating read: https://github.com/oriansj/stage0 https://github.com/fosslinux/live-bootstrap/blob/master/part... Even if no one is "using" this it should still be a primary motivator for…

comment by ludocode · 2022-05-17 · in Common libraries and data structures for C

…Assembly and C have working code good enough to bootstrap GCC+Guile+Linux for more than a year now. https://github.com/fosslinux/live-bootstrap https://github.com/oriansj/stage0-posix It is time for Lisp and FORTH to either deliver or…

comment by pabs3 · 2022-05-03 · in A minimal C compiler in x86 assembly

…https://github.com/oriansj/stage0 https://ekaitz.elenq.tech/hex0.html https://bootstrappable.org/ https://github.com/fosslinux/live-bootstrap/blob/master/part... > Which makes me wonder if programs written to be deliberately obfuscated are…

comment by pabs3 · 2022-03-19 · in My boundaries as an open source developer

…languages that were written in other languages etc. Some details here: https://bootstrappable.org/ https://github.com/fosslinux/live-bootstrap/blob/master/part... https://github.com/oriansj/talk-notes/blob/master/live-boots... Edit: some…

comment by pabs3 · 2022-02-17 · in The right thing for the wrong reasons: FLOSS doesn't imply security

Comparing to https://github.com/fosslinux/live-bootstrap your pseudo minimalistic arch pacstrap or Debian debootstrap are over fat of binary seeds and still you cannot get rid of Linux env in building the crusial packages.

comment by smartineng · 2022-02-11 · in So you want to build an embedded Linux system? (2020)

…the awarness of this serious problem will grow and we will see more support into the projects like https://github.com/fosslinux/live-bootstrap , https://niedzejkob.p4.team/bootstrap/

comment by smartineng · 2022-02-06 · in Reproducible Builds in January 2022

…one of the repos listing the bootstrapping steps in order, from "stage0" to "gcc 4.7.4" and beyond: https://github.com/fosslinux/live-bootstrap/blob/master/part...

comment by dane-pgp · 2021-08-23 · in Working towards a source-based bootstrapping path to a GNU+Linux system

…plus all the source code. I think they have had some success already: https://bootstrappable.org/ https://github.com/fosslinux/live-bootstrap/blob/master/part... https://github.com/oriansj/talk-notes/blob/master/live-boots...

comment by pabs3 · 2021-07-04 · in One man’s plan to resurrect the animal species we can’t save

https://github.com/fosslinux/live-bootstrap is another approach, bootstrapping from a tiny binary seed that you could hand-assemble and type in as hex. But it doesn't address the dependency on the underling OS being trustworthy.

comment by donio · 2021-06-21 · in Nixos-unstable’s ISO_minimal.x86_64-Linux is 100% reproducible

…minimal binary seed up to tinycc then gcc 4 and beyond.[1] [0] https://www.bootstrappable.org/ [1] https://github.com/fosslinux/live-bootstrap/blob/master/part...

comment by dane-pgp · 2021-06-20 · in Nixos-unstable’s ISO_minimal.x86_64-Linux is 100% reproducible

See this doc for how the full process works: https://github.com/fosslinux/live-bootstrap/blob/master/part... In particular, this the very first step: https://github.com/oriansj/stage0-posix/blob/master/x86/hex0... (or its hand-edited…

comment by Aissen · 2021-05-04 · in Bootstrapping from Hex to Bison to GCC

▲ 103

Bootstrapping from Hex to Bison to GCC

story by z29LiTp5qUC30n · 2021-05-03 · 19 comments

If you like well-documented bootstrap processes, I can recommend this: https://github.com/fosslinux/live-bootstrap/blob/master/part... The steps go from a binary seed of a few hundred bytes to (almost) gcc. It is still being actively…

comment by dane-pgp · 2021-04-12 · in Mugo, a toy compiler for a subset of Go that can compile itself

…code binary seed), proceeds through a ton of layers and eventually reaches non-interactive bash. https://github.com/fosslinux/live-bootstrap/blob/master/part...

comment by pabs3 · 2021-03-11 · in Dennis Ritchie’s first C compiler (c. 1972)

▲ 3

Live-bootstrap: Use of a Linux initramfs to automate the bootstrapping process

story by dane-pgp · 2021-02-01 · 1 comment