History and future of ROCK Linux

  How it began: GNUX
 

GNUX was created in the late 1997. GNUX was ...
  • a single-disk Linux system
  • built by one single shell script
GNUX was designed ..
  • to run a Linux-Cluster of Office Workstation
  • as host system for an AI-Software for planing cheap WANs

 

  ROCK Linux 0.x and 1.x
 

In the summer of 1998 I decided to take GNUX and extend it to be a full-functional Linux Distribution called ROCK Linux.

A few months later I made a complete rewrite of the entire system based on the expiriancies I made with the early ROCK Linux.

The ROCK Linux 0.x versions never came to a wide public.

The ROCK Linux 1.x versions made their way to some other freaks - but there was nothing like a real user-base at that time.

 

  ROCK Linux 1.2.0
 

ROCK Linux reached a stable and useable stage at the end of 1999. But it was still far away from my vision of the "final" stable ROCK Linux.

I decided to go with the new 2.3.x developer kernels. But first I made the first stable ROCK Linux Release (1.2.0) based on the Linux Kernel 2.2.11.

ROCK Linux 1.2.x is unmaintained and they will never be a ROCK Linux 1.2.1.

There are 5 known bugs in ROCK Linux 1.2.0.

 

  ROCK Linux 1.3.x
 

That's the current developers tree. It's now based on the new 2.4.x kernels and GNU LibC 2.1.3.

It is already called "stable" by some people and I know of some production servers running ROCK Linux 1.3.x releases without any problems.

It comes with XFree86 4.0.2 and GNOME 1.2.

It is built with GCC 2.95.2 and Binutils 2.10.0.26

Most open TODO-Items are organisational or minor technical issues.

 

  ROCK Linux 1.4.0
 

I hope that we can release ROCK Linux 1.4.0 in the summer of 2001.

There is already a team for maintaining the stable 1.4.x tree after the development continues with ROCK Linux 1.5.x. We plan to make an updated release every 2-3 weeks.

ROCK Linux 1.4.0 will be the implementation of my vision for a good Linux Distribution from 1998.

 

  ROCK Vision Project - ROCK Linux 1.5.x
 

Currently there are a lot of mails on the mailing list about the "ROCK Vision".

There will be a "ROCK Vision Project" which collects the ideas and suggestions from the ROCK Linux users for the future ROCK Linux Development.

 

ROCK Linux: www.rocklinux.orgCopyright © 1998-2001 Clifford Wolf