Started a new 2.6.x based mini router distribution

I'm in the process of deploying a couple of PC Engines WRAP.1C embedded x86 boards deployed in my apartment. They make neat little playgrounds for Router/NAT/VPN/WLAN/... style appliances.

Unfortunately I didn't find any embedded Linux distribution project that was up to my demands. Apparently they all use age-old kernels (2.4.17 or something ancient like that). And they very rarely come with a decent automatic build system that would allow you to rebuild it from scratch, adding your own patches, ...

So what did I do? I started my own :(. Not that I'm proud of it, but it was necessary. My home VLAN/firewall/PPPoE/NAT/VPN router is now running the very first image of this new distribution I called 'gRouter'.

It's main features are kernel 2.6.8.1, uClibc-0.9.26, busybox-1.00rc3, pppd with in-kernel PPPoE support, quagga, iptables-1.2.11, openvpn-1.6.0, and dropbear for SSH. It all fits in about 8MB of compact FLASH.

The build process is semi-automatic, apart from a few glitches the whole image compiles itself. I stole some of the build magic from the WISP-DIST project (part of LEAF), although this is all quite simple scripting.

After some more cleanups and testing, I plan to release this distribution. Please don't expect any support, or any configuration tools. It will be available for Linux experts who can configure and setup their system from scratch, and want to have the gadgets of the latest software releases.

On the todo list is cross-compilation support (well, since it is uClibc based, it already does cross-libc-compilation), madwifi support, and especially IPsec using the 2.6.x kernel implementation.