PLD Linux Distribution

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PLD is a free RPM-based Linux distribution which is aimed at the more advanced users and administrators who accept the tradeoffs of using a system that might require manual tweaking in exchange for significant flexibility.

1 History
2 Name
3 Features
4 Releases
5 Builder script
6 Technical Information
7 External links

[edit] History

PLD started in 1998 as a package repository for Red Hat Linux. It soon grew enough to become a self sustaining distribution and has acted as one for the past couple of years. PLD has Polish roots, but it's currently developed and used by people all over the world.

[edit] Name

PLD is an acronym which stands for "PLD Linux Distribution", making it a recursive acronym. Originally, PLD stood for "Polish(ed) Linux Distribution", due to the distribution's specificity to Polish, but the meaning was changed to attempt reaching a wider audience. PLD often calls itself PLD Linux, despite the redundance.

[edit] Features

One of major features distinguishing PLD among other distributions is fine-grained package system. Individual plugins and modules are separate RPM packages, making it possible for administrator to control every application's functionality and save disk space.

[edit] Releases

Although PLD is a very active project, developers do not focus on providing complete releases. Instead, PLD is evolving. On FTP site there are always very fresh packages, but consistiency of whole package set is never guaranteed. Everybody is strongly encouraged to use builder script to make own packages.

The releases of PLD distribution (available and planned) are:

1.0 Ra - released in November of 2002, support ended in April of 2006
2.0 Ac - final stages of development
3.0 Th - initial development

[edit] Builder script

This is a main developer's tool, used to generate RPM packages. It can be found in CVS repository under SPECS/builder. Builder operates on SPEC files and is responsible for:

fetching particular SPEC file revision
fetching source packages
checking build dependencies
compiling the sources
creating final RPM package

The simplest example of creating and installing PLD package with builder:

$ cd ~/rpm/SPECS
$ ./builder mtr.spec
$ sudo rpm -i ../RPMS/mtr*.rpm

[edit] Technical Information

Information on technical aspects of the distribution.

Default file system	Other major file systems supported	Architectural support (first, primary platform)	Default online OS update tool	Default package management/ software installation tool	Main API and language for textual/CLI applications
ext3/ext2/XFS	JFS, FAT, NTFS, ISO 9660, UDF, NFS, ReiserFS	x86, PPC, AMD64 (beta), SPARC (beta), DEC Alpha (beta)	Poldek	Poldek, RPM	pre-LSB with C, various other (POSIX conforming)