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From Sy

Operating System > Linux > Distributions

See also

• BSD#BSD Distributions
• Linux software
• Sy's Linux timeline
• Zaurus distributions
• Window managers

Some of these notes are particularly old.

Some projects may have improved markedly since I last reviewed them.

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Contents 1 Distributions 1.1 Other distributions 2 Building a distribution 3 LiveCD Distributions 4 More Meh -- Not my thing, or doesn't work / isn't ready 5 LiveCD Links 6 Tiny

[edit] Distributions

• Debian -- Also has a LiveCD.
• Slackware -- One of the cds is live, and the main installer has been a live rescue disk for a long time.
• Gentoo -- Source-based.
• PCLinuxOS -- My current king. Truly refreshing to work with, and hackable enough for my tastes.
• IPCop is a linux firewall distro.
• Zenwalk seems to be a nice slim distro.
  • ZenLive is the liveCD, but it sortof sucks.
• Pardus -- seems nice and sensible.

See also:

• Sharp Zaurus SL-series/roms, distributions and operating environments

[edit] Other distributions

• Cooperative Linux -- Allows one to run Linux more natively on Windows.
  • coLinux Wiki
  • Slackware under coLinux -- for v9.1

• Heretix, featuring Ruby scripting for all internals (init scripts, package management) and a GoboLinux-inspired package manager (packages each in their own subdirectory, and automated symlink maintenance for transparency). The project's site went down and stayed down. The project is dead.
• 8086 Linux stuff
• http://www.cs.vu.nl/~ast/minix.html -- MINIX. It's crap.
• http://elks.sourceforge.net/ -- ELKS - Linux for an 8086 (STILL in development, sigh)

[edit] Building a distribution

• http://www.linux-live.org -- Making your own live linux distro
  • http://slax.linux-live.org/doc_development.php -- Introduction
• http://www.freelifeministries.org/ibuild/ -- Intellibuild is a set of scripts that aim to help Morphix and Knoppix remasterers do their job by efficiently producing modified remasters. They are not limited to Morphix and Knoppix, and are currently available and tested on Debian GNU/Linux (testing and unstable).
• http://www.linuxminicd.org/mklivecd/ -- Mandrake LiveCD build scripts

[edit] LiveCD Distributions

"Meh.. it works, but it's just not right for me."

• http://web.isteve.bofh.cz/olive/ -- Untested. Has a lot of cool new technologies. A lot of it looks awkward.. but perhaps it can be modified to be more sane.

• Knoppix - knopper.net - mirrors
  • Knoppix - knoppix.net - ftp - torrent -- these two appear to be the same thing.

• Xandros - download - torrent link

• GoboLinux
  • I tried 011. It's not quite ready yet, but is improving nicely.

• Morphix
  • I might care if I got into rebuilding it into my own livecd..

• Slax -- A liveboot distribution based on Slackware. Was slackware-live. A decent mini-cd distribution.
  • Installed Packages
  • Additional modules
  • Kindof cool. Would need to be rebuildable.
  • Doesn't autodetect my audio, not that I expected it.
  • Video is wonky.
  • Networking fails.. it detects, but isn't bright enough to get info by DHCP properly.. or something else is wrong.

• http://www.slavix.org
  • Just doesn't pique my interest.

• http://linuxconsole.org
  • [1]
  • doesn't seem to be popular, or updated.

• Trustix Secure Linux - textmode

• http://www.goosee.com/puppy/cd-puppy.htm -- Easily re-editable
  • Hrm.. just not sure about this one.

• http://www.yoper.com
  • http://www.yoper.com/forum2/index.php?showtopic=957 -- Has a note on building a custom package.
    • Probably not for rebuilding a live cd though.

• http://byzgl.sourceforge.net -- multimedia-biased.
  • Would need to be customized

• SoL - Server optimized Linux -- Has a live-cd for diagnostics. -- Looks good, but isn't for me right now.

• Knoppix -- Reviewed, not too hot

• SoL Linux -- Reviewed, not too hot

[edit] More Meh -- Not my thing, or doesn't work / isn't ready

• http://movix.sourceforge.net -- multimedia-biased. -- sad sad installer. Really tries very impressively hard. Really fails impressively badly. Would be awesome if it got into the "actually works" software category.

• LNX-BBC - Linux-BBC -- no gui?

• http://minicd.berlios.de -- Stale, but efforts went towards the build scripts for user-customization of a (currently mandrake) linux install.

• http://www.alextreme.org/phpwiki/index.php/RemasteringMorphix -- a script that enables you to customise Morphix and burn another live-Morphix CD.
  • Not really sure where this is, what this is or what to do with it.. hrm.

• http://www.alextreme.org/phpwiki/index.php/ModuleMaker -- mmaker allows users to autobuild Morphix modules from scratch, using simple xmlified template files.
  • Currently not there yet. The plan is to have Morphix 0.5 be autobuildable using this tool, there are currently templates for LightGUI, Gnome and Base, but only LightGUI has been tested much. Next step will be to integrate it with a complete livecd building tool, or make that ourselves too. Help & patches are more than welcome.

• http://livecd.berlios.de
  • Currently only works with a mandrake install.

• 2-Disk - 2-Disk Linux, with X windows.

[edit] LiveCD Links

• http://www.linuxlinks.com/Distributions/LiveCD/
• http://www.l0t3k.org/linux/links/livecd/
• http://www.frozentech.com/content/livecd.php

• Suse - download
  • Commercial-only?!

• http://www.kubuntu.org.uk/ -- KDE+Ubuntu
• http://www.ubuntulinux.org/

[edit] Tiny

• http://www.damnsmalllinux.org
  • http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/store/Mini_ITX_Systems/Damn_Small_Machine
  • [2] will boot inside of windows

• http://www.puppylinux.com/ -- Very small, has a LiveCD and can also write out to multisession CD/DVDs to store data! Slick!
  • remasterering

• http://cyti.latgola.lv/ruuni/index_en.html
  • based on slackware, easily remasterable.

• http://featherlinux.berlios.de/
  • based on knoppix (debian)
  • remastering notes - seems overly convoluted. =/
  • http://www.linuxdevcenter.com/pub/a/linux/2004/11/11/featherlinux.html

• SaxenOS -- Built for older hardware. Looks quite sane.