Pixix

A hyper-minimal Linux Distro for i386/i586 and above.

A good chunk of this was copied/inspired by Making Smallest Possible Linux Distro (x64) by Nir Lichtman, except that my target was an i386/i586 system with 32MB of RAM.

Minimum requirements

• CD-ROM Drive
• 23 Megabytes of RAM
• i386 (for pixix applications)
• i686 (e.g. Pentium Pro or later, for busybox applications)

How to run

Just execute all.sh. This'll clone the necessary files into the repo. Then it'll automatically build the final ISO for you.

chmod +x all.sh
./all.sh

If you'd like to run the commands separately, just execute the following in whatever order you need.

• ./setup.sh is responsible for downloading all the necessary things (kernel + bash)

• ./build.sh is for compiling everything into a usable .iso file

All of this was tested on Linux Mint 22.1 and Fedora 43, so modify setup.sh for whatever distro you may be running.

Applications

Available in the initramfs

cat init ls mount shell

Available on the disk

cd cp insmod irc ln mkdir ping pitch umount install
fdisk* grub-install grub-mkconfig ifconfig*
mkdosfs* mkfs.ext2* mkswap* route* udhcpc* wget*

* these are handled by busybox

Resources

• Linux man 2 pages
• Making Smallest Possible Linux Distro (x64) by Nir Lichtman
• i386 Linux 2.2+ Syscalls by h-peter recktenwald
• Linux man pages online by Michael Kerrisk
• Linux System Call Table for x86_64
• System Call Table