Emdebian Grip is a discontinued small-footprint Linux distribution based on and compatible with Debian. Compared to Debian, it provides more fine-grained control over the package selection, size, dependencies and content, enabling that way creation of small and efficient Debian packages for use on resource-limited embedded systems. As a result, reduced installation size is one of the main benefits coming from the Emdebian Grip.[3][4]

Emdebian Grip
DeveloperEmbedded Debian Project
OS familyLinux (Unix-like)
Working stateUnsupported/Discontinued
Source modelOpen source
Initial releaseFebruary 14, 2009; 15 years ago (2009-02-14)[1]
Latest release3.1[2] / June 15, 2013; 10 years ago (2013-06-15)
Update methodAPT
Package managerdpkg
Kernel typeMonolithic (Linux kernel)
LicenseGPL and other licenses
Official websiteArchived 25 August 2019 at the Wayback Machine

As of July 13, 2014, the Emdebian Grip project is terminated with no available updates or planned new releases, leaving the version 3.1, which is based on Debian 7.1 ("wheezy"), as the no longer supported latest stable release.[5][6]

Overview edit

Emdebian Grip re-packs .deb package files made available by Debian, removing unneeded files such as man pages, info documents, documentation, and unwanted translation files. As such, Emdebian Grip is a Debian distribution builder; the emgrip command (from the emdebian-grip package) processes a .deb package compiled for any of the architectures supported by Debian and generates an equivalent Emdebian Grip package. That way, the binaries, maintainer scripts and dependencies of the original Debian packages are left untouched, but the overall size and the installation footprint of the packages are reduced.[7]

Packages created by Emdebian Grip are not recompiled, so they are completely binary compatible with Debian. As a result, Emdebian Grip maintains as much compatibility as possible with Debian; it is even possible to mix Emdebian and Debian packages, or even to migrate an existing Debian system to Emdebian Grip.[4][7]

Releases edit

Emdebian Grip releases
Version Release date Base Debian version
Old version, no longer maintained: 1.0 ("lenny") February 14, 2009[1] 5.0 ("lenny")
Old version, no longer maintained: 1.0.1 ("lenny") September 6, 2010[8] 5.0.6 ("lenny")
Old version, no longer maintained: 1.0.2 ("lenny") December 5, 2010[9] 5.0.7 ("lenny")
Old version, no longer maintained: 2.0 ("squeeze") February 5, 2011[10] 6.0 ("squeeze")
Old version, no longer maintained: 2.0.2 ("squeeze") September 29, 2011[11] 6.0.2 ("squeeze")
Old version, no longer maintained: 2.0.3 ("squeeze") October 8, 2011[12] 6.0.3 ("squeeze")
Old version, no longer maintained: 2.0.4 ("squeeze") January 29, 2012[13] 6.0.4 ("squeeze")
Old version, no longer maintained: 2.0.5 ("squeeze") May 12, 2012[14] 6.0.5 ("squeeze")
Old version, no longer maintained: 2.0.6 ("squeeze") September 29, 2012[15] 6.0.6 ("squeeze")
Old version, no longer maintained: 2.0.7 ("squeeze") February 24, 2013[16] 6.0.7 ("squeeze")
Old version, no longer maintained: 3.0 ("wheezy-grip") May 4, 2013[17] 7.0 ("wheezy")
Old version, no longer maintained: 3.1 ("wheezy-grip") June 15, 2013[2] 7.1 ("wheezy")
Legend:
Old version
Older version, still maintained
Latest version
Latest preview version
Future release

Emdebian Grip provides complete package repositories for seven architectures: i386, amd64, powerpc, armhf, armel, mips and mipsel.[a] Included is support for standard Debian tools like debootstrap, multistrap and debian-installer, and there are no functional changes in Emdebian Grip when compared to base Debian releases.[1][10][17]

Since version 3.0, all Emdebian Grip suites and codenames include additional "-grip" suffix, compared to their equivalent Debian suites and codenames.[17]

