Anyone interested in making a distro?

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03-15-2007
duke4e

Anyone interested in making a distro?

Hey

I know there are somehow similar distros to my idea, but i think that my idea has some adventages. Anywas, here what i was thinking:

to make a live distro which could be burned to cd or usb memory stick without any problems (cause i know that it can be really problematic to get linux working from usb). also the installation should be performed from windows or linux. make the distro as small as 20-30 mb.

now, the main idea behind this distro is something similar to ultimate boot cd (http://www.ultimatebootcd.com) but with much difference. first of all, the distro whould boot into ram, allowing user to have their usb stick/cd/dvd-rom free for further usage. it sould have a simple/lightweight GUI (xfce comes to mind). there whould be native support for internet connection + installed seamonkey (since it has browser+mail client+irc+etc...). it should also contain videolan vlc for all kinds of multimedia (similar to geexbox). and probably the most important feature whould be a bunch of tools which can help user to repair some kind of damage made to their main OS (undelete, unformat, mbr/partition/bootsector repair, antivirus + ntfs3g for deleting infected files, etc...)

things that this distro shoudn't have are stuff like office suite, games and all other stuff which comes natively with almost all other distros.

so, to sum it up, this distro whould be a swiss army knife for any user which is expiriencing some trouble with their primary OS.

if anyone likes my idea and has knowledge to make such a distro, please send me an email or PM, so i can help out (and make a detail design document) cause i just don't have enough knowledge to do it myself.
03-15-2007
techieMoe

Quote:

Originally Posted by duke4e

to make a live distro which could be burned to cd or usb memory stick without any problems (cause i know that it can be really problematic to get linux working from usb). also the installation should be performed from windows or linux. make the distro as small as 20-30 mb.

Puppy Linux and Damn Small Linux already fill this niche quite nicely.

Quote:

now, the main idea behind this distro is something similar to ultimate boot cd (http://www.ultimatebootcd.com) but with much difference. first of all, the distro whould boot into ram, allowing user to have their usb stick/cd/dvd-rom free for further usage.

Most LiveCDs offer the "toram" option.

Quote:

it sould have a simple/lightweight GUI (xfce comes to mind). there whould be native support for internet connection + installed seamonkey (since it has browser+mail client+irc+etc...).

This is not as easy as it sounds. What types of internet connections? There is a great collection of wireless internet hardware that simply has no Linux drivers available. What would you do for that?

Quote:

it should also contain videolan vlc for all kinds of multimedia (similar to geexbox).

You say you want it to be under 30 MB and then you say you want it to support all kinds of media? I doubt you'll be able to have both. What about the legal issues surrounding playback of MP3s, DVD movies, or Windows Media Codecs? Those vary from country to country.

Quote:

and probably the most important feature whould be a bunch of tools which can help user to repair some kind of damage made to their main OS (undelete, unformat, mbr/partition/bootsector repair, antivirus + ntfs3g for deleting infected files, etc...)

Ultimate Boot CD (which you linked to earlier) already has most of this.

Quote:

things that this distro shoudn't have are stuff like office suite, games and all other stuff which comes natively with almost all other distros.

so, to sum it up, this distro whould be a swiss army knife for any user which is expiriencing some trouble with their primary OS.

You should really do some more research on ultra-portable distributions such as Puppy Linux or Damn Small Linux. For repair distros, look at articles like this one on how to make a Linux Rescue CD.

The point I'm trying to make here is that in order to make a new distribution that will attract developers and attention it simply must be original in some way. As it is your current proposal sounds too much like dozens of other distributions already out there, and the last thing we as a Linux community needs right now is yet another mediocre, poorly-supported distribution to add to the list.
03-15-2007
duke4e

as you can already notice from your post, you've named few distros. and each of them has some stuff which i've mentioned. my idea is to merge all the good stuff from all those distros into one distro which whould be the first thing you'de be booting into if your everyday OS crashed for some reason.

Quote:

This is not as easy as it sounds. What types of internet connections? There is a great collection of wireless internet hardware that simply has no Linux drivers available. What would you do for that?

i was thinkin something like ubuntu live cd - in most cases you can have internet connection out of the box.

Quote:

You say you want it to be under 30 MB and then you say you want it to support all kinds of media? I doubt you'll be able to have both. What about the legal issues surrounding playback of MP3s, DVD movies, or Windows Media Codecs? Those vary from country to country.

videolan vlc installer has 9MB and supports tons of codecs. as for legal issues - if vlc is legal, than this distro could be legal.

Quote:

Ultimate Boot CD (which you linked to earlier) already has most of this.

yeah, but it's filesize is around 100mb, while this distro should fit on 32mb usb stick.

Quote:

You should really do some more research on ultra-portable distributions such as Puppy Linux or Damn Small Linux. For repair distros, look at articles like this one on how to make a Linux Rescue CD.

i already did :)
the size of DSL and puppy was my inspiration. thenks for RescueCD link, it looks interesting.

Quote:

The point I'm trying to make here is that in order to make a new distribution that will attract developers and attention it simply must be original in some way. As it is your current proposal sounds too much like dozens of other distributions already out there, and the last thing we as a Linux community needs right now is yet another mediocre, poorly-supported distribution to add to the list.

let me sum up my idea:
simple to install ultra-light portable distro which can connect to internet, has GUI, can repair various pc problems and if it can't repair them, atleast you can watch/listen to music/videos and surf the net for additional help.

althrough all parts of this idea already exist in various distros, i think that nobody merged them in this kind of way.
03-15-2007
techieMoe

Well, more power to you. Here's hoping you can put something together that fits your needs.
03-15-2007
devils casper

Quote:

Originally Posted by duke4e

simple to install ultra-light portable distro which can connect to internet, has GUI, can repair various pc problems and if it can't repair them, atleast you can watch/listen to music/videos and surf the net for additional help.

did you check SLAX? it has everything except 'repair' option.