Build A new Distro Question

[Edude03]

Hi Everyone,
Ok as you know, i am (trying) to build my own linux distro for pvrs.
I don't consider myself a linux "newbie" since when windows 3.1 & 95 came out i still used dos until i found out about linux.

Now that i'm planning on building a linux PVR box i want to build a distro for it that is compact, organized and will work with IR devices with little or no drivers or changes or configuration and will be controlable from a remote and IR keyboard.

What i want to know is the following:

1) what is the diffrences between installer system??
2) is the a foundation you can download to get you started i've heard of and check out LFS and ARCH but a little more advanced than what i need, so to put it another way is there a distro that actually works but you can add and remove packages, change how it boots, and the directory setup then burn to a CD??

3) Can you skip the boot loader indefinetly so that linux starts without asking you to pick a system??

I'm would be very greatful to get some answers to these question.
Thanks in advance, mike

ps if you find that i seem rude its just because me and me team cant find very much useful info on google after hours of searching.

EDIT: Oh and what is the diffrence between each type of distro?? because i keep hear knoppix based, debian based etc

[valan]

I'm not sure what you mean with your installer question. Basically the installer just installs all the software and does the initial setup like adding users, setting up passwords, bootscripts, etc.

If you don't want to base your distro off a source based distro, you might check out Slackware.

You cannot skip the bootloader. You need the bootloader to load the kernel. Though you can configure the bootloader not to show the screen and to boot directly to Linux instead.

[Edude03]

Thx valan thats the info i wanted. what i ment by iunstaller is they have diffrent types of installers but what the really diffrence RPM Vs. Deb???
and do you know where i can get a foundation to start building my distro?
oh and about the bootloader that what i ment thanks for correcting me
Thx in advance
Mike

[drakebasher]

what i ment by iunstaller is they have diffrent types of installers but what the really diffrence RPM Vs. Deb???

These are two different questions. I think most users would understand the word "installer" to mean the software that probes your system and then installs the necessary drivers, writes the required configuration files and creates the filesystems required for a full OS. In contrast, RPM and apt-get and emerge and yum are different means for maintaining, updating, downloaded, etc, software packages. RPM doesn't download anything, but it is a way of managing software installation so as to properly handle dependancies and to avoid breaking other software in the system. As for differences in distros, the biggest difference from one to another, I think is in exactly these two areas: software management and hardware detection/configuration. Knoppix is most commonly understood to mean the Knoppix live CD. While Knoppix can be installed to a hard drive, it was the first really advanced runs-on-the-CD live CD system. If you are looking for a distro that is fully flexible but is not built completely from scratch, you should look at Gentoo.

[drakebasher]

but you can add and remove packages, change how it boots, and the directory setup then burn to a CD??

This link may be helpful.