On July 13, 2014, an end-of-life notice posted on the project's web site[b] announced that updates to Emdebian Grip are stopped, leaving the version 3.1, which is based on Debian 7.1 ("wheezy"), as the no longer supported latest stable release. The main reasons stated as the cause for ending the project were a lack of embedded devices that do not provide support for expandable storage, and too much work involved with preparing the updates and releasing new versions.[5][6]

See also edit

  • BitBake – a make-like build tool focusing on cross-compilation for embedded Linux
  • Comparison of Linux distributions – compared by the features, support for different architectures, package management, etc.
  • ebuild – a specialized bash script for automating compilation and installation of software packages
  • List of Linux distributions – categorized by the major base distribution or used package management system
  • OpenEmbedded – a software framework for creating embedded Linux distributions

Notes edit

  1. ^ These are the computer architecture names internally used by Debian.
  2. ^ "As of July 2014, updates to the Emdebian distributions ceased. There will be no further updates and no further stable releases."[18]

References edit

  1. ^ a b c "Emdebian Grip 1.0 (lenny) released". emdebian.org. February 14, 2009. Archived from the original on February 22, 2014. Retrieved February 4, 2014.
  2. ^ a b "Emdebian Wheezy-Grip updated to 3.1". emdebian.org. June 15, 2013. Archived from the original on February 22, 2014. Retrieved February 4, 2014.
  3. ^ "Emdebian Grip packages: A smaller Debian-compatible distro". emdebian.org. Archived from the original on November 30, 2013. Retrieved January 20, 2014.
  4. ^ a b Michael Larabel (July 14, 2012). "Emdebian Grip: The Smaller, Embedded Debian". Phoronix. Retrieved February 5, 2014.
  5. ^ a b "Emdebian Grip halted". emdebian.org. July 13, 2014. Retrieved August 5, 2014.
  6. ^ a b Neil Williams (July 13, 2014). "End of updates for Emdebian Grip". lists.debian.org. Retrieved August 5, 2014.
  7. ^ a b Koen Vervloesem (April 8, 2009). "Emdebian Grip 1.0: The universal embedded operating system". LWN.net. Retrieved January 20, 2014.
  8. ^ "Emdebian Grip 1.0 updated". emdebian.org. September 6, 2010. Retrieved February 5, 2014.
  9. ^ "Emdebian Grip 1.0 updated (1.0.2)". emdebian.org. December 5, 2010. Retrieved February 5, 2014.
  10. ^ a b "Emdebian GNU/Linux Grip 2.0 (based on Debian 6.0 "squeeze") released". emdebian.org. February 5, 2011. Retrieved February 5, 2014.
  11. ^ "Emdebian Grip Squeeze updated to 6.0.2". emdebian.org. September 29, 2011. Retrieved February 5, 2014.
  12. ^ "Emdebian Grip Squeeze updated to 6.0.3". emdebian.org. October 8, 2011. Retrieved February 5, 2014.
  13. ^ "Emdebian Grip Squeeze updated to 6.0.4". emdebian.org. January 29, 2012. Retrieved February 5, 2014.
  14. ^ "Emdebian Grip Squeeze updated to 6.0.5". emdebian.org. May 12, 2012. Retrieved February 5, 2014.
  15. ^ "Emdebian Grip Squeeze updated to 6.0.6". emdebian.org. September 29, 2012. Retrieved February 5, 2014.
  16. ^ "Emdebian Grip Squeeze updated to 6.0.7". emdebian.org. February 24, 2013. Retrieved February 5, 2014.
  17. ^ a b c "Emdebian Grip 3.0 (based on Debian 7.0 "wheezy") released". emdebian.org. May 4, 2013. Retrieved February 5, 2014.
  18. ^ "Emdebian – The Universal Embedded Operating System". emdebian.org. Retrieved October 13, 2014.

External links edit