What Distro

[dan3008]

First off, apologies if this is in the wrong place, wasnt sure if it belonged here or in the operating systems discussion board, and having read the rules, decided I think here is a better place for it.

Ok, what I really want to know is, is there a distro for the Pi, that will load quickly, and just let me run the one program i want to run, and then when its done, shut down? I might be able to put the shut down in my program closing.

Thing is, I am working on a project, where their is no screen and no input. Its literally going to start up, copy files from an inserted USBpen onto its built in memory (a self powered USB hard-drive probably) and shut down, or if no media is inserted, it'll just sit round and wait, because that'll mean that its being accessed over the network.
Oh, thats the other thing, the distro would need to support networked "folders"
Sorry for Using windows tearms, i'm used to windows, not linux

[elatllat]

Linux is 100% flexible, so anything is doable, the question is with what amount of work, and in this case very little.
1) install raspbian (because it's the default, but any linux will do)
2) make your "auto copy" app (just use a service and a bash script)
3) make a smb/samba share (windows file sharing)

simple untested script example:

Code: Select all

#!/bin/bash

PEN=/media/USB

LOOP=1
while [ $LOOP == 1 ]; do
  DRIVES=$( ls -1 /dev/sd? | wc -l )
  if [ $DRIVES -gt 1 ];then
    mount $( ls -1 /dev/sd?1 | tail -n 1 ) $PEN
    BPATH=/media/backups/backup-$(date +%Y%m%dT%H%M%SZ%z);
    mkdir $BPATH
    cp -r $PEN $BPATH
    umount $PEN
    LOOP =2
  else
    sleep 10
  fi
done
shutdown -h now

might want to add error checking to that etc.
use rsync if you want to update
or rsyncbackup if you want a "Time Machine" like tool

add as a service with "update-rc.d myscript defaults" and away you go

[dan3008]

1) install raspbian (because it's the default, but any linux will do)

I thought rasbian had a login by default? or is that disable'able so it auto logs in?

What language is best for doing that in you recon? I'm thinking i'm going to start learning python

[RaTTuS]

see http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewt ... ab#p128375
should help
change the rtorrent to the script you want to run

[jerrylamos]

Running Puppy Linux here. It's been compiled with the Raspbian libraries. You can get it from http://bkhome.org/blog/?viewDetailed=02910
For more info poke around the puppy linux site. It's a small distro about 90 MB which has been ported to many architectures. In spite of size is pretty full featured.
I'm comparing it to Debian. One difference, browser is Chromium instead of Midori.