being stuck behing the "iorn curtan" aka dial-up internet its hard for me to download stuff, like say big linux distrobutions. So for my first distrobution i went out and bought Red Hat 9. redhat helped me learn linux.

Recently i wanted to install only the basics, and then install everything else from source (including the WM). well apparently redhat 9 isnt very source install freindly. everytime i try to install something it says im missing gtk+ (which i know i have) and i cant uninstall it via RPM cause other things depend on it. and theres a LONG list of other source problems.



so my question is, what is the most source code freindly linux distrobution?

dont say LFS, cause due to hardware constraints i cant do LFS.

gentoo should be the best for you

Yes, you have just described Gentoo.
Download the packages first, compile later. Gentoo uses Portage to manage installed packages. Use the --fetchonly option.

OK. I become curious what kind of hardware needs a complete software recompile but is not able to handle LFS. Can it handle any recompiling? Usually a recompile is for i686 rather than i386.
Just curious if you want to share.

the hardware constraints are cause of the fact that i cant make any more partitions on my one hard drive, and my machine setup doesnt suport multible hard drives.


PS. can anyone think of other distros that may fit my needs? gentoo is nice but i visited their website and its not quite what im looking for.

What about slackware?

It is easy to install a base system, and it shouldn't be a problem to install whatever else from source. And there is no dependancy checking, so if you need to recompile an already installed package, you just do it, no hassle. It is definately a non-bloated type distro, perhaps the one least so.

wow, i just read this, this post was my first at this site, and based on the last reply i tried and loved slackware! ....hmmm good times....