Welcome to the 33rd issue of TMPDIR Weekly, a newsletter covering Embedded Linux, IoT systems, and technology in general. Please pass it on to anyone else you think might be interested and send any tips or feedback to our forum or news@tmpdir.org.
Linux
Linux File Heirarchy
Ever wonder why /bin, /sbin, /usr/bin, and /usr/sbin exist? The
structure is based on traditional UNIX systems; however, it has had evolution of
its own. The
/usr merge
has been implemented in various Linux distributions. Archlinux and
Fedora
have switched to using usrmerge heirarchy some time ago.
Rob's post
on busybox mailing list elucidates the history behind it. We are also exploring
switching the Yoe Distro to use merged /usr file heirarchy for future releases.
Adventures Setting up a NixOS server
The Nix package manager is fascinating and a quite unorthodox Linux distro (NixOS) is based on it. There is quite a bit to learn; therefore, we have started some experiments setting up a NixOS instance and playground for creating a system to our liking. Eventually this could be a good template for deploying services; however, we have ambitious plans to also try it as default OS on embedded distributions.
IoT
Making progress on the v0.1.0 milestone. Also discussing ways to embed the compiled frontend into the Go package so that we can directly use SIOT as a Go package -- looks like go:embed will make this practical.
A detailed article about ideas on building data-centric applications that can interoperate by sharing data directly instead of defining verb-based APIs. This is similar to where I've landed in my explorations of IoT architecture. Every instance should have a copy of the data it is interested in and simply read and write that data. Everything else happens automatically in the background.
Other
Have you tried Tailscale?. This looks like a very promising VPN technology, based on Wireguard that is extremely easy to set up, and its mesh model is very interesting.
Quote for the week
If it's not written, it never happened. If it is written, it doesn't matter what happened. ― Sercan Leylek
Join our Discourse forum to discuss these or new topics. Find past issues of TMPDIR here. Listen to previous podcasts at https://tmpdir.org/.
Thanks for reading!
Khem and Cliff