How Common Are Homegrown Linux Distributions?

Andreas Krennmair asks: "I'm planning to build my new Linux system from scratch, similar to Linux From Scratch. I'm currently collecting all source packages, and I wonder how common it still is to use a self-built Linux system, although graphical (or pseudo-graphical, curses-based) installation programs with automatic hardware component detection and great software package management systems are used in almost every modern Linux distribution. And are there any people left who still use Jurix or Yggdrasil?"

Comments

On the university level

[biohazard99]

it seems CS departments "roll their own" often, I know for a fact that here at UK we use a heavily modified debian core in the cs/enginering linux lab, I am pretty sure that U of Michigan uses a redhat-based system.

Installing in less than 250 megs - Slackware?

[Christopher Thomas]

Even as I type, I am dl'ing the source packages to do the same thing. I tried (in vain) to install RH on a Thinkpad 360P. No matter what I did, I could not get rid of enough packages to fit on a 250 +/- partition. Too damned many interdependencies. As I don't have a current disk for a conventional distro, I figured I'd do it this way.

You might want to try Slackware for your notebook. Depending on what you leave out, you should be able to get it down to 250 megs without too much difficulty (just don't plan on rebuilding X from source, for instance). I've had to install it on limited space myself a few times.

And if you feel like mixing and matching pieces, all of it's stored as straight tarballs on the CD, so it's easy to pick through (though I'm sure tools for RPM and DEB let you do this too).

Re:Doing a similar thing now.

[CrayDrygu]

(I like emacs myself, although I suppose I might have to learn vi to squeeze things onto the drive:)

Check out Jed. Works like Emacs, without all the Emacsy features, meaning it's tiny. (The newest source tarball is 700kb)

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