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Check out Linux from Scratch you can build your own distribution from scratch. Im glad I did ;)
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Source installed by default takes up quite a bit of space. Just look at LFS, which recommends ~700 MB for all the source files (500 if you cut a few extra things out).

I keep a CD image updated that contains all the source I need to build a full system w/X, GNOME, GPG, Kaffe, and some other extra stuff. It takes up ~550 MB. Once compiled, you could easily take up 1 GB or more.

Being that I have lots of machines that are running off of 500 MB hard drives (I also have a laptop that has a 210 MB drive thats shared with FreeDOS), I'm glad the source isn't allways installed by default, but I like to keep it around when I can.

Also, in production systems, I love Debian's apt-get. Sometimes, compileing the latest stuff from scratch gets messy, so allways having the latest stuff in binary form is great. Still, at home I like to compile my own as much as possible.

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Actually, if you hop on IRC (#LFS on irc.linuxfromscratch.org) and talk to a few of us, we allready have machines running ALFS... You can download most of the code from CVS and try it out, we are getting there, i just got back from visiting family and friends (a hole whopping two weeks, i feel so disconnected :) so i have some catching up todo, but i'll be reworking the CVS archive, as we have an influcs of new developers and volunteers, it's great =)

PS, ALFS does work right now, it doesn't have a fancy interface like what is planned but it is usable to an extent, btw there are other implementations that were started when we first were talking about using XML with ALFS, one is Richard Lightmans RALFS and Rod Roark LFSMake

Nice thing about alfs is that you just have to learn the XML syntax to make your own profiles.You could make a profile(ie your own distro, or specific nasa-worker) or just about anything.

You could put this all on a cdrom and use it that way, or more preferably you could do it through your network.... For a cd you would need the source packages, probably could use up through chap 5 in LFS on your cdrom, with perl and some extra alfs perl modules, and really that should be it. Stick it in a drive, run alfs and the profile and watch it go to work. You could also chroot your cd enviroment to make sure it worked etc. before you burnt the cd...

No more coasters..... :)

btw alfs.linuxfromscratch.org has just went up and is being worked on, and you can find the alfs code, and chap4, chap5, chap6 from LFS at http://cvs.linuxfromscratch.org/index.cgi/ALFS/bac kend/ and you can find more info like the syntax docs in the ALFS directory.

BTW this is all changing fast so check the mail lists, and cvs occasionally....

Nice thing about alfs is that you just have to learn the XML syntax to make your own profiles.You could make a profile(ie your own distro, or specific nasa-worker) or just about anything.

You could put this all on a cdrom and use it that way, or more preferably you could do it through your network.... For a cd you would need the source packages, probably could use up through chap 5 in LFS on your cdrom, with perl and some extra alfs perl modules, and really that should be it. Stick it in a drive, run alfs and the profile and watch it go to work. You could also chroot your cd enviroment to make sure it worked etc. before you burnt the cd...

No more coasters..... :)

btw alfs.linuxfromscratch.org has just went up and is being worked on, and you can find the alfs code, and chap4, chap5, chap6 from LFS at http://cvs.linuxfromscratch.org/index.cgi/ALFS/bac kend/ and you can find more info like the syntax docs in the ALFS directory.

BTW this is all changing fast so check the mail lists, and cvs occasionally....

Have you considered Linux from Scratch? Basically what it is, is building Linux from the ground up. This would allow you to add the software that you need, and only the software you need. It will also allow you to configure everything yourself in the exact way you want it which should increase security somewhat since you will know exactly what you have setup, and not what someone else has done for you.

I think this project is well suited for tailor made copies of Linux, like you would like to have. Of course it will take more time to start from scratch but I feel in your situation it would be worth the extra effort. Good luck with your undertaking.

I must admit, LFS (Linux From Scratch, for those who don't know), is a very interesting-looking project. I'm using Slackware for my current Linux distro, and I'm sure I'll update to 7.2 once it's available, and use that to build my LFS partition slowly over the next several months. I'm already planning what s/w to use - it'll be an all GTK/Gnome system, and I'll try to eliminate as many dependencies on other libs as possible (no kde, lesstif, etc,) The proliferation of libs is pretty ridiculous these days. I'll also only have _one_ of each type of app - most distributions seem to want to install about 6 or more editors, 4 browsers, 5 window managers, etc. It's pretty insane. Sure, when you install all of Gnome, it's pretty huge, but keep in mind that when you do, you don't need to install a bunch of other stuff anymore (including libs). Can't wait for Gnome Helix and Nautilus to hit their prime...

why can't they pick something that is actually useful?

That link should read
http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/
And personally, I'm very much in favor of this for advanced/experienced users. I think I might just re-do the front page of radicalmatter.com to include something where people can rate and comment about distros. Maybe we can line them up, rate them from newbie to bleeding edge, and review what's best and worst about each.

