What would be essential for a bare-bones Linux system?

[revolve]

I mean, without any unneccessary apps, drivers, or anything.

[Dolda2000]

The kernel, of course. If you want a modular kernel, you will also need modutils. Then you will need an init program, preferrably SysVInit, but I guess you could write a simpler yourself. You will need a getty, and if you want a small system, I recommend mingetty or a custom concoction. You'll also need a login program, a shell and the coreutils package from GNU. All of these will also require a libc, so get glibc as well. Of course, with just that, you won't be able to actually _do_ very much, but I think that it will work. You might want some more stuff, though, like e2fsprogs and similar packges.