Note that Takahe Linux is on indefinite hiatus as I am currently experimenting with other things...
Takahe Linux is my experimental Linux distro, dedicated to 'extinct' computers.
It is supposed to be a learning experience for me, and an opportunity to play around with some different software.
I will be testing it on what hardware I have, mostly Qemu and a Toshiba 310CDS laptop.
I hope to support older computers, and those of weirder architectures. If you are looking for a lightweight (ish) system for more modern computers, Arch Linux is the way to go!
I have created most of the packages I want to build, and the system works on my target machine (a toshiba laptop). The system is also bootable in Qemu.
Remaining targets are listed in docs/roadmap.md.
I intend to make a live CD available for i586 machines in the near future.
Building from scratch is achievable using the build utilities and this repository.
The long-term goal of Takahe linux is to provide a working system, based on the musl libc, the Linux kernel, and some userspace tools.
I would also like it to be self-hosting: a system running Takahe Linux can build another system, also running Takahe Linux. Preferably, it would also be easy to bootstrap to new architectures.
In the future, I'd love to be building and maintaining a Linux distro entirely from 'vintage' computers - but I'd need something a bit more grunty than my Toshiba to do that!
The Takahe is a flightless New Zealand bird, which was thought to be extinct. However, it was rediscovered in 1948...
For more information, see Wikipedia's article.
Following on from the idea that Takahe Linux is helping extinct birds (in this case, older computers) fly again, I plan to name releases after extinct NZ birds.
Wikipedia (again) has an article listing them.
I am just experimenting here, so there will be rough edges, broken packages, security holes, and other issues. Feel free to contribute and help fix them!
Feel free to send patches or pull requests! I'll be happy to take a look at them.