Worth every hour of effort to a newbie.
LFS

I saw a link once which shows you how to make your own distro...

Do you mean Linux From Scratch?

This is a project on installing Linux literally from scratch. Probably no better/simpler way of forcing yourself to learn the nitty gritty details, than having to install binutils, fileutils et al yourself... :-)

-Andy

of course, it would be nice if they had an automated compilation, but as it is, i like my system better than redhat.

And, they are working on automating it, but that part isn't even alpha-level yet. Right now it's just an LDP book.

tiamat

Bough of you, please check out LFS... you may find it very interesting for just this reason;

http://www.linuxfromscratch.org

PS, This is like roll-your-own, using SysVinit (aka RH rc script), small and clean like Slackware, very good combination.

'Bundles' seem to be a formalized example of a common Unix system administration practice. My Unix admin experience is pretty much limited to the University environment, but in these situations at least, typically any 3rd party software is manhandled into its own directory, labelled with version numbers, and then made a part of the system with the absolute minimum number of symlinks (this is of course much easier if one has the source! many commercial packages don't play nice and want to extend their hooks into every nook and cranny.)

One immediate advantage is that packages can be exported over the network or easily rsynced between machines, allowing for much more straight-forward software updates and distribution. Appropriate use of configure's exec-prefix, localstatedir and such makes this sort of configuration a breeze for packages which use configure :)

Everytime I wish to update a piece of software on my home machine(s) that was installed off the distribution as an RPM, it is installed in such a manner and the old RPM removed. RPM database corruption does happen, and it really sucks. My home system is now in mid-migration to Linux From Scratch, which should allow the avoidance of RPM problems entirely.

Is it just me or are we seeing more and more unstable default installs of linux Redhat 7.0 had all that trouble with gcc then i seem to remember something about a couple of debian releases that were unstable and now this mandrake problem? why are the developers rushing to get these releases out the door? do they not care about stability anymore? well at least we still have lfs

Linux From Scratch.

That's about as low-level as it gets unless you're actually coding all the software yourself. It's not actually a distribution, per se, but rather a manual that tells you where to get the basic software source tarballs, how to compile and install them, etc.

Slackware is good too. All stable release software, all compiled with reasonable options.

Kelledin Tane, the Dreaming Minstrel

http://kelledin.tripod.com/scovsms.jpg

Hmmm I have to side with the RedHat basher on this one. I have used RedHat 5.1, 5.2, 6.0, 6.1, and 6.2, and their quality started to take a nose dive at 6.0. The reason I have used them anyways is because where I work, that is all Engineering ever has approved for sale (without trying any other distros, I add, except Mandrake). Of course, even though I'm the only one there who knows Linux well, they don't listen to me =/.

5.1 and up have issues with LILO (sometimes it won't install during the initial install script), but nothing that couldn't be worked around. 6.0...the issues seemed to get a little better. 6.1...Samba didn't work in some cases, DHCP was flaky, etc. etc. 6.2, the problems are worse. 7.0, I believe the phrase is "look out below." RedHat posts fixes, of course, but I prefer a distro that's fairly stable right out of the box. FYI, I run Slackware and Linux From Scratch.

Kelledin Tane, the Dreaming Minstrel

http://kelledin.tripod.com/scovsms.jpg

For info on creating Linux from scratch (or at least another distro to start out with, try going to Linux From Scratch

Arun

you aren't *doing* anything new, you're merely attempting (feebly) to be different

I used to use Debian because it was something a little diffrent, but just a week ago I switched to something totaly diffrent (not *BSD): LFS.

Does that qualify for being diffrent?

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I use OpenBSD for my firewall/NAT box at home, and installation is dead-simple, quite painless, and only installs the bare basics - no need to sit through half an hour of clicking widgets to select packages.

I like Linux - None of the BSDs have the software base that Linux has, and it's a lot speedier. I don't need the security for my X box - after all, it's behind the OBSD firewall, and SSH tunneling is my friend when I need to access it from the outside.

What I'd like to see is a Linux distro which installed the bare basics - glibc, gcc, net-utils, bin-utils, file-utils, kernel, etc, X optional. Not something like Mandrake or Red Hat which has evil tendencies to put both GNOME and KDE on your box whether you want to or not.

The closest thing I've come to this is following Linux From Scratch's excellent instructions and compile the entire system from source - this is admittedly a lot of work, but at least you _know_ what's on your box when you install it, and you don't have to worry about vendor-specific kernel modifications and all that crap... And I ended up with a distro of <250MB after installing the most important things, including the full kernel source unpacked. This as opposed to the 800+ I had cluttering my disk after I put Mandrake 7 on it.

