I have been a fan of the Suckless team for quite some time, not in the least because of fantastic software like dmenu or dwm, but just because their philosophy seems to mesh — sorta-kinda, more or less, in a roundabout way — with mine. Granted, they are far more talented and have a better grasp on why things work, but if I extrapolate the ideas they describe into a larger, user-oriented sense, I agree in principle.

So I have been watching (if one can “watch” a Web page) the sta.li home page to see how stali works out; the idea of starting from an exceptionally svelte chrooted environment and building up is something I would enjoy trying. And the idea of statically linked software is strangely interesting.

As it is now though, I can download the compressed file system, chroot into it, but to be honest, where I go after that is a little of a mystery. If I have a host system running and I have a network connection, it seems like the next step would be to build a kernel or install bash, or perhaps something like that.

This is what I am used to when installing Crux, where a network connection carries over into the chrooted environment, and from there you build a kernel or software or update the system or etc., etc. But with stali, my network doesn’t seem to respond, I am not sure if I should be building into the same “i686” file image, or if that should be somehow scribbled onto the drive in a different way. Call me timid — or perhaps just myopic — but the next step isn’t quite clear.

I’ll have to see if I can find someone else’s experience with stali, and try to duplicate it. Either way, this is one of those little projects that tends to be very interesting at first, then challenging, then addictive, and then I’m a sworn patriot waving a new flag. I am so predictable that way. 🙄