Linux Programming

[caboose]

Hi. As a person who has tried many flavours of Linux, i am interested in creating my own, but first i need to know a few things:

1. What kind of programming languages will i need to know.
2. Qhat tools will i need to create my own flavour of linux.
3. How can i make sure it gets posted as a distrobution.

I need all the hwlp i can get, so any advice would be appreciated

[GNU-Fan]

The answers depend on how much your distribution will differ.
It can be as shallow as changing the default background image for the desktop.
Or it can be as throughout as to use a patched Linux kernel with its own userland application different than GNU.

Of course the level of knowledge and effort necessary differs heavily for these goals.

The first thing you should do is to look for metadistributions.
They are like building kits and help you learning.
A famous one is Gentoo, it definitely helps one to understand.
Gentoo Linux - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[i92guboj]

Hi. As a person who has tried many flavours of Linux, i am interested in creating my own, but first i need to know a few things:

1. What kind of programming languages will i need to know.

This depends of the scope, size, purpose(s) and functionalities that you want in your distro. Theoretically you could very well do with a single language, like C or python. But in practice that would be more a pain than an advantage.

I consider this the bare minimum:

• Shell scripting, preferable bash since it's what most linux related tools will assume nowadays. This will probably be necessary for a lot of the init stuff, you might even use it on your installer.
• Some -at least basic- understanding of C and perl, which will help you to understand some parts of the system better, and will also be a must if you need to patch some packages to fit better in the whole scheme of your distro.
• Knowing some other high level language that you can use for your installers, configurators, or where necessary, that can shorten the time of development. Python and ruby seems to be famous these days, but there are lots. It's mostly a matter of preference, though you need also to consider the dependencies (whatever you use for the basic system tools will become irremediably part of the basic dependencies that your distro will need to run).

2. Qhat tools will i need to create my own flavour of linux.

This is waaay to generic of a question. I suggest you to try to create a distro from the ground, using LFS:
Welcome to Linux From Scratch!

Also, try Gentoo. And while you are at it, you might want to try catalyst.
Gentoo Linux Projects -- Catalyst

3. How can i make sure it gets posted as a distrobution.

There's no official organization that manages that, if that's what you ask. One distribution exists from the moment you create it. It doesn't matter if it's in use by 1, 2, 10 or 50 million persons. If you mean like in distrowatch.com, these sites are based only on your popularity, nothing else.

A good way to promote your own distro is of course a web page. Having an initial community of experienced debelopers around will help of course. But since I guess you are learning and you have no previous experience, you should start by trying the fundamentals with LFS and Gentoo, so you become first experienced with what's involved.

Making a distro is not simply putting 100 packages into a cd and uploading an ISO for download. It involves much much more, unless all you want is a redecorated Ubuntu desktop.