Emdebian Grip packages
A smaller Debian-compatible distro
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- Emdebian Grip 2.0 (based on Debian 6.0.7 "squeeze") - oldstable
- Emdebian Wheezy Grip 3.0 (based on Debian 7.0 "wheezy") - stable
Status of Emdebian Grip.
As of July 2014, updates to the Emdebian distributions ceased. There will be no further updates and no further stable releases. The last release of Emdebian Grip is 3.1, based on Debian GNU/Linux Wheezy 7.1
The apt sources for Emdebian Wheezy Grip 3.1 are:
deb http://www.emdebian.org/grip wheezy-grip main deb-src http://www.emdebian.org/grip wheezy-grip main deb http://ftp.uk.debian.org/emdebian/grip wheezy-grip main deb-src http://ftp.uk.debian.org/emdebian/grip wheezy-grip main deb http://emdebian.bytesatwork.ch/mirror/grip wheezy-grip main deb-src http://emdebian.bytesatwork.ch/mirror/grip wheezy-grip main deb http://www.emdebian.org/grip stable-grip main deb-src http://www.emdebian.org/grip stable-grip main deb http://ftp.uk.debian.org/emdebian/grip stable-grip main deb-src http://ftp.uk.debian.org/emdebian/grip stable-grip main deb http://emdebian.bytesatwork.ch/mirror/grip stable-grip main deb-src http://emdebian.bytesatwork.ch/mirror/grip stable-grip main
Please use one of the two mirrors wherever practical.
Grip is a light grip on Debian Squeeze (the codename of the Debian 6.0 release). Small amounts of squeeze, no functional changes and the highest level of functional compatibility with Debian Squeeze and subsequent releases. Includes support for building custom packages on an Emdebian installation as well as the ability to mix and match Emdebian and Debian packages with minimal effort.
Emdebian Grip 3.1 is the current stable release based on Debian 7.1 "wheezy".
Size comparisons
A basic multistrap of Emdebian Grip (sid-grip) came out at 56Mb installed, not compressed - this includes apt but not much else.
A basic multistrap of Debian (sid) comes out at 90Mb installed, not compressed - same package list as Emdebian.
A basic debootstrap of Debian (sid) comes out at 269Mb installed, not compressed. There are a number reasons for this:
All downloaded packages remain inside the chroot when using debootstrap. Using apt-get clean reduces the size of the chroot to 208Mb.
More packages are installed - 136 using debootstrap compared to 80 using multistrap. Adding the majority of those packages increases the Emdebian chroot to 121Mb.
Upgrading a Debian debootstrap chroot to Emdebian Grip generally frees up over 40Mb during the upgrade, reducing the 208Mb to 160Mb after running apt-get clean.
To see the size of a prospective system, use multistrap on your desktop (for the desktop architecture) and list some of the top level packages in the multistrap file. Then you can chroot into the system and see if everything you wanted is installed, then tweak the package list, before getting an accurate size. Remember to run apt-get clean after installing new packages.
Integration into Debian
With work on Emdebian Grip ceasing, there will be no integration of Emdebian Grip into Debian.
The apt sources entries for unstable-grip have stopped receiving updates and will be dropped. Only the stable release will be retained, again, without updates. (Security updates were never explicitly supported by Emdebian Grip.)
The old unstable, wheezy, testing, stable and sid no longer operate and because the underlying Release files have been changed to the new names, symbolic links will not work either.
Wheezy (stable) has also been removed - the stable release of Emdebian Wheezy Grip is wheezy-grip (stable-grip).
Components
Component handling as used in Emdebian Grip 2.0 Squeeze has been dropped in Emdebian Wheezy Grip 3.0 - all packages are now in main.
Mirrors
Emdebian supports standard Debian push mirror tools. Grip is currently mirrored onto:
http://ftp.uk.debian.org/emdebian/grip - available as an apt source:
deb http://ftp.uk.debian.org/emdebian/grip wheezy-grip main deb-src http://ftp.uk.debian.org/emdebian/grip wheezy-grip main
http://emdebian.bytesatwork.ch/mirror/grip/ - available as an apt source:
deb http://emdebian.bytesatwork.ch/mirror/grip wheezy-grip main deb-src http://emdebian.bytesatwork.ch/mirror/grip wheezy-grip main
Both of the above mirrors provide packages for Emdebian Crush, Emdebian Grip Ports and the Toolchains.
Methods
Emdebian Grip unpacked .deb archives from Debian using standard Debian tools, removed relevant files and repacked the archive. The effect was to retain the unchanged binaries and maintainer scripts of the original Debian package but reduce the overall size of the package, the package meta-data and final installation size of the package.
Emdebian Grip processed any .deb from any architecture on any architecture. This allowed one machine to generate Emdebian Grip packages for multiple architectures. Emdebian Grip 2.0 supports:
armel, i386, amd64, powerpc, mips, mipsel, source.
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Emdebian Grip 3.1 supports standard Debian methods for creating root filesystems, chroots and even normal Debian installations using the Debian Installer See Preseeding Grip for details.
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The preferred way to install Emdebian Grip is multistrap.
Back to the Emdebian Project homepage.