Welcome! You've reached the home of RLSD, the Retro Linux-libre Software Distribution.

RLSD is an extremely minimalistic, small, lightweight and security-hardened, free, text operating system for x86 and x86_64. It's a unique GNU/Linux-libre distribution that provides a selection of console applications and home-grown security features which might appeal to hackers.

Features

Cool

  • The user always runs as root
  • The root user is called boss
  • Mouse copy-paste, through gpm
  • Randomly-generated console color scheme
  • Block cursor
  • Hackable

Lightweight

  • Tiny memory and disk footprint
  • sdaemons, simple system tools
  • packlim, a fast, scriptable package manager
  • Small packages, i.e musl and loksh
  • No translations and unneeded files

Simple

  • All executables go to /bin, man pages to /man, etc'
  • Everything is linked statically
  • The kernel is 100% monolithic

Security-hardened

  • luufs prevents malware from replacing critical files
  • logfence prevents malware from modifying logs
  • elfence prevents execution of untrusted applications
  • A security module blocks malware-like activity (e.g mprotect() with PROT_EXEC)
  • /var/rw shows all files created since the installation
  • The user is trapped in a container, to protect critical system daemons
  • The operating system core is a digitally-signed image
  • Security features can be disabled by passing "secure=0" at boot time
  • Firewall, enabled by default

Downloads

Flavors

RLSD is available in four flavors:

  • minimal: basic network tools and a package manager
  • big: some pre-installed applications
  • huge: all packages in the repository are pre-installed
  • rootfs: a tiny chroot environment

Confused? Try the huge flavor and switch to the minimal one later, if you want a more customized system.

Usage

  • Set up a network connection using ifconfig, iw, wpa_passphrase, wpa_supplicant and dhcpcd
  • Use packlim to install packages
  • Use man to obtain documentation

Bugs

Problem? Please report it; if it's a crash, please include the crashing executable from /bin and the crash dump from /run/crash in your report. Thank you.

Development

Most of RLSD's development is automated: its entire package repository is built automatically. To build your own version of RLSD or contribute, clone its build system code repository and follow the documentation (README). The build system is also mirrored here.

Funding

Donations are always welcome.