rPath Linux 2

rPath Linux is a Linux distribution built with the new Conary distributed software management system. Conary is designed, based on many years of Linux software packaging and distribution development experience, to automate many of the tasks that have made it difficult to build Linux distributions. rPath's mission is to provide system software that is easily tailored to suit unique application needs. rPath Linux, built with the Conary distributed software management system, is not only a distribution in its own right, but also a base technology explicitly designed to enable you to create purpose-built operating system images using the rBuilder Online technology.

rPath Linux 2 is the next step in the evolution of the rPath Linux platform. In addition to a technology refresh (new versions of included packages), rPath Linux 2 is better tuned as a platform to show off your work.

• Just Enough OS: rPath Linux 2 is smaller than rPath Linux 1. The group-appliance-platform recommended base software set is approximately half as large in rPath Linux 2 as rPath Linux 1, and the kernel is approximately a third smaller.
• Brandable Boot Splash: rPath Linux 2 implements a graphical boot process which is easy to customize to look the way you want. It does not require that your appliance include the X Window System, and thus uses very little disk space.
• Additional security mechanisms: several additional runtime security measures have been added to most packages ("stack protector" and "FORTIFY_SOURCE") and are enabled by default when you build your own software on the rPath Linux 2 platform.
• More robust system boot: The syslinux boot loader is now the default bootloader. This well-maintained boot loader is highly extensible, easily branded, and most importantly can be automatically updated safely and reliably. The syslinux boot loader has been the most common boot loader for ISO images for most Linux distributions for years; now it is the most capable system boot loader as well.
• The new Appliance Installer option installs your appliance software on systems in only a few minutes, requiring less memory than the earlier package-based installation mechanism. (It is still possible to use the slower package-based installation mechanism if you need to do so, but all the images we are building for the core OS at this time use the faster appliance installer.)