Tag: packages

MiniTSS 2.9.0 released, plus c02ware site redesign

If you take a look at the page for the Tritech Service System distribution of Linux, you’ll notice a few new things. The most obvious is that I’m redoing the c02ware site design; there’s now a basic logo, proper site navigation, a mobile-friendly layout, and a cleaner-looking color scheme. Consistency across pages has been greatly improved, and lots of unnecessary old junk and confusing content has been completely tossed out.

This change is being driven by my push to release the Tritech Service System with all of our proprietary bits included as a commercial product, with regular updates, bug fixes, and support. I will continue to release TSS without any proprietary bits as a public and completely free system, but for anyone in the PC repair business, the paid-for stuff can easily pay for itself in workflow acceleration and productivity boosts within a month, and we want to be able to bring that advantage to other PC service shops and I.T. departments. If you are interested in being notified when the Tritech Service System becomes available for purchase, send me an email and I will keep you in the loop.

A major goal in TSS is keeping the system as small as possible without cutting out basic features. In the effort to move towards this goal, I have released MiniTSS 2.9.0! The download is a paltry eight megabytes in size, and includes includes the following software packages:

  • busybox 1.21.1
  • chntpw 110511
  • cifsmount (mount.cifs helper)
  • dd-rescue 1.28
  • dropbear 0.52
  • fuse 2.8.3
  • glibc 2.10.1
  • libblkid 1.1.0
  • libuuid 1.3.0
  • ncurses 5.6
  • ntfs-3g-ntfsprogs 2011.4.12
  • pv 1.2.0
  • rsync 3.0.7
  • socat 1.7.2.1
  • sysfsutils 2.1.0
  • tar 1.22
  • tss-base-fs-mini 101
  • tss-bootstrap
  • udev 163
  • xz-utils 5.0.4
  • zlib 1.2.3

MiniTSS is not just a live CD/USB system. You can download the “source” archive, unpack it on your Linux system, add or remove packages to initramfs as you see fit, and rebuild your own custom version with whatever software you actually need. The system only provides basic tools and a command line interface, and therefore is aimed at intermediate-level Linux users.

“socat” as a UDP beacon (a Tritech Service System technology preview)

One of the most novel ideas has been that of having a TSS CD which doesn’t require upgrading, because every upgrade cycle I’m forced to distribute new burned CDs to all of the technicians and rewrite all of our bootable USB flash drives for the new system. TSS 3.0 will have the ability to upgrade over a network automatically during early startup.