I'm a bit confused
How was Mandriva, Slackware, Debian etc made? Did they use Linux From Scratch, or did they just build everything themeselves?

Mandriva was originally Mandrake and Connectiva. Mandrake was originally based off of Redhat in the early days. Connectiva I forgot what they were based from, might not have been based off anything except an RPM based platform.

Slackware is the oldest standing distribution still around. It was originally based off the very first distribution but is really an entity in its own, it's Slackware.

Debian is based off of Debian, built on it's own.

Most distributions are not built from LFS and most have been around longer than LFS, so they can't be based off of LFS but then again, all or most distributions all have the same base package so when you start breaking them down, there's not much difference between them until you rip out the different install applications, application developed by the distribution, custom startup scripts, etc.

tux06, In the beginning was GNU and later was Linux, then, Linux became GNU, after GNU-Linux came the many different distributions built off of the GNU-Linux kernel and also distros stripped of GNU and distributed commercially. Kind of confusing but some Googleing on the above should get you educatated on the subject if interested. Take care, 2GNUBY

Huh?

Linux is not GNU. Linux is an operating system kernel, originally developed by Linus Torvalds and now maintained and developed by himself and a small group of developers and indirectly, anyone willing to submit a conformant, useful and well-tested patch. GNU is a userland, an operating system as such developed by the Free Software Foundation which was started by Richard Stallman (aka. RMS).

Linux and GNU are licensed under the GPL which is a license written by RMS & co and is designed to harbour free software. The GNU/Linux thing was started by RMS, he got the shits with people referring to his work as simply "linux" which is not 100% technically accurate. While a lot of people like RMS and his views, there are also a lot of people who think he goes a tad overboard at times. GNU and the Linux kernel are in no way tied together, people have developed distros that use the GNU userland with both FreeBSD and Solaris kernels.

Linus and RMS are having a bit of a stand off at the moment over the GPLv3. In my honest opinion RMS has taken things a bit too far with GPLv3 and Linus has said he wants nothing to do with it and that his kernel will stay licensed under the GPLv2. There is miles of literature on all of this everywhere online, if you're interested in a history head over the Wikipedia. That site is freakin amazing

What Google will in fact show you is that the above is just about 100% wrong...can anyone spot the ONE statement that is correct??

AND--to make the gerund of the verb "To Google", one would drop the e before adding ing. ie: "Googling"
Hire >>> Hiring
Fire >>> Firing
Retire >>> Retiring

Hell, I don't even know why he replied after my reply, he didn't even answer the thread starters direct questions..

Linux is the kernel of the GNU-Linux operating system
GNU is the base system tools, called core-utils, of the GNU-Linux operating system.

Linux From Scratch is a tool to help those already familiar with the gnu-linux os to learn more about it, by building their os from source code rather than using any prebuilt binaries as with most distros.

We call the os Linux, but it is really called GNU-Linux, since the kernel group only had a functional kernel and the GNU group only had functional tools for the base system, they combined results to give biirth to the operating system we call linux, and they named officially GNU-Linux.

The original question answer:
each of the oldest distros grabbed the original sources and started from there, customising to suit their interpretation of what the os should be.