Ok, Firstly this is not a post to state what distro you USE.

Its more like this; if you could build you own disto, what would it Be Like??

If your distro would be exactly like the one you use then you can say so. Or you could state the distro you use and a few changes that would make it perfect.

also, this is not just about linux distros. You are welcome to elaborate on all kind of UNIX distros, or even (dare i say it) windows.

Ill start of.

My Perfect OS would be:
- Based on FreeBSD
- Tightly intergrated with KDE
- Only include one program per purpose (a la ubuntu)
- Have full support for hardware out of the box (mp3 players, cameras, etc.)
- Would have a "Welcome Page" the fist time the OS is booted which explains to newbies the princibles of UNIX.
- Be Free and OSS, but also include non OSS components if needed (media support)
- You can download either a source install cd, or a binary install cd. The Source install cd will automaticly compile all components from source (still graphical, so it looks like binary install but takes longer, and has more options. Still newbie friendly) and a binary install that installs from binary.


What do you think? by posting here maybe distro will catch on to what users want.

-pengu

I am currently looking for the "perfect distro"

My perfect distro would be debian based, without all the extra junk on it. just a window manager (fluxbox) and that is it. I would compile everything else from the source (firefox, gaim, xchat, gimp, audio recording stuff)...

I dont like having an OS that comes with EVERYTHING already in it...It takes up too much hard drive space.

So ya, if anyone has any ideas of a debian based distro that has JUST the windows manager and dpkg on it, let me know....

you could use the ubuntu SERVER install. that is debian based and minimal. You would probably have to install the WM with apt-get though. Not to hard if you know how to use the command line.

I am slightly new to Linux, But I grew up using DOS, so I am pretty familuar with text interfaces. I tried the Server install of Ubuntu once, and the setup took about 4 hours to finish. After that I used apt to get the "ubuntu-desktop". My hard drive was full before then end of the download... I have learned quite a bit about fluxbox though, I suppose I could do the server install and apt-get fluxbox...After I do build up my own Distro, I am going to make an ISO of it, so I can distribute it to others who are stuck with a crappy pc.

you could install DSL- it uses fluxbox and is VERY minimalistic (50 mb cd). Its a live cd but you can install it to your HD

I use DSL now. The hard drive install takes up about 200MB...then you enable apt, upgrade to GNU Utilities, download GAIM, Gimp, Xchat, updated Firefox, etc it will go up to about 600mb. I would just run the live CD, but it is WAY to slow. HD install is a much quicker system

well, I dont know then. LFS has good instructions for building your own distro, might want to just go ahead and do that.

Your not going to get more of a "window manager and dpkg" type distro than DSL. If its the applications you want that are takeing up all the space then you might want to try downloading smaller alternatives for those applications. Like Insted of Firefox use Swiftfox

humm, looks like this thread isn't quite a hit...

My perfect distro would include...

-installation from source
-a simple installation method, and by simple I mean simple (a shell script), not easy
-completely Free (as in Freedom, not "Free beer")
-1 default app for each job, but the option to use a more specific app
-would include a variety of different WM, especially ones for older machines, w/ ratpoison as default.
-room for customization, not too integrated w/ a single peice of software (i.e. Gnome).
-fast and small
-and to take a leaf from Slackware's book, nice quotes when you log on.

My perfect distro would be named Slackware .
You can do that in any distro. Just edit .bashinitrc.

mine would be a mix of apt and portage... I'd want to be able to choose between using portage to compile my apps for my system and just install binary with apt. it would have hardware detection like ubuntu but would be much faster, more on the level of gentoo or arch. also, it would have a nice guide on how to set it up, much lke ubuntuguide.com.

I can honestly say I've found my perfect distro. It meets everyone of tux's requests except #4 as there is no 'default app' for anything. @ jnev portage does support binary packages if you don't want to compile them. I don't have to change anything about gentoo because it is completely customizable. I've built my perfect gaming system, home recording studio & wifi cafe cruiser. It does what I ask; nothing more, nothing less.

Something that's as easy as suse, as fast as slackware and has as many packages available as debian.

My perfect distro would work firstly

My perfect distro is simple.

Debian based.
Has the speed of slackware
Full media support
Uses KDE as default
Has a configuration tool like yast, along with a good graphical package manager (but a bit more light-weight than yast).

your perfect distro sounds a lot like kubuntu...