Making my own distro with my friends?
 

Hello, I'm quite new in the linux world. Used fedora for about 4 months and slackware last 6-7 months. I was thinking of making my own linux from scratch... most of all for the learning experience. I have few questions before I begin.
1. Is it possable to "install/import" package manager, and build(like Checkinstall) packages for the system?(a simple one like the pkg system in Slackware and )
2. Is some easy way to share the "distro :-)" with my friends?
3. Do you recommend to use Stable(outdated?) lfs or just the developing version?

Greetings
Siggiae

use stable. in my opinion it would be easiest to simply modify Debian, and tailor it to your own purposes. that way you already have apt and the vast infrastructure of debian in place.

forgot to add, another reason to use debian (or an existing distro) as a base is the presence of an installer, that you can they slightly modify. this will save you oodles of work.

1. I use pkgutils from CRUX Linux.

• It is designed for a source based distro, so it's very simple to use in such system.
• The packages are normal tarballs, so they can be installed without the package manager if necessary. The system survives accidents like "rm -rf /usr" without rescue cd.
• It doesn't have extra dependencies (wget is needed to fetch the source tarballs, but you probably need it anyway). Most other package management systems require big things like BerkeleyDB.
• Updating packages is usually very easy: change the version number in the Pkgfile and run "pkgmk -d -u".
• Command "pkginfo -o file" displays the owner package of the file. If a file is in wrong place or has wrong permissions, I can easily find which package put it there and fix the package. Other package managers typically don't have this feature at all or it requires a kilometer long command line.
• The build program (pkgmk) is a shell script, so it's easy to add your own extensions to it.

2. Make a live-cd (the makefile here is a good starting point). Write an installation script and put it and the package tarballs on the cd. For updates I think setting up a cvs repository is the best way, especially if you want your friends to maintain some of the packages.

3. I think it's best to use latest stable releases of all packages, but note that gcc 4.0.0 is not a stable release. Having always up-to-date system is one of the big advantages of LFS.