So, distributors, are you listening? I think there would be quite a high demand for something like this, especially from power users... BareBones Linux, anyone?
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However, I think it's a shame that some users (and more importantly sysadmins) are so unwilling to learn how to do things like this.. After all, it's not _that_ difficult. With distros like Mandrake and Red Hat, I found myself hopelessly trying to work around all the tools and additions they made to the base system. Recently I discovered Linux From Scratch, which proved to be an excellent way to learn, and resulted in a more basic and much less bloated Linux installation.
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Cheers & good luck!

I installed 2000 Lite on my beige G3, and ended up having to put in my 1999 CD just to get common software like patch and make. Patch- the lite didn't even have patch! What's worse, it needed irt cause it shipped with a broken hwclock, and they distributed the fix as a, um, as a patch ;)

I ended up putting Linux From Scratch on that G3 instead, and have been delighted with it. Of course, glibc and gcc take a long as time to compile- but it was worth it.

Just on saturday I aquired a Rev B iMac. Installed LinuxPPC lite on it- and Lite put in a /etc/sysconfig/mouse and /etc/sysconfig/keyboard that do not work with USB and kernels past 2.2.10. Grrr... I had to fix those before it was usable.

I then installed YD C.S. 1.2 and got a working system from the start. I did build my own RPM for it (their rpm has the macros set to leave man pages gzipped, which causes problems with most spec files which specify man pages in the %files section without the gzip sufix- and a few other things) as well as a few other minor tweaks, but overall it was a much more pleasant install, and worked better w.o needing to edit stuff just cause of lack of QA.

I still say build your own, or use Debian, though. Red Hat based distros just plain suck.

They have stolen my idea! I did that a few days ago, but I used LFS instead, and it works great. Even internet via ISDN!

Not quite....

In order to get Linux for free you need to allready have a reliable internet ready operating system installed.

If you allready have an internet ready operating system installed chances are pritty good you don't need/want Linux to start with.

If you have no OS or your OS dosn't work then your only hope is to buy a Linux CD.

As far as how hard it is to install....

Linux WAS hard to install when there were no distrobutions and you basicly had to create your own Linux system by hand...

Now there is even a project to make it easy to install Linux from source code...

Linux from scratch

Note that companys making money off of Linux are not specalising in Linux distros.
VA Linux sells computers with Linux preinstalled. Ideally they save money by using a free operating system. At one time they installed it by hand and costummised the system for you. Today they just sell RedHat CDs.

While RedHat is losing money as far as I can tell WC Cdrom is doing pritty well. Unlike RedHat however CdRom dosn't specalise in Linux. They sell free software of all types.
It's a service. For $20 to $30 you get a CD with megs of free software. (Stometimes it's easyer to buy a CD than download software). As such they do not put any risk on a single product. Supporting Dos, OS/2, Linux, BSD, Windows and yes at one time they even put out a CP/M CD.

The reason so many open source companys fail or lose money is becouse they have bad busness plans to start with. That will kill you in ANY market. Also Open Source confuses people as it dosn't conform to the simplifyed rules. But then many markets don't conform to simplifyed rules. Open source plays by the same rules as everyone else. It's just not layed out the same.
But then the whole software market is diffrent from any other market. Software is diffrent from other products. How many inventions qualify as poetry?
Think about it. Software is both poetry and tool....
And as such the software market has no choice but to establish whole new rules for busness...
For now people have to be smart about where the money comes from. Once repeatable successes are known then we can slap together a busness based on proven busness plans.
But for now... none of the proven busness tactics work with open source...
Sorry I'm a bit off topic here :)

Now is a great time for it - get a nice stable version out there before all hell breaks loose. Also, I believe Patrick is working on a new installer, etc, for the next major revision of Slackware, so there's a lot more that'll be new in v8 (or whatever version it is) than 'just' a new kernel. At least, that's the impression I get.

Better than yet another distribution, I find the Linux from Scratch project quite interesting...

However, I have run into Slack users and they have stated that most hard core linux users run Slack. I am curious as to what would be the advantages of Slack over Debian, and visa versa.

Hard core Linux users run Linux From Scratch :-P

No, serious. I would have expected more hard core Linux users to install their system themselves. Is there something that is too hard to do yourself that prevents LFS from becoming as popular as e.g. Slackware?

What would people recommend for dial-in systems (modem support, PPP, email, etc.) averaging 8 megs of RAM, 250 MB harddrive? X-Windows isn't a high priority (but it would be nice) and if I were to do something like LFS, the parent Linux would have to be Live-CD or -Floppy. They'd be used primarily for software development and Internet use.

Suggestions I've heard so far:

• Vector Linux
• Linux From Sratch
• Debian