Linux With Nothing Installed

[gsmupdate]

Hi

I would like to make my own Linux distribution. Where do I find a Linux distribution that has just the OS, a browser and basic drivers for ethernet, video, etc. I can then build it up myself through the repo.

[Irithori]

Have fun :P

Welcome to Linux From Scratch!
There is no repo for LFS.
But after that learning experience, you can say you built your own linux.

Other than that, a minimal install of CentOS or stripping down a regular install comes to mind.

Question is, what do you want to achieve?

[zenwalker]

LFS
Tinycore
Unity
Salix 13.1, minimal option on downloadhttp://http://sourceforge.net/projects/salix/files/13.1/
. . . there are many.

[oz]

Hello and welcome!

Arch, Crux, Debian, and Gentoo all offer a minimal base install, then you can add only what you want or need to that.

Hope you'll have fun with it.

[Bemk]

For people with little experience, I'd recommend Debian Linux, not ticking the desktop option during installation. This will put you in a base system. It gives you access to the repositories through apt-get, which I consider to be easy.

If you like to mess around with the source and optimize everything to your PC and environment, you could go for Gentoo.

In the end though the choice is up to you. I'd suggest you try out some of the environments in a virtual machine before you pick one definitively, so you can see which one you think is best to work with.

[theNbomr]

There are two approaches to this:

1.) Start with a full-on distro, and start deleting everything that looks like something. Stop when what you've got looks like nothing.

2.) Start with nothing, and add stuff until you've got just enough. You can do this with tools such as buildroot.

While the first approach sounds easy, it isn't as easy as it sounds. The second approach will give you a better shot at getting just what you want, and actually understanding something about how it all fits together.

BTW, starting out with a system that includes a browser is way beyond 'nothing'. From where I sit, 'nothing' is a Kernel, and a basic init process. Maybe a busybox process, to be extra fancy.

--- rod.